It is hardly necessary for me to cite all the evidence of the depressing state of literacy. 我几乎没有必要引证所有令人沮丧的人们的识字状况。These figures from the Department of Education are sufficient: 27 million Americans cannot read at all, and a further 35 million read at a level that is less than sufficient to survive in our society. 这些来自教育部的数字就够了：2700万美国人完全不能读写，另有3500万人的读写能力低得不能适应社会生存。

But my own worry today is less that of the overwhelming problem of elemental literacy than it is of the slightly more luxurious problem of the decline in the skill even of the middle-class reader, of his unwillingness to afford those spaces of silence, those luxuries of domesticity and time and concentration, that surround the image of the classic act of reading. 但我今天对中产阶级读者读写技能甚至也下降了的担忧——这问题有点要求过分——胜过对基本读写能力这一压倒一切的问题的担忧，担忧他们不愿把安静的地方、难得的家庭生活的机会、时间和注意力用来读书，而典型的读书活动正需要这些。 It has been suggested that almost 80 percent of America's literate, educated teenagers can no longer read without an accompanying noise(music)in the background or a television screen flickering (闪烁) at the corner of their field of perception. 　情况表明：没有伴奏噪音（音乐）作背景，没有电视屏幕在能感觉的角落闪烁着，几乎80%有阅读能力、受过教育的美国青少年就再也读不下书。 We know very little about the brain and how it deals with simultaneous conflicting input, but every common-sense intuition suggests we should be profoundly alarmed. 　我们对大脑及其如何同时处理互相冲突的输入所知甚少，但常识直觉表明我们会深受干扰。This violation of concentration, silence, solitude (独处的状态) goes to the very heart of our notion of literacy; this new form of part-reading, of part-perception against background distraction, renders impossible certain essential acts of apprehension and concentration, let alone that most important tribute any human being can pay to a poem or a piece of prose he or she really loves, which is to learn it by heart. Not by brain, by heart; the expression is vital. 这种对集中精神、安静、独处状态的妨碍同阅读概念直接冲突；这种在娱乐背景下半读书半分散精力的读书新方式不可能专心致志地理解，更不要说任何一个人对真正喜爱的一首诗或一篇散文所能表示的最大赞赏是将其背诵下来。不明白，而是背下来；这种说法很重要。

Under these circumstances, the question of what future there is for the arts of reading is a real one. 　在这些情况下，关于阅读艺术的未来发展如何便是一个真正的问题。Ahead of us lie technical, psychic (心理的), and social transformations probably much more dramatic than those brought about by Gutenberg, the German inventor in printing. 　在我们前面有技术、心理和社会的变革，这些变革比德国印刷术的发明者古特伯格带来的变革更剧烈。The Gutenberg revolution, as we now know it, took a long time; its effects are still being debated. 如我们现在所知，古特伯格革命用了很长的时间；它的影响人们仍在争论。The information revolution will touch every fact of composition, publication, distribution, and reading. 信息革命将触及写作、出版、发行和阅读的每个细小方面。 No one in the book industry can say with any confidence what will happen to the book as we’ve known it.在图书业没有一个人能自信地说我们现在所知的书籍将会发生什么。