课文Fame完整版
雨季不再来-岁月的礼物
Fame
Melvin Howards
Fame is
very much like an animal chasing its own tail who,
when
he captures it, does not know what else
to do but to continue chasing
it. Fame and the
exhilarating celebrity that accompanies it, force
the
famous person to participate in his or her
own destruction. Ironic isn't
it
Those who gain fame most often gain it as a result
of possessing
a single talent or skill:
singing, dancing, painting, or writing, etc.
The successful performer develops a style that
is marketed aggressively
and gains some
popularity, and it is this popularity that usually
convinces the performer to continue performing
in the same style, since
that is what the
public seems to want and to enjow. But in time,
the
performer becomes bored singing the same
songs in the same way year after
year, or the
painter becomes bored painting similar scenes or
portraite,
or the actor is tired of playing
the same character repeatedly. The
demand of
the public holds the artist hostage to his or her
own success,
fame. If the artist attempts to
change his or her style of writing or
dancing
or singing, etc., the audience may turn away and
look to confer
fleeting fickle fame on another
and then, in time, on another , and so
on and
so on.
Who cannot recognize a
Tennessee Williams play or a novel by John
Updike or Ernest Hemingway or a poem by Robert
Frost or W. H. Auden or
T. S. Eliot The same
is true of painters like Monet, Renoir, Dali or
Picasso and it is true of movie makers like
Hitchcock, Fellini,
Spielberg, Chen Kai-ge or
Zhang Yimou. Their distinctive styles marked
a
significant change in the traditional forms and
granted them fame and
forturn, but they were
not free to develop other styles or forms because
their audience demanded of each of them what
they originally presented.
Hemingway cannot
even now be confused with Henry James or anyone
else,
nor can Forst be confused with Yeats,
etc. The unique forms each of them
created,
created them. No artist or performer can entirely
escape the
lure of fame and its promise of
endless admiration and respect, but there
is a
heavy price one must pay for it.
Fame
brings celebrity and high regard from adoring and
loyal fans
in each field of endeavor and it is
heady stuff. A performer can easily
come to
believe that he or she is as good as his or her
press. But most
people, most artists do not
gain fame and fortune. What about those
performers who fail, or anyone who fails
Curiously enough, failure often
serves as its
own reward for many people! It brings sympathy
from others
who are delighted not to be you,
and it allows family and friends to
lower
their expectation of you so that you need not
compete with those
who have more talent and
who secceed. And they find excuses and
explanations for your inability to
succeed and become famous: you are
too
sensitive, you are not interested in money, you
are not interested
in the power that fame
brings and you are not interested in the loss
of privacy it demands, etc. ---all excuses,
but comforting to those who
fail and those who
pretend not to notice the failure.
History has amply proven that some failure for
some people at
certain times in their lives
does indeed motivate them to strive even
harder to succeed and to continue believing in
themselves. Thomas Wolfe,
the American
novelist, had his first novel Look Homeward, Anger
rejected
39 times before it was finally
published and launched his career and
created
his fame. Beethoven overcame his tyrannical father
and grudging
acceptance as a musician to
become the greatest, most famous musician
in
the world, and Pestalozzi, the famous Italian
educator in the 19th
century, failed at every
job he ever had until he came upon the idea
of
teaching children and developing the fundamental
theories to produce
a new form of education.
Thomas Edison was thrown out of school in fourth
grade, at about age 10, because he seemed to
the teacher to be quite
dull and unruly. Many
other cases may be found of people who failed and
used the failure to motivate them to achieve,
to succeed, and to become
famous. But,
unfortunately, for most people failure is the end
of their
struggle, not the beginning. There
are few, if any, famous failures.
Well then, why does anyone want fame Do you Do you
want to be
known to many people and admired by
them Do you want the money that
usually comes
with fame Do you want the media to notice
everything you
do or say both in public and in
private Do you want them hounding you,
questioning you and trying to undo you In
American politics it is very
obvious that to
be famous is to be the target of everyone who
disagrees
with you as well as of the media.
Fame turns all the lights on and while
it
gives power and prestige, it takes the you out of
you: you must be
what the public thinks you
are, not what you really are or could be.
The
politician, like the performer, must please his or
her audiences
and that often means saying
things he does not mean or does not believe
in
fully. No wonder so few people trust politicians.
But we have not
answered the question at the
beginning of this paragraph: why does
anyone
want fame Several reasons come to mind: to
demonstrate excellence
in some field; to gain
the admiration and love of many others; to be
the one everyone talks about; to show family
and friends you are more
than they thought you
were. Probably you can list some other reasons,
but I think are reasonably common.
Is it possible to be famous and to remain true to
yourself, the
real you Perhaps, but one is
hard pressed to come up with the names
of
those who have done their thing their way and
secceeded in the fame
game. Many political
dissidents around the world, in particular, Dawn
Aung Suu Kyi of Burma, is a rare
exception to the rule that says
maintaining
unpopular views or unpopular attitudes or
approaches in any
field will destroy you. The
famous Irish writer Oscar Wilde, a very
successful writer of stories, poems and plays,
was known for his most
unusual clothing and
eccentric behavior, social and sexual. This
behavior brought him to the attention of the
mother of a young man Oscar
was intimate with
and she accused him. He was furious about this and
sued the young man's mother which led to a
trial and imprisonment for
two years. He
remained true to himself and paid a heavy price
for it
by being ostracized and defamed.
Time magazine of June 17, 1996 devoted a
good deal of its issue
to discussing people
(25 in America) who are the most influential in
the country in their opinion. They added a
short essay on who are the
most powerful
people in America and no one on the first list
appeared
on the second list, and strangely
enough, none of the poeple on either
list was
described as famous, although I think several
surely are. Can
we really distinguish
influential people and powerful people from those
who are famous Maybe, but their list of
influential prople includes
Jerry Seinfeld the
comedian and TV star, Courtney Love the singer and
drug addict whose fame has come largely
through her husband Kurt Cobain,
the guitarist
who committed suicide, and the list inbludes Oparh
Winfrey
the talk show host and Calvin Klein
the clothing designer. All of these
people are famous , but I believe, not
very influential in the sense
that they change
the way most of us think or act. In Time
magazine's
list we find a Supreme Court
justice, Sandra Day O'Connorm, who is no
more
influential or powerful than any of other
justices. President
Clinton is not considered
influential () but is considred powerful! You
decide if you think famous and influential and
powerful are closely
related, or
different.
I believe that fame and
celebrity, influence and power, success
and
failure, reality and illusion are all somehow
neatly woven into a
seamless fabric we
laughingly call reality. I say to those who
desperately seek fame and fortune, celebrity:
good luck. But what will
you do when you have
caught your tail, your success, your fame Keep
chasing it If you do catch it, hang on for
dear life because falling
is not as painful as
landing. See you soon famous and almost famous,
wayfarers on this unbright, nonlinear
planet!