Chapter 18: Writing About the Arts: Critics and Columnists
1 总结
*As a reviewer your job is more to report than to make an aesthetic judgment.
评论和批评的最大不同在于：评论在于转述事实，批评在于美学鉴赏。
评论：
1. Critics should like or better still love the thing they write about.
批评家应该喜欢甚至是爱他们所批评的对象。（前面的write with gusto/zest）
2. Don't give away too much.
不要有太多剧透。写到读者能决定是否要去看就行。（控制好自己，don't overexplain)
3. Use specific detail.
评论文章不要泛泛而谈，要用例子来支撑。（Joseph Losey的两个电影评论，前者用了许多描述性的词：civilized, restrained, vulgarity, bloodlessness, taste.读完我们只对这部电影的基调有个大致的印象：保守。但是第二个评论用了portents, lampshades, meaning, table setting这样的具体和抽象结合的词，我们知道了这部电影的布景有什么，还知道它会从生活中最普通的东西上寻找深层次的意义，读者就有了画面感。）
“Put your readers in your theater seat. Help them to see what you saw.” 让读者有身临其境之感。
4. Avoid the ecstatic adjectives.
不要用与文章不相称的华丽(ecstatic, florid)的词，这会使文章显得不流畅，大喘气(panting prose)似的。好的评论文章应该是简洁生动(lean and vivid)的。
批评：
1. Steep in the literature of the medium you hope to make your specialty.
要成为批评家，首先要充分了解批评对象及行业的前世今生。这有两个层面：横向 - 同领域的作品；纵向 - 该作家或艺术家的其他作品。有了充分的知识储备，在点评新的戏剧作品才能看出来它们是先驱还是模仿。
2. Generate a provocative idea and leave the intellectual fun for your readers to savor it.
如果批评的对象是大众很熟悉的作品，就不要做介绍了。可以提出一个引人思考的观点，在接下来的文章中详细说明你是如何得出这个结论的。读者会享受这个自己思考和看别人是如何思考的过程。
3. The best criticism should be stylish, allusive and disturbing.
谈到电视举了越南战争的例子，其中用钥匙孔来切入，说明公众看到的不是全部的事实。由这个例子引出Zinsser的观点：批评家应该要传播真相，或者让人们重新审视所谓的真相 (disturbing)。
4. Avoid terminology.
举Toscanini的例子说明不使用术语的文章也可以写得精彩。
5. Make an immediate effort to orient your readers to the special world they are about to enter.
好的批评一开始就要表明自己的态度，提醒读者她们眼前的文章要写什么。
*不论是评论还是批评文章，归根结底都要体现作者的态度和观点（But what is common to all the forms is that they consist of personal opinion），不要害怕说出自己的想法（Take your stand with conviction）。
2 Thoughts
1. They will discern more symbolism in Ibsen than Ibsen thought of.
哈哈哈哈，这不就是高考语文阅读吗？高中的阅读和大学的戏剧赏析简直是想象力疯狂滋长的时候……
2. It's far easier to bury Caesar than to praise him ...
把赞美说的不落俗套才考验真功夫，自己有时候经常就不会称赞，还会说：一个“好”字就包含了一切。
3. 一直以来我都认为first-hand的资料是最宝贵的，因为评论家都有自己的立场和偏见。在自己的知识储备不足，容易被他人观点影响的时刻，我认为看很多这类文章不是很好。不过批评性的文章最重要的地方的确就在于批评家自己的观点，尤其是有合理逻辑基础和丰富知识储备的评论家的观点。等到有一定阅历后去看，就会像Zinsser说的质疑这个观点，然后在读的过程中观察作者是怎样得出这个观点的，隔空和作者来一场智识的较量。
4. 大学老师有推荐木心先生的《文学回忆录》，想问问各位书友有没有看过的？本来打算是把里面的作品都看过了再看这本书，可是……哭
3 Words
1. Criticism is the stage on which journalists do their fanciest strutting.
strut原义是to walk with a lofty proud gait and an erect head; especially: to walk with pomposity or affected dignity，也就是“神气活现、昂首阔步地走”，这里引申为在批评作品这个舞台上神气活现地表演自己的见识。
例句：I strutted around Chicago as if I were really somebody. 我在芝加哥昂首阔步地四处走，好像自己真是个人物似的。
Wimbledon is the opportunity for all the world's best tennis players to strut their stuff. 温布顿网球公开赛是全世界顶尖网球选手大展身手的好机会。
2. The American vernacular is rich in epigrams (“She ran the gamut of emotions from A to B”) minted by people like Dorothy Parker and George S. Kaufman, who became famous partly by minting them, and the temptation to make a name at the expense of some talentless ham is too strong for all but the most saintly.
vernacular指的是日常语言，和文学语言及官方话相对。如果是指建筑音乐等文学形式，则是民间风格的，特指存在于某一地区、时期的。
epigram指的是简短的隽语，例如王尔德的I can resist everything but temptation.
3. So don’t be deluded that criticism is an easy route to glory.
delude通常指“自我欺骗”。
例句：Don't be deluded into thinking your house is burglarproof. 别误以为你的房子是防盗的。
4. The reader deserves a movie buff who will bring along a reservoir of knowledge, passion and prejudice.
buff指的是对某种事物有热情又懂很多的人，即行家，迷。
5. This is a picture about a whimsical Irish priest who enlists the help of three orphan boys dressed as leprechauns to haunt a village where a mean widow has hidden a crock of gold.
whimsical形容人或其行动、想法异想天开、古怪、心血来潮，现在叫“四次元”？
例句：He has a wonderful whimsical sense of humour.他有一种古怪又好笑的幽默感。
6. I couldn’t be flailed into seeing that movie—I’ve had my fill of “the little people” on stage and screen.
one's fill指一个人想要的或者能承受的极限，I've had my fill of 和 I've had enough of 是同样的意思。
7. Florid adjectives smack of the panting prose with which Vogue likes to disclose its latest chichi discovery...
smack of表示“带有……的意味”，表示令人不快之物的存在或影响。
例句：To me, the whole thing smacks of a cover-up. 在我看来，整件事有点掩饰真相的味道。
8. Many years ago, when I was writing editorials for the New York Herald Tribune, the editor of the page was a huge and choleric man from Texas named L. L. Engelking.
容易生气的。近义词：irascible, cranky, hot-tempered, quick-tempered
10 摘抄
1. Literary criticism that doesn’t stir a few combative juices is hardly worth writing, and there are few spectator sports as enjoyable as a good academic brawl.
2. The voice was, like the poet himself, nearly sacerdotal; it was impersonal, winding and winding across the country’s campuses like a spool of blank robotic woe.
（好的句子和用法太多了，明天起争取都记下来）
说到Bette Davis，近期有部美剧宿敌（feud）是讲她和另一女星Joan Crawford的恩怨。有撕逼，有电影行业的故事，推荐。