<Sex and the City> 原著序言的译文
这是《欲望城市》书的序言，言简意赅，提纲挈领，对理解同名电视剧甚有帮助，故试译如下。因本人理解因素和文化背景方面的关系，有些地方尚待更好的译法，故在相关的词句标上下划线，以待搜集更多的资料再确定。
本版FANS若有补正,先行致谢。
相关贴链接如下:
http://forum.friends6.com/view-23111.html
Introduction
Before Sex and the City was a book and a TV series, it was a column in the New York Observer. This was in the fall of 1994, and I will never forget the afternoon the editor-in-chief asked me if I wanted my own column. I immediately said yes, and afterwards practically skipped up Park Avenue with joy. I had no idea how I was going to pull off this column, but I was convinced that it should somehow be about me and my friends—a group of single women all of whom seemed to have had a never-ending series of freakish and horrifying experiences with men (and sometimes with the same men). We spent hours discussing our crazy relationships, and came to the conclusion that if we couldn’t laugh about them, we’d probably go insane.
I suppose that’s why Sex and the City is such an unsentimental examination of relationships and mating habits. Although some people find its lack of sentiment and cruel humor disturbing, it’s probably only because the book contains some kind of universal truth. Although the column was originally meant to pertain specifically to New York City (hence stories like “The moderlizers”-about two greeky guys who manage to date eighteen-year-old models but end up paying a price), I’ve found that there are variants of these Sex and the City characters in most large cities around world. I still haven’t decided whether or not that’s scary.
But most of all, Sex and the City sets out to answer one burning question—why are we still single? Now, with a few years’ perspective on the issue, I can safely conclude that we are single because we want to be.
This edition of Sex and the City contains two new chapters, which were written after the book was originally published. And so, at last, the book has a real ending, in which Carrie and Mr. Big break up. It’s a bittersweet ending – not just the end of Carrie’s relationship with Mr. Big, but the end of her dream of finding the proverbial Mr. Big—a man who doesn’t really exist. If you read closely, you will discover even Mr. Big himself points out that he is a fantasy in Carrie’s imagination, and that you can’t love a fantasy. And so we leave Carrie to enter a new phase in her life when she understands that she will have to find herself (without a man), and in doing so will hopefully be able to find a relationship.
Maybe I’m not as unsentimental as I thought.
CANDCE BUSHNELL
May 12, 2001
序言
在《欲望城市》成为一本书和一部电视连续剧之前，它是我在[u]《纽约观察家》[/u]上的一个专栏。那是1994年秋天的一个下午，我永远不会忘记，主编问我是否愿意开设一个个人专栏，我马上说愿意，然后就[u]几乎要高兴地跳到公园大街上[/u]。当时我甚至不知道要[u]如何展开[/u]，但我确信它应该是关于我和我的朋友们 – 几个单身女性与男人们（有时是[u]同一个[/u]）永无休止的或奇妙或震撼的经历。我们花了很久时间来讨论我们与男人们的疯狂关系，得出结论是假如我们不取笑他们的话，我们自己或许会发疯。
我想那就是为什么《欲望城市》对男女关系和[u]两性习惯[/u]是那么冷静地看待。尽管有些人发现它缺少[u]情感因素，也被残酷的幽默所袭扰[/u]，那或许只是因为这本书揭示了某种普遍的真相。尽管这个专栏原本只是属于纽约这个城市（一些故事诸如[u]《模特狂》[/u]— 描述两个[u]希腊[/u]小青年如何处心积虑去约会18岁的模特而最终付出代价），我也发现在全世界的大多数大城市同样有着《欲望城市》中的各种角色。我直到现在还没确信这是否令人震惊。
但是归根结底，《欲望城市》试图去回答一个迫切的问题 – 为什么我们现在还是单身？现在，基于数年的对这个问题深入观察，我能确切地给出结论，那就是我们现在是单身因为我们愿意这样。
这个版本的《欲望城市》新增了两章，是在初版发行后写就的。因此，在最后，本书有了确切的结局，那就是Carrie和Mr. Big分手了。这是一个亦喜亦悲的结局 – 不只是Carrie和Mr. Big的关系的结束，也是她试图发现Mr. Big真面目的梦想的破灭 – 他并不真实地存在。假如你深入去读，你会发现正是Mr. Big自己指出他只是Carrie头脑中的幻象，而你是不能爱上一个幻象的。因此我们[u]让[/u]Carrie 踏入她人生一个新的阶段，此时她懂得她必须去寻找她自己（不是和一个男人一道），在这个过程中将会有希望找到一个[u]对象[/u]。
我原本以为我冷如冰霜，现在我知道或许不是。[u][/u] 谢谢! 让朋友从美国帮我买了Nicolas的小说回来, 却忘记要买SATC的书了, 真是 doh 动作真快啊
我看到有两本SATC的书 今天有时间Google了一下,补充以下两点:
1.文中“The moderlizers”似为“The modelizers”之误.若为后者,则指"有着特殊癖好,专门约会模特的人";
2.还是不能确定"greeky"的意思.
哪位DX若能指点一下,深为感谢.
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