There is no question that science-fiction writers have become more ambitious, stylistically and thematically, in recent years. (46) But this may have less to do with the luring call of academic surroundings than with changing market conditions—a factor that academic critics rarely take into account.Robert Silverberg, a former president of The Science Fiction Writers of America, is one of the most prolific professionals in a field dominated by people who actually write for a living. (Unlike mystery or Western writers, most science-fiction writers cannot expect to cash in on fat movie sales or TV tie-ins.) (47) Still in his late thirties, Silverberg has published more than a hundred books, and he is disarmingly frank about the relationship between the quality of genuine prose and the quality of available outlet. By his own account, he was “an annoyingly verbal young man” from Brooklyn who picked up his first science-fiction book at the age of ten, started writing seriously at the age of thirteen, and at seventeen nearly gave up in despair over his inability to break into the pulp magazines. (48) At his parents’ urging, he enrolled in Columbia University, so that, if worst came to worst, he could always go to the School of Journalism and “get a nice steady job somewhere”. During his sophomore year, he sold his first science-fiction story to a Scottish magazine named Nebula. By the end of his junior year, he had sold a novel and twenty more stories. (49) By the end of his senior year, he was earning two hundred dollars a week writing science fiction, and his parents were reconciled to his pursuit of the literary life. “I became very cynical very quickly,” he says. First I couldn’t sell anything, then I could sell everything. The market played to my worst characteristics. An editor of a schlock magazine would call up to tell me he had a ten-thousand-word hole to fill in his next issue. I’d fill it overnight for a hundred and fifty dollars. I found that rewriting made no difference. (50) I knew I could not possibly write the kinds of things I admired as a reader—Joyce, Kafka, Mann—so I detached myself from my work. I was a phenomenon among my friends in college, a published, selling author. But they always asked, “When are you going to do something serious?” —meaning something that wasn’t science fiction—and I kept telling them, “ When I’m financially secure.”

答案

46.但是這一點(diǎn)與其說是與學(xué)術(shù)環(huán)境具有誘惑力的召喚有關(guān)，還不如說是與變化的市場狀況有關(guān)——一這是一個(gè)學(xué)術(shù)評論家很少考慮的因素。

47.還不到四十多歲，西爾弗伯格就已出版了一百多本書籍，而他對真正散文的質(zhì)量與應(yīng)時(shí)之作的質(zhì)量之間的關(guān)系十分坦誠，毫無掩飾。

48.在他雙親的敦促下，他報(bào)考了哥倫比亞大學(xué)，所以即便最糟他也能進(jìn)入新聞學(xué)校，“將來總可以有一份穩(wěn)定的好工作。”

49.到大四結(jié)束的時(shí)候，他每星期寫科幻小說已經(jīng)可以賺兩百美元了，而他的雙親也接受了他對于文學(xué)生涯的追求。

50.我知道我寫不出作為讀者的我所喜歡的東西，就像喬伊斯、卡夫卡、曼恩的作品，所以我不再那么關(guān)注我所寫的東西。

總體分析

本文介紹了科幻小說家羅伯特·西爾弗伯格。文章先指出科幻小說的繁榮與市場需求關(guān)系緊密，接著通過介紹多產(chǎn)的科幻小說家西爾弗伯格的創(chuàng)作經(jīng)歷予以說明。

本文考查的知識點(diǎn)：后置定語、插入語、比較結(jié)構(gòu)、同位語、上下文中詞義的選擇等。