早期的热气球转变的观点.docx

Books and arts Bookreview文艺 书评Early ballooning早期的热气球Shifting perspectives转变的观点Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air. RICHARD HOLMES向上降落:我们是如何升空的England and the Aeroplane: Militarism, Modernity and Machines.英格兰和飞机:军国主义，现代性和机械制造RICHARD HOLMES, a British author and academic, is something of a Romantic, renowned for biographies of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.理查德霍尔姆斯是英国的一位作家兼大学老师，生性有点儿浪漫，以为波比雪莱和塞缪尔泰勒柯尔律治作传而出名。In his last book, The Age of Wonder, which came out in 2008, he wrote about science and Romanticism and their common commitment to discovery.在他上一本书奇迹年代中，他写了有关科学、浪漫以及它们值得探索的共同点。In his new book, Falling Upwards, he combines the two again to tell the stories of Europes early balloonists.在新书向上降落中，他将二者再度结合，讲述了欧洲早期热气球飞行者的故事。Mr Holmess love of balloons was kindled at a village fete and his enthusiasm is one of the books many pleasures.霍尔姆斯先生迷上热气球始于一次乡村节日，他的狂热是本书众多有意思的地方之一。He refers to the euphoric tone that features in many first-hand ballooning narratives, and it is hard not to discern something similarly joyous in this second-hand account.书中他参考了在许多一手的热气球叙事中偏爱运用的欢乐的口吻，所以在他这篇二手的文章中也不难看出类似的欢乐。He describes men and women wrapped up in fur coats under their hydrogen-filled bubbles,在他的描述中，男人和女人醉心于穿着皮毛大衣窝在充满氢气的泡泡中，靠生冷的鸡肉和香槟来补充能量，fuelled by cold chicken and champagne and looking back to earth to see mankind for what it really is.藐看着地球上的人类，看看他们究竟是什么。The pioneers included John Money, who took off from Norwich one day in 1785, came down 20 miles from land and was rescued after five hours in the sea;热气球飞行事业的先驱中有约翰曼尼，他在1785年的一天从诺维奇起飞，下降到距地面20英里的位置，五小时以后在海中得以被救；and Sophie Blanchard, darling of the French revolutionary balloonists,还有法国革命性热气球驾驶员的爱人苏菲布兰卡德，whose basket was a decorative silver gondola shaped like a childs cradle and who was appointed Aeronaute des Ftes Officielles by an impressed Napoleon.她的热气球下的篮子是装饰性的银色贡多拉，形状似孩童的摇篮。她还被了不起的拿破仑任命为法国官方节日的热气球驾驶员。Mr Holmes makes much of the esoteric side of ballooning, but the book is at its best when examining its more serious applications.霍尔姆斯先生在书中介绍了很多热气球的偏门功用，但书中最大的亮点却出现在描述它更正统应用的地方。In the American civil war, for example, both North and South put observers in tethered balloons to scope out enemy movements.举个例子，在美国南北战争时期，南北双方均让自己的观察员在系留气球上观测敌方的动向。And during the Prussian siege of Paris in 1870-71, balloonists managed to fly out of the city to communicate with the French government in exile in Tours.再有就是在1870到1871，普鲁士围攻巴黎期间，热气球驾驶员设法飞出城市去和法国流亡政府沟通。But the most thrilling tale belongs to Sweden, and Salomon Andrees doomed attempt to fly a balloon from Spitsbergen to the North Pole in 1896.但是最刺激的故事发生在瑞典。1896年，所罗门安德蕾进行了命中注定的一次尝试:从斯匹次卑尔根岛乘热气球飞到北极。Andrees craft came down on the ice, and he and his companions were unable to walk out of the wilderness.他的船身落到了冰上，他和同伴无力从荒野中走出来。Diaries and film, found with the mens bodies over 30 years later, fill in the poignant details.30年后，他的日记和胶卷连同他的尸体才被人发现，日记和胶卷中记录的满是辛酸的细节。Falling Upwards contains much of the historians apparatus, such as footnotes and bibliography,向上降落中包含许多历史学家的写作特质，像脚注和参考文献，but its epilogue refers modestly to what has gone before as a cluster of true balloon stories.但其后记却适度提起了一系列真实的热气球故事之前所发生的事情。It does feel a touch light on the more technical aspects of ballooning, and says little about the French Montgolfier brothers who are credited as its inventors.感觉像是更多探讨了热气球科技层面的东西，而对于公认的热气球发明者法国的蒙戈菲尔兄弟却几乎没提。That though seems a small price to pay for such a spirited work.在这本令人鼓舞的作品中，算是些许美中不足吧。Mr Holmess tale ends at the start of the 20th century when the business of flight was being handed over to the airship and the aeroplane.霍尔姆斯先生的故事结束于20世纪期初，当时正值飞行事业向飞艇和飞机转型。As David Edgertons sure-footed essay makes clear, flying in this next age was a rather more serious affair.大卫艾哲顿在其确凿的论文中明确说，飞行在下一个时代会是更加严肃的一件大事。Aeroplanes, he notes, wereand to a considerable extent still areprimarily weapons of war, created to serve national purposes.他解释说，飞机曾经是，且以后在很大程度上也仍然是战争中最主要的武器，造飞机的主要目的在于服务国家。By examining Britain through the lens of its aviation industry,通过观察镜头中英国的航空工业，Mr Edgerton suggests that the countrys recent history is both more militant and more technical than many historians claim.埃哲顿先生表明，英国近代历史要比很多历史学家声称的更加好战且科技更发达。British emphasis on the bomber, rather than the fighter plane, he argues, represented a technological way of warfare that accepted the killing of the enemy by machines.相比于战斗机，英国人更多使用轰炸机，他还说，呈现科技手段的战争接受机器歼敌这一事实。It was certainly brutal: in the second world war 60,000 Britons were killed by bombing; 118,000 Germans died in Hamburg alone.这确实很残酷:二战期间，有60,000英国人被轰炸致死；而德国仅汉堡一个城市就有118,000人死亡。Like Mr Holmess balloonists, Mr Edgerton sees Britain from an unusual perspective.和霍尔莫斯先生的热气球飞行者的故事一样，艾哲顿先生也从一个不同角度来窥见英国。He digs into research and development spending and the activities of long-gone government ministries in an effort,他深入挖掘已经没落的政府部门的研发开支和各种活动，to challenge versions of history that have become fixated on Britains decline.以此向英国衰落历史的既定版本质疑。In the 22 years since his books first edition Mr Edgerton says such declinism has wanedsomething he ascribes particularly to New Labour and the birth of a cooler Britannia.自从这本书的首版面市以来的22年里，艾哲顿先生表示，持这种衰落论观点的人已经越来越少他把一些原因特别归于新工党的出现和一个更冷静的大不列颠的