安贝蒂“完美回忆，”一个短故事集的作者

这个月，（亨利霍尔特; 496页; $ 28）“理查德耶茨的收集的故事”来书店，提供两个Yates的以前的故事的集合，“十一种孤独”和“恋爱中的说谎者，”以及九个以前未收的件。 Considered one of the finest, if most neglected,认为最优秀的，如果最容易被忽视，



writers of his generation, Yates (1926-1992) has stirred praise from such authors as Pulitzer winners Richard Ford and Michael Chabon.耶茨（1926年至1992年）已经引起了他这一代的作家，普利策奖得主理查德福特和迈克尔Chabon等人的一致好评。 Author Ann Beattie reflects on the qualities of his writing that have earned the respect of some of the country's finest writers.作者安贝蒂反映了他的写作素质，赢得了尊重一些国家的最优秀的作家。






1979年，罗布考利，我的编辑问理查德耶茨阅读我的第二本小说的手稿。 As it turned out, Yates sent back some word -- he liked some things, didn't like others -- but by then I was immersed in his writing, and I was astonished.事实证明，耶茨送回一些文字 - 他喜欢的一些事情，没有像其他人一样 - 但那时我沉浸在他的写作，我感到很惊讶。

I've never recovered from reading "Eleven Kinds of Loneliness," which I think is one of the best compliments you can give a book: that you feel changed by what you've found out, and there's no going back.我从来没有恢复从阅读“十一种寂寞，”我认为这是一个最好的致意，你可以把一本书：你觉得你已经发现了改变，而且有没有回头路。 Snippets of the stories come to me at odd times, in the same way Yates, himself, often has lines from a song intrude (songs my mother sang when rocking me to sleep, as it happens -- which she did until I reached a very advanced age).故事的片段来我耶茨以同样的方式，在奇数时间，他自己，往往有一首歌闯入（歌曲桑摇我入睡，因为它发生时，我的母亲 - 她，直到我达到了一个非常先进的年龄）。



What, exactly, did he do?他做了，究竟是什么？ For one thing, he confounded expectations by writing cautionary tales about how dangerous it is to applaud yourself for being a good person.对于一件事，他写鼓掌自己就是一个很好的人是多么危险的警示故事混淆的期望。 In Yates' world, good intentions are, paradoxically, a kind of condescension bred of fear transmuted into hard resolve.在耶茨的“世界，良好的愿望，矛盾的是，那种屈尊蜕变成很难解决的恐惧繁殖。 But the stories also suggest the durability of the human spirit, the yearning that resonates long after the shooting star of possibility has burned out against the night sky.但故事还表明人类精神的向往，共鸣后不久对夜空烧出射击之星的可能性的耐久性。 There's something in him of the spirit of Robert Burns, whose famous poem lamented that we cannot see ourselves as others see us.罗伯特彭斯的著名诗句感叹，我们不能看到自己，别人看到我们的精神在他身上的东西。 Yates' characters don't dare, because therein lies the potential for tragedy. Yates的字符都不敢去，因为这才是悲剧的潜在。



That's it: People are consciously or unconsciously cruel; his stories don't end nicely, and the more wrapped-up the conclusion, the more ironically it resonates.就是这样：人们都在自觉或不自觉地残酷;他的故事没有很好的结束，更结束的结论，更具有讽刺意味的​​共鸣。 His characters -- his ordinary people, just one half-step up the social ladder from Raymond Carver's -- come up against the Way Things Are whether they are schoolteachers trying to do their inadequate best ("Doctor Jack-o'Lantern") or an unremarkable woman about to get married, who is doomed by her ability to reconcile herself to unfairness ("The Best of Everything") or a newspaper man who dares to hope for more ("A Wrestler With Sharks").他的人物 - 他的普通百姓，只有一个了半步从雷蒙德卡弗的社会阶梯 - 拿出对事物的方式的，无论他们是学校教师努力做好自己的不足，最好的（“医生杰克o'Lantern”）或一个不起眼的女子结婚，谁是注定了她调和自己不公平（“最好的东西”）或报纸的人谁还敢希望更多的（“摔跤手与鲨鱼”）的能力。



Yates' characters misunderstand and miscalculate; they soldier on when their unit is retreating.耶茨'字符的误解和误判;他们时，他们的单位是撤退的士兵。 They get caught in the cross fire when good intentions intersect with their own oblivion or with their vanity (often, in Yates, the two are paired).他们被抓到在交火时，好心相交自己遗忘​​，或与自己的虚荣心（通常，在耶茨，两个配对）。 His characters are delicate, almost translucent until the moment when they become darker and are revealed to contain fear, dread or loathing.他的人物细腻，几乎半透明直到此刻，当他们变深，并透露，包含恐惧，恐惧或厌恶。 What they're resisting, ultimately, is themselves -- but they're already on what seems to be an unalterable trajectory.最终，他们抵制的，是自己 - 但他们已经对什么似乎是不可改变的轨迹。 Often, this has to do with class, an issue we skitter away from discussing now just as we did when Yates first wrote these stories ("A Really Good Jazz Piano" is about both race and class.)通常情况下，这与类，一个问题，我们从现在讨论的只是因为我们没有时，耶茨第一次写这些故事飞掠远（“一个非常好的爵士钢琴”关于种族和阶级。）



On some level, they're stories about stories.在一定程度上，他们对故事的故事。 Within the larger story there are recitations that express far more than the speaker means to say; they're small, perfectly imperfect monologues that in another form might take the shape of a noose.在较大的故事，有朗诵，表达远远超过扬声器的意思是说，他们是小，完全不完善的独白，可能采取另一种形式的绞索的形状。 Yates' stories are unflinching and uncompromising, complex at the same time they seem to unfold naturally and simply.耶茨“故事的坚定和不妥协的，复杂的的同时，他们似乎展现自然和简单。 Once you've read him, you wouldn't mistake his voice or the way he structures a story: the music, the images, the deceptive matter-of-factness with which the characters lead their lives (which resembles the way he lays out a story).一旦你读过他，你不要误会他的声音或的方式，他的结构一个故事：音乐，图像，欺骗性问题factness与该字符导致他们的生活（类似的方式，他勾画出一个故事）。

A couple of years ago, one of the best short-story writers in America happened to be in my kitchen the same day she'd found Yates' book at a library sale.一个几年前，在美国最好的短篇小说作家之一发生在我的厨房是在同一天，她发现耶茨“一书在图书馆销售。 Eyes averted, we discussed the library's divesting itself of "Eleven Kinds of Loneliness" in the same hushed tones we'd use if we found a body in the bushes.眼睛避免，我们讨论了图书馆的剥离“十一孤独”在同一个安静的色调，我们会用，如果我们发现在草丛中的一个机构。 But we'd both seen it happen before.但我们会看到它发生之前。 We'd seen the book go out of print.我们希望看到这本书去打印出来。 For a long while -- though, fortunately, it's changing -- it seemed that Yates' stories might be lost, and exist only in writers' private vocabulary.半晌 - 不过，幸运的是，改变 - 它似乎耶茨“的故事可能会丢失，而且只存在于作家的”私人词汇。 You worry that readers only want to hear the good news.你担心读者只想听到好消息。 You worry that if anyone as good as Richard Yates could fade, people no longer know how to read for subtlety, and also that this time the critics might have been too critical and really finished him off.你担心，如果理查德耶茨的良好任何人都可以淡出，人们不再知道如何读精妙之处，和也，这一次的批评可能已经太关键了，真的完蛋了他。
But no: He's back, though in an important sense he never left.但是，没有他的背部，虽然他从来没有离开的一个重要的意义。 He was just internalized for a while, kept alive in writers' writing, passed from teacher to student, every title out of print, every battered copy snapped up at a library sale; proof that when enough people are determined, a needle can be found in a haystack.他只是在一段时间内在，保持活在作家的写作，通过师生，每打印标题，每一个受虐复制抢购库销售;证明，当有足够多的人民有决心，可以找到一针在大海捞针。 A sharp needle; a miraculous needle: one that could really do the job.一个尖锐的针，一个神奇的针：一个可以真正做的工作。


Ann Beattie is the author of "Perfect Recall," a short-story collection.安贝蒂“完美回忆，”一个短故事集的作者。

This article appeared on page RV - 77 of the San Francisco Chronicle这篇文章出现在页面RV -旧金山纪事报77