今年最讓我驚喜的聖誕禮物，起因是我想激發台灣的讀者討論《追憶似水年華》，然而，透過參加講座、讀書會、發文，期待得到真正的《追憶似水年華》討論都失敗，所以轉往國外更大的平台嘗試；或許不如歡快的節慶那麼偉大，但對於文學上的賞析、求真得到更大的啟發對我來說非常的珍貴與突破：尤其我昨天在Reddit發的文就成為爆文了。
內容大概是在抱怨台灣的讀書會文化亂象，讀書會跟沙龍真的很難。
所有參加者把理財、心理勵志自助工具書拿來分享，對文學跟歷史沒興趣。
不只有國外文學教授很認真的大篇回應；熱心的網友把所多瑪以及蛾摩拉解釋得非常清晰，最重要的是，一位英文文學碩士短居波蘭，去過奧斯維辛集中營兩次的猶太人，30年前進入到一個讀書會，卻也是束書不觀的現象且遇到反猶的發言，我大概估計50歲左右吧 這樣Reddit年齡層還真廣，太令人心碎與感傷。
以下是原文留言+翻譯：
I had a terrible experience about 30 years ago. A friend of mine invited me to her book group who were discussing Primo Levi's If This is A Man that night. All the members were female like my friend. One woman read her notes about what she wanted to say about the book. I was horrified to see that none of the other women had actually read the book except me (I had read it while living in Poland a few years before) and they said nothing about it. Clearly they just wanted to get together, get away from their families for a night, drink a glass of wine or two and gossip about their decorating or their dance groups.
大約三十年前，我經歷了一次極其糟糕的經驗。一位朋友邀請我參加她的讀書會，當晚討論的是普利摩・李維的《如果這是一個人》。所有成員都是女性，就像我朋友一樣。其中一位女士朗讀了她事先準備好的筆記，打算發表對這本書的看法。我驚恐地發現，除了我之外，其他女人根本沒讀過這本書（我幾年前在波蘭住時讀過），而且她們對書本身隻字未提。顯然她們只是想找個藉口聚在一起，暫時逃離家庭，喝一兩杯葡萄酒，聊聊裝潢或舞蹈社的八卦。
Not only was that awful- I told myself it wasn't graduate school (I have a MA in English) but the woman who had chosen the book and was giving the speech was clearly nuts. Not being funny but she had issues. She also complained that Levi used big words she had to look up in the dictionary. She then proceeded to say offensive things about Jews and a woman next to her chimed in on such remarks as the Jews were slaughtered without fighting back. Oh My God. I couldn't get out of there fast enough and made my excuses while they were yakking with the hostess about how she restored the mantelpiece on her fireplace.
這還不夠糟——我告訴自己這又不是研究所（我有英語文學碩士學位）——那位選書並發表高論的女士顯然精神有問題。不是開玩笑，她真的不太正常。她還抱怨李維用了太多艱深字彙，害她得查字典。接著她開始發表冒犯猶太人的言論，旁邊另一位女士也附和，說什麼猶太人被屠殺時都沒有反抗。我的天啊！我恨不得立刻離開，趁她們圍著女主人大談她如何修復壁爐楣時，我找了藉口奪門而出。
I'm Jewish. As I said, I lived in Poland. I've been to Auschwitz twice. The book group sickened me not just because they complained about having to look up words in the dictionary and sat there with nothing to say to shut up the two hateful antisemites, they reminded me of Levi's passage about his dream that he would survive, return home, and when he talked about Auschwitz people would turn away and not want to listen to him. Chilling.
我是猶太人。正如我所說，我曾在波蘭居住，去過奧許維茲集中營兩次。那場讀書會讓我作嘔，不只是因為她們抱怨查字典，也不只是因為她們沉默地放任兩個反猶分子大放厥詞，而是她們讓我想起李維書中一段令人寒心的描述：他夢見自己存活下來，回到家鄉，但當他談起奧許維茲時，人們卻別過頭去，不願聆聽。
Sadly there are many people who don't read, and can't read. I mean they don't know how to interpret a text. They can probably skim non fiction and these days they may get Chat GPT or another AI to summarize a text for them to get the nuggets of information out that they want. Maybe they can talk about a plot of a novel the way they can talk about the plot of a TV show or talk about which characters they like or dislike. I've noticed that some popular novels now include a list of questions at the end for book groups so if the book groups don't know what to say the printed questions encourage them to consider the themes of the novel.
可悲的是，世上真有許多人不閱讀，也不會閱讀。我的意思是他們不懂得如何詮釋文本。他們或許能略讀非虛構作品，如今甚至叫ChatGPT或其他AI幫忙摘要，撈出想要的「重點」。頂多像談論電視劇情那樣，說說小說裡誰是好人、誰是壞人。我注意到現在某些暢銷小說最後會附上讀書會問題，以防大家啞口無言，用印刷好的提問引導他們思考主題。
I'd like to add that reading literature makes people more empathetic to others as well as helping them gain a sense of other cultures and other ways of life. I was shocked that the women at that book group had no empathy for Primo Levi and Holocaust victims.
我還想補充：閱讀文學能讓人對他人更具同理心，也能幫助我們理解異文化與不同的生活方式。那晚讀書會上的女人對普利摩・李維與大屠殺受害者毫無同理心，這讓我震驚不已。
我的回應
關於您引用的經典，我上了一課！謝謝您滋養我的文化水準。
您是我這篇文章裡面讀完最沉重且停止深呼吸的時刻，對您的遭遇同樣感到遺憾，甚至應該說，您遇上的困境比我更悲傷數倍。
我想分享更多我個人的看法與擔憂，置於相同的背景時空之下，我想台灣讀書會還有一個特別的現象我非常樂於和您分享，每次只要有一位朋友想分享中國歷史的讀書會就會遭到他人質疑與懷疑，總是要花一大堆時間去緩和氣氛並強調”政治中立”；您應該知道，台灣的政治處境艱難，導致人民普遍厭惡中國，延伸至中國文化，然而中文是我們的母語，當我們對母語的使用國帶著憎惡的眼神時，我們許多年輕人幾乎一無反顧地對中文文化的拒斥，造成了幾乎缺乏中文文學培養的時代，我不知道未來這樣的社會該如何承載語言與文化的意義，或許語言可以重新在台灣深根意義？！又或許語言會越使用越偏離原本的詞意？！我們是否被迫接受來自"敵國"對語言的詮釋形成的文化統治？！光想著這一切關乎台灣當前政治的現實與緊迫就令人擔憂。
Thank you so much for your comment (I apologize that my English is not strong, but I genuinely wrote the original text and then translated it, rather than using AI to offend you).
Regarding the classics you cited, I learned a valuable lesson! Thank you for enriching my cultural knowledge.
You are the moment in this article where I felt the heaviest weight and had to pause for a deep breath. I feel equally sorry for your experience, or rather, I should say that the difficulties you encountered are several times more tragic than mine.
I would like to share more of my personal thoughts and concerns. Within the same historical and temporal context, I want to tell you about a particularly notable phenomenon in Taiwan's reading groups that I would very much like to share with you. Whenever a friend wants to organize a reading group focused on Chinese history, it inevitably encounters questioning and suspicion from others. We always have to spend a great deal of time diffusing tension and emphasizing "political neutrality." You should know that Taiwan's political situation is precarious, leading to widespread public resentment toward China, which extends to Chinese culture. However, Chinese is our mother tongue. When we regard the countries that speak our mother tongue with eyes of hatred, many of our young people have almost without hesitation rejected Chinese culture entirely, resulting in an era that is almost devoid of Chinese literary cultivation. I do not know how such a society can bear the meaning of language and culture in the future. Perhaps language can take root again with new meaning in Taiwan?! Or perhaps language will drift further from its original meaning the more it is used?! Are we forced to accept cultural domination formed by interpretations of language imposed by an "enemy nation"?! Simply contemplating how all of this relates to Taiwan's current political reality and urgency is deeply concerning.
