At one point or another, The New Yorker’s Janet Malcolm construe(理解为；解释为)d each profession or art form she wrote about as a mug’s game(骗人的把戏；徒劳之事). She asserted that the “crowning paradox(悖论；自相矛盾之处) of psychoanalysis is the near-uselessness of its insights,” though she filled her work with Freudian trope(比喻；惯用主题)s and paradigm(范式；典范)s. (She herself spent eight years in analysis.) The presumption of innocence(无罪推定) underlying criminal trials had a “hollowness(空洞；虚假)” that called the whole judicial system into question. Biography was a genre that Malcolm practiced and investigated, and she has now become a subject of it with the publication of Eve Sneider’s The Absent Woman. But all biography struck Malcolm as “transgressive(越界的；违规的),” an “impertinence(无礼；冒昧)”; its readers would be better off(最好还是；处境会更好) accepting that “if anything is our own business, it is our pathetic native self(本我；天生的自我).” Which isn’t to say that readers should favor autobiography.(这并不是说读者就该偏爱自传。) The “original sin(原罪)” of that undertaking is to wallow(沉溺；打滚) in “memories of conflict, resentment, blame, self-justification(自我辩护)—and it is wrong, unfair, inexcusable to publish them.”
《纽约客》的珍妮特·马尔科姆几乎把她所写过的每一种职业或艺术形式都看成一场骗局。她断言“精神分析最绝妙的悖论在于其洞见几乎毫无用处”，尽管她自己的作品里充斥着弗洛伊德式的比喻和范式。（她本人接受过八年精神分析。）刑事审判所依据的无罪推定有一种“空洞感”，足以让整个司法体系受到质疑。传记是马尔科姆既实践又研究的体裁，而随着伊芙·斯奈德《缺席的女人》的出版，她如今也成了传记的对象。但在马尔科姆看来，一切传记都是“越界的”、“冒昧的”；读者不如接受这一点：“如果说有什么是我们自己的事，那就是我们那可怜的本我。”这并不是说读者就该偏爱自传。自传的“原罪”在于沉溺于“冲突、怨恨、责备、自我辩护的记忆——而把它们公之于众是错误的、不公平的、不可原谅的”。
The quotations above come from five books produced over five decades, and this catalog(目录；一系列) of futility(徒劳；无用) and ethical compromise(道德妥协) does not even include Malcolm’s most famous animadversion(批评；谴责), which she lob(投掷；抛出)bed against her own craft and calling(使命；天职): “Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.(每一个不是太愚蠢或太自以为是、以至于注意不到正在发生什么的记者，都知道自己所做的事在道德上是站不住脚的。)” These words open The Journalist and the Murderer (1990), Malcolm’s account of the lawsuit brought by Jeffrey MacDonald (the murderer, an Army captain convicted of killing his wife and children) against Joe McGinniss (the journalist working on a book about him), who’d maintained MacDonald’s cooperation by writing him letters that conveyed the clear impression that McGinniss believed in his innocence. The book McGinniss finally published, Fatal Vision, squarely(明确地；直截了当地) affirm(肯定；断言)ed MacDonald’s guilt.
以上引文出自五十年间出版的 five 本书，而这份关于徒劳与道德妥协的清单甚至还没有包括马尔科姆最著名的抨击——她对自己所属行业和使命的猛烈开火：“每一个不是太愚蠢或太自以为是、以至于注意不到正在发生什么的记者，都知道自己所做的事在道德上是站不住脚的。”这段话是《记者与杀人犯》（1990）的开篇。该书讲述了杰弗里·麦克唐纳（那个杀人犯，一名被判杀害妻儿的陆军上尉）起诉乔·麦金尼斯（正在为他写书的记者）的诉讼，麦金尼斯通过写信让麦克唐纳相信他相信其清白，从而维持了后者的合作。麦金尼斯最终出版的书《致命幻觉》却明确认定麦克唐纳有罪。
This literary treachery(背叛；背信弃义) seemed to agitate(使不安；激怒) Malcolm more than the slaughter of MacDonald’s family. It was all of a piece(一致的；同一性质的) with her certainty that nonfiction writers made reality and fact as pliable(可塑的；易受影响的) as they are for attorneys facing off in a courtroom. Journalistic accounts of trials all impose falsely coherent(连贯的；有条理的) plotlines on actuality(现实；实际情况). According to Malcolm, nonfiction is always aspiring to the authoritative “completeness” and seeming inevitability(必然性) of fiction. (Notice that the notorious(臭名昭著的；著名的) first line of The Journalist and the Murderer, which lays down a universal law, has a cadence(节奏；韵律) similar to the opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice(简·奥斯汀的经典小说《傲慢与偏见》).) In The Silent Woman (1994), her study of the ever-multiplying biographical literature about Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, Malcolm took things further: “The ideal of unmediated(未经中介的；直接的) reporting is regularly achieved only in fiction, where the writer faithfully reports on what is going on in his imagination.”
这种文学上的背叛似乎比麦克唐纳一家的惨死更让马尔科姆不安。这与她的一个确信一脉相承：非虚构作家让现实和事实变得像律师在法庭上对峙时那样可塑。新闻界的审判报道都把虚假连贯的情节强加于现实。在马尔科姆看来，非虚构总是渴望获得小说那种权威的“完整性”和看似必然性。（注意，《记者与杀人犯》那句著名的开篇——它确立了一条普遍法则——其节奏与《傲慢与偏见》的开篇句相似。）在《沉默的女人》（1994）中，她研究了关于西尔维娅·普拉斯和特德·休斯不断增多的传记文献，进一步提出：“未经中介的报道这一理想，只有在小说的领域才能经常实现——在那里，作家忠实地报道自己想象中发生的事。”