陳蕙雅思教材 - 雅思閱讀精選 (The Nobel Academy)

The Nobel Academy

For the last 82 years,Sweden's Nobel Academy has decided who will receive

the Nobel Prize inLiterature, thereby      determining whowill be elevated

from the great and thenear great to the immortal. But today the Academy is

coming under heavycriticism both from the without and from within. Critics

contend that theselection of the winners often has less todo with true

writing ability than withthe peculiar internal politics of the Academy and

of       Sweden itself. According to Ingmar Bjorksten, the culturaleditor for

one of the country's twomajor newspapers,      the prize continuesto represent

"what people call avery Swedish exercise: reflecting Swedish tastes." The

Academy has defendeditself against such charges of provincialism in its

selection by assertingthat its        physical distance from thegreat literary

capitals of the worldactually serves to protect the Academy from outside  

influences. This may  well be true,  but critics respond thatthis  very

distance may  also be responsible for  the   Academy's inability to  

perceive accuratelyauthentic trends in the literary world.

Regardless ofconcerns  over the selection process,however, it seems that

the  prize will

continue to survive both     as an indicator of the literature that wemost

highly praise, and as anelusive goal that writers seek. If for no        other

reason, the prize willcontinue to be desirable for the financial rewards

that accompany it; notonly is the  cash prize itselfconsiderable, but it

also dramaticallyincreases sales of an author's books.

諾貝爾委員會

過去的 82 年裡，瑞典的諾貝爾委員會決定了誰將獲得諾貝爾文學獎，因此也就決定了 誰將從偉大或近乎偉大榮升為不朽。  

但在今天，該委員會卻遭到了評選委員會內外的猛烈 批評。  批評者們爭論說："評選獲獎者時，起作用更大的不是真實的寫作能力，而是該委員

會以及瑞典特有的內部政治。  按照瑞典兩家主要報紙之一的文化版編輯 Ingmar  Bjorksten

的說法，該文學獎仍然是"人們所說的一種非常瑞典式的做為：反映瑞典口味"。對於其評選

過程中目光短淺的指責，該委員會辯護說，該委員會與世界幾大文學之都相距遙遠，實際上 使該委員會免受外來的干擾。

這也許是對的，但批評者們反駁說，也正因為相距如此遙遠， 該委員會才不能準確地把握文學界的真正趨勢。儘管對評選程式存在著關注，該文學獎將繼

續作為世人最為推崇的文學的標誌而存在，並將繼續是作家們難以達到卻又會不斷追逐的目 標。  

如果不考慮其他因素，而僅僅考慮與之俱來的經濟利益，該獎也將繼續為人所渴求：

這不僅因為該獎本身就是一筆可觀的現金收入，而且該獎還將極大地增加一個作家的著作的 銷量。