Unit 8
A turning point of my life
我人生的转折点
I wasn't yet 30 years old and was working as a firefighter in New York City, in a firehouse completely swamped with calls. In the rare moments when we weren't busy, I would make calls on our cordless phone handset or rush to our office to read Captain Gray's subscription of the Sunday New York Times. Late one afternoon when I finally read the Book Review section, my blood began to boil. An article stated a thesis I took to be an offensive insult: William Butler Yeats, the Nobel Prize-winning light of the Irish Literary Renaissance, had risen above his Irishness and was now a universal poet. I grew indignant suddenly, and a deep-seated passion within me was activated.
我那时还不到 30 岁，是纽约市的一名消防员，我工作的消防站总是不断有求助电话进来。偶尔在我们不忙的时候，我会打打无绳电话，或是到办公室，看看格雷队长订的《纽约时报》周
日版。一天下午晚些时候，当我最后读到书评栏时，我开始血液沸腾。一篇文章提出了一个在我看来带有侮辱性的观点：它说诺贝尔奖获得者威廉.巴特勒.叶芝，即点亮爱尔兰文学复兴之光的人，已经超越了其爱尔兰身份，是一名世界性的诗人。我突然感到愤怒，内心深处一种激情也被激发起来。
There were few things I was more proud of than my Irish heritage. My ancestors were Catholic Irish farmers, fishermen and blue-collar workers, all of whom were patrons of literature. From the time my family came ashore on Ellis Island and faced the threat of being deported, we have fought discrimination against Irish immigrants. Ever since I first picked up a book of his poems, Yeats had been my favorite writer. He wrote his poetry in close adherence to his Irish sensibilities. His life was, in essence, a tribute to his homeland.
很少有什么事情比我是爱尔兰后裔更让我感到骄傲的了。我的祖先是信仰天主教的爱尔兰人，他们做过农夫、渔民和蓝领工人，但是他们所有人都热爱文学。从我的家族登上埃利斯岛、面临被驱逐的威胁那一刻起，我们就一直在反抗对爱尔兰移民的歧视。自从我第一次拿起叶芝的诗集开始，他就一直是我最喜欢的作家。他创作的诗中有着深深的爱尔兰情怀。实
际上，他的一生都在赞颂祖国。所以，不管是从心理的、社会的还是文学的角度，认为爱尔兰的身份是能够超越的，都是一种侮辱。我感觉自己继承的身份就像是成了法庭上的被告，我别无选择，只能保护它并谴责这样一种过时的偏见。
So, it was offensive to think Irishness, no matter if it was psychological, social or literary, was something to rise above. I felt like my heritage was a defendant at a tribunal, and I had no choice but to protect it and denounce such an outdated prejudice.
我焦躁不安，全身颤动，于是抓起了一张干净的纸，那张纸的顶部印有纽约市消防局的标志。我开始给《周日书评》栏目的编辑写信，表达我的愤怒。我把叶芝描述为他本来的样子，即无论从行为还是从作品来看，他都是地地道道的爱尔兰作家。
Vibrating with agitation, I grabbed a piece of clean paper, one that had the logo of the Fire Department of the City of New York across the top. I began a letter, trumpeting my indignation to the editor of the Sunday Book Review, describing Yeats as he was: a writer fundamentally Irish in all he did and wrote.
firefighter我不知道为什么我觉得自己必须捍卫这位世界上最伟大的诗人（至少是仅次于荷马和莎士比亚的诗人），使其免于被“起诉”，或者为什么我要撰文捍卫爱尔兰文学。我只知道我必须写那封信，就像牧师必须祷告，或者音乐家必须演奏乐器一样。
Until that point in my life I hadn't written much of value - a few poems and short stories. But, like a beginning artist who longs to see his work come to life, becoming an animated Disney film, I understood that the more one draws, or writes, the better the end result will become. Realistically, I approached writing like waxing a car, thoroughly and repeatedly. So I wrote often to improve my writing skills. I tentatively sent material to various magazines and reviews, but no one had ever been willing to publish me.
所以，当《纽约时报》发表了我的评论，我欣喜若狂。我想编辑决定发表它，可能是因为他首先被我所用的信纸的正式性吸引了。其次，一名中心城区的消防员竟能使用文雅的语言或许也让他感到新奇。但是，我宁愿认为编辑默默地认同了我的观点。
So it was an unexpected delight when the Times published my commentary. I suppose the editor decided to publish it because he was first attracted by the official nature of my station
ery, and then by the strangeness of an inner city firefighter's using refined language. I'd like to think, though, that the editor silently agreed with me.
我收到了大概 20 封来自大学教授的表达同感或祝贺的信。我把它们订在了主管的桌子旁边。这些信让我快乐，让我激动不已，因为我想到，我不仅作品得以发表，而且我还是个观点制造者。突然间，我被称为拥有重要观点的人。
I received about 20 sympathetic and congratulatory letters from professors that I tacked up by the superintendent's desk. These letters tickled me, making my heart flutter with the thought that I was not only a published writer but an opinion maker. I was suddenly dubbed as someone whose views mattered.
出乎意料的是，我还收到了《真实》杂志和《纽约客》的来信，要求采访我。正是后者激发了我的事业——它刊登的题为《消防员史密斯》的文章使一家大型出版公司向我约稿，要我写一本关于自己人生的书。
Incidentally, I also received letters from True magazine and from The New Yorker, asking fo
r interviews. It was the latter that ignited my career - the article titled "Fireman Smith" provided the impetus for a large publishing company to request a manuscript about my life.
我一直认为消防员的工作是个值得一写的题材，但是到目前为止却很少被写过。起初我很困惑，对于自己是否有能力写一本完整的书没有多少信心。所以，我开始一点一点地写，一次写一部分。很快，我对整本书有了基本的结构和框架。这本书最终卖出了 200 万册，并被译成了 12 种语言。在接下来的几年中，我又写了 3 本畅销书，去年还出版了一本自传。
Being a writer had been far from my expectations; being crowned a best-selling author was almost unimaginable. How had it happened? I often found myself thinking about it, marveling at the inconsistency of my success and earlier failure. My thoughts always came back to the nucleus at the center of it all, that letter to The New York Times.

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