作品合集就像袋装的软糖。如果糖果制造商是一个高品质的品牌，比如说吉利贝利（Jelly Belly），即使你不喜欢的味道也还是相当不错的。《魔幻时刻》（Magic Hours）就属于这类。这本本月出版的记者汤姆•比塞尔作品集，涉及了从罗伯特•D•卡普兰的战争报道到沃纳•赫尔佐格的纪录片在内众多颇费脑力的主题。

    比塞尔现在定期为ESPN的Grantland撰写游戏评论，他的文笔非常迷人，经常（但并非总是）把那些似乎不可能吸引主流读者的主题写得妙趣横生。比塞尔的写作对象大都晦涩难懂，但把任何主题都写得生动有趣不正是记者的职责吗？需要事先警告一下的是，这本书大多数文章的真正主角其实是比塞尔自己。

    比如，比塞尔撰文，描写杰夫•丹尼尔2001年在密歇根州埃斯卡诺巴市拍摄一部独立电影的过程时，文章就变成了他个人对家乡的回忆，因为比塞尔就是在这个城市长大的。再如，在撰写一篇关于一个有趣但书呆子气十足、名为地下文学联盟（Underground Literary Alliance）的教派时，他提到了约翰•肯尼迪•图勒深受欢迎的小说《笨蛋同盟》（A Confederacy of Dunces）。这本书的确与主题相关，但他还是按捺不住，写下了自己的评论（“出版史上最被高估的小说之一”）。又比如，为荒原小说家吉姆•哈里森（他碰巧是比塞尔父亲的一位朋友）撰写的一篇人物报道，文章既是在谈论哈里森，也是在谈论比塞尔自己。

    所有这一切都非常精致——这也是比塞尔为何将这些报道称之为“作品”的原因。如今，这个词预示着文章可以通过作者评论、插入语和尖刻的旁白偏离严格的客观性原则。当然，如果你寻找的是一篇对汤米•韦素的邪典电影《房间》（The Room）一本正经的叙述，你应该去维基百科查询，而不要选择阅读比塞尔动人但极具个性化的诠释。

    杂志新闻已经朝这个方向迈进了数十载，特别是古怪的流行文化这些深受比塞尔青睐的主题。甚至如《GQ》和《时尚先生》（Esquire）这类外表光鲜的主流杂志在进行名人报道时也自由运用第一人称，除了援引报道对象的语言之外，作者本人的反应和内心独白几乎占据了同等篇幅。

    在作者自序中，比塞尔写道，在那篇关于杰夫•丹尼尔的文章发表之后，一位编辑安排他去加拿大报道美国宇航局（NASA），比塞尔的回应是：“你知道我其实并不是记者吧？”然而，书中的这些文章依然属于新闻范畴。比塞尔不仅从事件或个人访谈现场发表报道，而且还充当读者的向导，不断地提醒我们他的存在。约翰•耶利米•沙利文、玛丽•罗奇和大卫•福斯特•华莱士等人（这是比斯尔公开崇拜的作家）的非虚构类作品也都带有这样的特征。

    毫不奇怪的是，这本书包含了两篇不那么放纵的文章，读者在文章中基本上看不到比塞尔的影子，这两篇文章的首发杂志都是《纽约客》（The New Yorker）。其中一篇是关于以《好汉两个半》（Two and a Half Men）成名的情景喜剧之王查克•洛尔，另一篇是关于视频游戏配音演员詹尼弗•哈尔。其他文章最初发表在诸如《追随者》（The Believer）这类媒体上，这本杂志隶属的麦克斯威尼出版社（McSweeney's）碰巧也是这本书的出版商。

    Essay collections are like bags of jellybeans. If the candy-maker is a high-quality brand like, say, Jelly Belly, then even the flavors you don't love will be pretty good. Such is the case with Magic Hours, a collection of essays out this month from journalist Tom Bissell that covers brainy topics ranging from the war reporting of Robert D. Kaplan to the documentary films of Werner Herzog.

    Bissell, who now writes regularly about video games for ESPN's Grantland, is engaging enough -- usually, but not always -- to make interesting even those essays whose topics seem unlikely to absorb the mainstream reading public. Most of Bissell's subjects are abstruse, but it's a journalist's job to make any topic interesting, right? Just be forewarned that the real subject in most of the essays collected here is Bissell himself.

    When he writes about the filming of a 2001 Jeff Daniels indie movie in Escanaba, Mich., the essay becomes a personal reflection on his hometown, because Bissell grew up in Escanaba. Writing about an intriguing, nerdy sect called the Underground Literary Alliance, he mentions John Kennedy Toole's beloved novel A Confederacy of Dunces, which is indeed relevant, but he can't resist including his own review ("one of the most overrated novels ever published"). A profile of the wilderness novelist Jim Harrison, who happens to be a friend of Bissell's father, is as much about Bissell as about Harrison.

    All of this is perfectly fine -- it's why Bissell calls these works of reportage "essays." Nowadays, the word signals a license to depart from strict objectivity via authorial comments, interjections and snarky asides. Of course, if you were looking for a straight-faced account of Tommy Wiseau's cult movie The Room, you would head to Wikipedia rather than reading Bissell's engaging but highly personalized interpretation.

    Magazine journalism has been headed this way for decades, especially journalism on the quirky, pop culture subjects that Bissell favors. Even mainstream celebrity profiles in glossy magazines like GQ and Esquire freely use the first-person voice, and feature the reactions and inner monologue of the author as much as quotes from the subject.

    In an Author's Note, Bissell notes that after his Jeff Daniels essay appeared, an editor assigned him to go report on NASA in Canada, to which Bissell responded: "You're aware that I'm not actually a journalist?" Nonetheless, these essays are works of journalism. Bissell is reporting from events or in-person interviews, but also acting as a guide to the reader, reminding us constantly of his presence. (See, also, the nonfiction of John Jeremiah Sullivan, Mary Roach, or David Foster Wallace, a writer whom Bissell openly worships.)

    It is no surprise, then, that the two least indulgent essays, from which Bissell is mostly absent, both appeared first in The New Yorker. (One is on sitcom-king Chuck Lorre of Two and a Half Men fame, the other on video-game voiceover actor Jennifer Hale). Other pieces were originally published in outlets like The Believer, which, as an imprint of McSweeney's, happens to be the publisher of this book.

    比塞尔是按照写作时间安排《魔幻时刻》所选文章先后次序的。这种编排方式能够清晰地体现出他作为一位作家的成长轨迹，但打破了编录作品集的常识性规则，即把最精彩的文章放在最前面。这本书的开篇之作是全书中最无聊的，甚至对于迪金森、梅尔维尔和惠特曼的粉丝来说亦是如此；临近结束的那几篇文章要好得多。

    比塞尔在作者自序中称，“这些作品都与魔幻有关，”因为“要创造任何事物，无论是一个短篇故事，一篇杂志人物报道，还是一部电影或者一部情景喜剧，都必须相信（即使只是暂时的）自己有能力施展魔法。”这是一种很有吸引力的思想，但充其量只能算是一种非常模棱两可的论点。人类一直都在创造事物，但根本就不认为这是魔法，甚至算不上什么成就。

    就主题而言，他选择的作品缺乏关联性。当然，就宏观意义而言，它们都与流行文化有关：在这本书包含的15篇文章中，9篇是讲写作的，4篇是讲电影的，1篇关于电视，1篇关于游戏。但深度探究的话，你就会发现这些文章的诉求点很集中。

    这本作品集最有力度的文章《电影色拉》（Cinema Crudité）是关于电影《房间》的评论，这部被一致认为非常糟糕的电影依然在全美各地院线的深夜档放映，并且依然受到成群结队的信徒们追捧。这部电影相当一部分“粉丝”似乎喜欢嘲讽影片的编剧、导演和主演汤米•韦素先生。比塞尔以非常恭敬，极其幽默的方式描述了这种讽刺意味：“为什么这么多的人会追捧这部电影？看到一位性格导演的神话残酷破灭，眼睁睁看着一位艺术原本是为了触摸星星、但最终只到手一块便池蛋糕，是不是会带给人一种满足感呢？”

    令人钦佩的是，在采访韦素本人时，比塞尔没有使用不公正的语言来刁难他，但他同时也非常忠实地记录了自己在会面时的真实感受。当时，韦素称他的目标是让90%的美国人去看《房间》，比塞尔对我们说：“听到这里，我差点当着他的面笑出声来。”

    Bissell arranges Magic Hours chronologically by when he wrote them. This demonstrates his clear growth as a writer, but breaks the commonsense rule of beginning a collection with the best it has to offer. The opening piece is the book's most boring, even for fans of Dickinson, Melville and Whitman; the essays toward the end are far stronger.

    In that Author's Note, Bissell argues that "these essays are about magic" because, "to create anything -- whether a short story or a magazine profile or a film or a sitcom -- is to believe, if only momentarily, you are capable of magic." It's an appealing thought, but a tenuous argument at best. People create things all the time without believing they constitute magic, or any achievement at all.

    Thematically, the work he has selected lacks any connective tissue. Sure, in a big-picture sense they all cover pop culture mainstays: Of the book's 15 essays, nine are about writing, four are about film, one is on television, and one on video games. But drill down and they are narrow in focus.

    The strongest essay in the collection, "Cinema Crudité," is about The Room, by all accounts a very bad movie that nonetheless still shows at late-night screenings all over the country and brings devotees out in droves. A significant portion of the movie's "fans" seem to enjoy ridiculing Wiseau, who wrote, directed, and stars in the film. Bissell handles this irony respectfully and humorously: "Why are so many people responding to this… Is it the satisfaction of seeing the auteur myth cruelly exploded, of watching an artist reach for the stars and wind up with his hand around a urinal cake?"

    When he meets Wiseau in person, Bissell admirably avoids taking unfair jabs at him, though he's also honest with us about what he felt during the meeting. When Wiseau says his goal is for 90% of Americans to see The Room, Bissell tells us, "At this I all but laughed in his face."

    同样，在关于吉姆•哈里森的文章中，他也坦陈了自己的采访过程。这篇置于本书结尾部分的文章去年夏天刚刚在《外面》杂志（Outside）发表。比塞尔欣然提到了他第一次与哈里森在晚间饮酒之后酩酊大醉那一幕。他还写道，他最初太害怕了，不敢跟着哈里森在其住所中搜寻一个蛇洞。比塞尔回忆道，大卫•福斯特•华莱士曾发现哈里森写的一篇文章，并且在写给比塞尔的一封信中表达了他对这部作品的嘉许之意。他随后奉承道：“对于一位刚刚起步的年轻作家来说，这种经历难以形容。我的两位文学偶像之间的交流，竟然是通过我来进行的。”没错，这个结论多少有点沾沾自喜的味道，但我们亦不难看出他的自豪和坦诚。

    实际上，比塞尔最出彩的文章往往写于他与写作对象面对面交流之后，而不是在一个真空中凭想象阐述的时候。那篇关于埃斯卡诺巴市的文章（比塞尔曾身临电影拍摄现场），对赫尔佐格的分析（比塞尔在这位备受尊崇的导演的家中对其进行了采访），以及韦素和哈里森的人物报道都属于这种情况。

    有几篇文章或许应该略去。一篇是对海明威著作《太阳照样升起》（The Sun Also Rises）毫无必要地辩护。另一篇是对大卫•福斯特•华莱士2005年在凯尼恩学院（Kenyon College）那篇演讲过于简短的报道，华莱士的出版商已经把这篇演讲包装成一部适宜摆放在咖啡茶几上的书籍《这是水》（This Is Water）。比塞尔对作家罗伯特•D•卡普兰非常低俗的批评是另一篇让人不明就里的文章。

    让所有人都猜不透的是，比塞尔为什么没有把2010年发表于《卫报》（Guardian）的那篇杰出报道收入作品集。他在这篇文章中把玩家对《侠盗车手》（Grand Theft Auto）这款游戏的痴迷程度与吸食可卡因相提并论。或许他不想在书中包含两篇关于视频游戏的文章，或许他感到自己应该坚持仅仅收录首次发表在杂志上的文章这一做法。

    但这样做无关紧要。《魔幻时刻》一书包含了许多值得细细品读的作品，几乎没有可跳过不读的文章。影迷应该会喜欢作者对文学现象的深度探寻，反之亦然：一位或许觉得电影分析（特别是对一位颠覆性的德国导演或一部越战纪录片的分析文章）无聊透顶的文学迷依然会感受到比塞尔文笔的魔力。此外，比塞尔也为媒体业的发烧友深入一线探究了好莱坞和其他媒体形态的生产过程，从电影《埃斯卡诺巴的月光》（Escanaba in da Moonlight）的户外取景，到情景喜剧《迈克和莫莉》（Mike & Molly）的室内布局，再到视频游戏《质量效应3》（Mass Effect 3）的录制棚，不一而足。

    阅读比塞尔的作品可以让人了解众多知识与文化的细微之处。或许超出人们的期待的是，同时还可以深入了解作者汤姆•比塞尔本人。    

    译者：任文科

    He similarly strips his own process bare in the piece on Jim Harrison, which was published just last summer in Outside and closes out the book. Bissell readily mentions the hangover he suffered after the first night of drinking with Harrison. He adds that he was too scared, initially, to join Harrison in checking out a snake den on his property. Bissell recounts how David Foster Wallace once discovered an essay by Harrison, and mentioned liking the piece in a letter to Bissell. He then fawns: "For a young writer just starting out, this was indescribable. Two of my literary heroes were talking to each other, as it were, through me." Yes, the conclusion smacks slightly, perhaps, of the self-congratulatory, but it's hard not to appreciate his pride and candor.

    In fact Bissell shines most when he meets his subjects face-to-face, rather than expounding in a vacuum. That's true of the Escanaba essay (Bissell hung around during shooting), the Herzog analysis (Bissell interviewed the venerated filmmaker at his home), and the Wiseau and Harrison profiles.

    A few essays could have been omitted. One is a gratuitous defense of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. Another is an all-too-brief account of David Foster Wallace's 2005 speech at Kenyon College, which Wallace's publisher packaged as a coffee-table book called This Is Water. Bissell's rather nasty critique of author Robert D. Kaplan is another head-scratcher.

    It's anyone's guess as to why Bissell did not include his outstanding 2010 Guardian piece about becoming addicted to Grand Theft Auto and cocaine. Perhaps he didn't want two essays on video games in there, or felt he should stick to stories that first appeared in magazines.

    No matter. Magic Hours has a lot to love and very little to skip. Film buffs should enjoy the deep dives into literary phenomena, and vice-versa: A lit nerd who might be bored stiff by film analysis (especially analysis of a subversive German director or of a Vietnam War documentary) will still be drawn in. For media business aficionados, Bissell delivers front-row insight into the production process in Hollywood and beyond, from the outdoor set of the movie Escanaba in da Moonlight, to the indoor set of the sitcom Mike & Molly and the recording booth of the video game Mass Effect 3.

    Reading Bissell's essays will educate you on a vast range of intellectual and cultural minutiae. You will also learn a lot, perhaps more than you bargained for, about the essayist Tom Bissell.