书籍能慰藉心灵，也能毒害心灵。好读书，也要读好书。

　　Books aren’t medicine. They’re more powerful than that.

　　Who can forget the terrible climax of Howards End, when Leonard Bast is killed by a deluge(洪水)of books? Death by books holds a horrible irony for poor Bast, as he had thought they were his salvation(拯救), seeking to escape ‘the abyss’ of poverty by reading Ruskin in the evening and trying to impress the middle-class Schlegel sisters by listing his favourite titles. (对于可怜的巴斯特而言，死于书籍是一种可怕的讽刺：他曾以为书籍可以拯救他，认为在傍晚阅读拉斯金可以逃离贫困的“深渊”，还曾列出自己最喜爱的书目来引起施莱格尔姐妹的注意。)Try as he might, he can only fail, as E.M. Forster shows books to be extremely treacherous(阴险狡诈的): they don’t save Leonard Bast, they kill him.

　　The power of books is all too often lauded(赞扬) as a healing force, rather than something potentially lethal(致命的). The University of Warwick has just launched a free online course, ‘Reading for Wellbeing’, to explore ‘how poems, plays and novels can help us cope with times of deep emotional strain’. Rachel Kelly wrote movingly about ‘how words healed me’ — how poetry eased her depression — in her memoir Black Rainbow. At Alain de Botton’s School of Life, a ‘bibliotherapist’ will prescribe you a ‘novel cure’ to ease any ailment(疾病). But if we are to consider books as medicine, we must consider them as poison too.

　　When Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther was published in 1774, more than 2,000 young male readers reportedly committed suicide, inspired by the protagonist’s example. So extreme was this mania(疯狂行为) that 200 years later, an American sociologist coined ‘The Werther Effect’ to describe the way that suicide can be contagious(有传染性的), if it is dramatically and widely publicised. The world’s second most popular suicide location is Japan’s Aokigahara Forest, where a young lover commits suicide in the novel Kuroi Jukai (‘The Black Sea of Trees’) by Seicho Matsumoto.

　　So far, so dangerous, and we haven’t even touched on crime fiction. In Australia, American Psycho is considered so noxious(有害的) that it can only be sold shrinkwrapped(用收缩塑料薄膜包装的), to over-18s. Such restrictions can only do so much. Theodore Kaczynski, the ‘Unabomber’, who killed three people and injured 23 by posting homemade bombs to addresses he associated with modern technology, was obsessed with the work of Joseph Conrad — especially The Secret Agent, in which an academic turned anarchist (无政府主义的)attempts to bomb the Greenwich Observatory. To think that a 1907 novel could inspire terrorist attacks three-quarters of a century later is a horrifying example of a book’s latent (潜在的)power. As Antony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, wrote regarding the potential harmful influence of literature: ‘I begin to accept that, as a novelist, I belong to the ranks of the menacing.’

　　Even the most mundane(世俗的) reading can be menacing in its power. When your head is in a novel, it is all too easy to indulge that which society proscribes. On reading Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, for instance, I don’t empathise with the young, naive and wholly good protagonist, as she struggles to cope with being married to Max de Winter at Manderley. Instead I am seduced by the ghost of Rebecca, far more powerful, even from beyond the grave, than the new Mrs de Winter will ever be. The allure(诱惑) of this mysterious adulteress can be felt in something so minor as her handwriting — ‘black and strong’ with her ‘tall and sloping R’ — and certainly at her boathouse, where she had her way with whomever she desired. I’m sure I’m not the only woman who, after reading Rebecca, somewhat longed for a boathouse of my own.

　　Whenever I read Pride and Prejudice, I admire Elizabeth Bennet for her wit, but part of me loves silly Lydia Bennet all the more. She has all the fun — flirting with officers, dancing non-stop, eloping. We are supposed to disapprove of her, certainly for running off with Wickham and thereby nearly ruining her family, but I can’t help but think lucky Lydia ends up with rather a good deal.

　　Or, less frivolously(轻佻地), there is Thomas Cromwell. The staggering success(巨大的成功) of Wolf Hall showed how much those of us more used to supermarket aisles than the corridors of power relished (喜欢，欣赏)the chance to enter the consciousness of this arch politician. (《狼厅》的巨大成功表明，我们这些更熟悉超市通道，而不是权力走廊的人，是多么希望有机会走进这位大政治人物的意识中去。)We were all hooked on the intrigue, the twists and manipulations — even murder — that Cromwell managed with such Machiavellian aplomb (冷静).(我们都沉迷在克伦威尔用马基雅维利般的冷静来实施的那些诡计，那些突转和操纵，乃至杀戮之中。)

　　We revel(陶醉) in the danger of books. They can inspire all manner of sins and their power is far too great to be diminished to neat prescriptions and tidy remedies. Underestimate them at your peril. (我们容易沉醉在书籍的危险之中。书籍能诱发千般堕落，其毒性之巨大，非一般处方和补药能减弱。低估它们，你会为其所害。)

　　Vocabulary

　　deluge 洪水

　　salvation 拯救

　　treacherous 阴险狡诈的

　　laud 赞美;赞颂

　　lethal 致命的

　　ailment 疾病;不适

　　mania 疯狂(行为)

　　contagious 传染的

　　noxious 有害的

　　anarchist 无政府主义的(者)

　　latent 潜在的;暗含的

　　mundane 世俗的

　　allure 诱惑

　　frivolously 轻佻的;不严肃的

　　staggering success 巨大的成功

　　relish 喜欢;欣赏

　　aplomb 冷静

　　revel in... 陶醉于......

　　words in use

　　Apart from engendering widespread ecological disorders, pesticides have contributed to the emergence of a new breed ofchemical-resistant, highly lethal super bugs.(剑8T4P2)

　　参考译文：除了造成大规模的生态失调，杀虫剂还催生了一种具有抗药性的新型超级致命病菌。