"Culture and Imperialism" by Edward W. Said is a seminal work that explores the relationship between imperialism and culture.
Here are 10 lessons from the book:
1. The Interconnectedness of Culture and Imperialism: Said argues that culture is deeply intertwined with imperialism. Imperial powers often use culture as a tool for domination, while imperial processes shape cultural production and representation.
2. Imperialism's Influence on Literature and Art: Said demonstrates how imperialism influences literature, art, and other forms of cultural expression. He examines how colonial experiences are reflected and contested in works of fiction, poetry, and visual art.
3. Challenging Eurocentrism: Said challenges Eurocentric perspectives that dominate Western discourse on culture and history. He argues for a more inclusive approach that acknowledges the contributions of non-Western cultures and societies.
4. The Legacy of Colonialism: Said highlights the enduring impact of colonialism on contemporary culture and politics. He examines how colonial legacies continue to shape power dynamics, identity formation, and cultural representations in postcolonial societies.
5. Resistance and Subversion: Despite the pervasive influence of imperialism, Said emphasizes the agency of marginalized groups in resisting and subverting colonial power structures. He explores how artists, writers, and activists engage in acts of cultural resistance and critique.
6. The Politics of Representation: Said analyzes the politics of representation in colonial and postcolonial contexts. He examines how stereotypes, Orientalist narratives, and other forms of cultural essentialism are used to justify imperial domination and perpetuate unequal power relations.
7. The Importance of Context: Said underscores the importance of considering historical and political contexts when interpreting cultural texts. He argues against ahistorical readings that overlook the complex relationships between culture, power, and imperialism.
8. Cross-Cultural Encounters: Said explores the dynamics of cross-cultural encounters between imperial powers and colonized peoples. He examines how these encounters shape cultural exchange, hybridity, and the construction of identities.
9. The Role of Intellectuals: Said discusses the role of intellectuals in challenging imperial ideologies and advocating for social justice. He calls upon intellectuals to critically engage with dominant narratives and to support movements for decolonization and self-determination.
10. Toward a Postcolonial Future: Said offers insights into the possibilities of a postcolonial future characterized by justice, equality, and cultural pluralism. He encourages readers to envision alternative futures that transcend the legacies of imperialism and foster genuine dialogue and understanding among diverse peoples.
These lessons from Edward W. Said's "Culture and Imperialism" shed light on the complex interplay between culture, power, and imperialism, inviting readers to critically reflect on their own cultural assumptions and historical contexts.
Book: https://amzn.to/3TRwxt0
You can also get the AUDIO BOOK for FREE using the same link. Use the link to register for the AUDIO BOOK on Audible and start enjoying it.
The New York Review of Books
Free from the Archives
In September 1999, not long after the timeline stipulated in the Oslo Accords came to an end without a peace treaty or a Palestinian state, Edward Said published in the Review a section of his memoir, in which he told the stories of his family’s displacement from Jerusalem; of his iron-willed aunt who served as a one-woman mutual aid organization for Palestinian refugees in Cairo; of his tentative and aborted friendship with a Jewish boy in primary school; of his stateless mother—the only member of his immediate family without a passport—who was forever being detained at airports; and of “suffering a dissociation myself about Palestine that I have never been able to resolve or fully grasp until quite recently, when I gave up trying.” Said’s article will be freely available at the link below until Sunday.
《人文主義與民主批評》譯者: 朱生堅，北京:三聯 2013
目錄
Humanism and Democratic Criticism
April, 2004
Cloth, 192 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-12264-1
$26.95 / £18.50
Contents
Humanism's Sphere
The Changing Bases of Humanistic Study and Practice
The Return to Philology
Introduction to Erich Auerbach's Mimesis
The Public Role of Writers and Intellectuals
Cloth, 192 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-12264-1
$26.95 / £18.50
Contents
Humanism's Sphere
The Changing Bases of Humanistic Study and Practice
The Return to Philology
Introduction to Erich Auerbach's Mimesis
The Public Role of Writers and Intellectuals
In the radically changed and highly charged political
atmosphere that has overtaken the United States—and to varying degrees
the rest of the world—since September 11, 2001, the notion that cultures
can harmoniously and productively coexist has come to seem like little
more than a quaint fiction. In this time of heightened animosity and
aggression, have humanistic values and democratic principles become
irrelevant? Are they merely utopian fantasies? Or are they now more
urgent and necessary than ever before?
Ever since the ascendancy of critical theory and multicultural studies in the 1960s and 1970s, traditional humanistic education has been under assault. Often condemned as the intolerant voice of the masculine establishment and regularly associated with Eurocentrism and even imperialism, the once-sacred literary canon is now more likely to be ridiculed than revered. While this seismic shift—brought on by advances in technological communication, intellectual specialization, and cultural sensitivity—has eroded the former primacy of the humanities, Edward Said argues that a more democratic form of humanism—one that aims to incorporate, emancipate, and enlighten—is still possible. A lifelong humanist, Said believed that self-knowledge is the highest form of human achievement and the true goal of humanistic education. But he also believed that self-knowledge is unattainable without an equal degree of self-criticism, or the awareness that comes from studying and experiencing other peoples, traditions, and ideas.
Proposing a return to philology and a more expansive literary canon as strategies for revitalizing the humanities, Said contends that words are not merely passive figures but vital agents in historical and political change. Intellectuals must reclaim an active role in public life, but at the same time, insularity and parochialism, as well as the academic trend toward needless jargon and obscurantism, must be combated. The "humanities crisis," according to Said, is based on the misperception that there is an inexorable conflict between established traditions and our increasingly complex and diversified world. Yet this position fails to recognize that the canonized thinkers of today were the revolutionaries of yesterday and that the nature of human progress is to question, upset, and reform. By considering the emerging social responsibilities of writers and intellectuals in an ever more interdependent world and exploring the enduring influence of Eric Auerbach's critical masterpiece, Mimesis, Said not only makes a persuasive case for humanistic education but provides his own captivating and deeply personal perspective on our shared intellectual heritage.
Ever since the ascendancy of critical theory and multicultural studies in the 1960s and 1970s, traditional humanistic education has been under assault. Often condemned as the intolerant voice of the masculine establishment and regularly associated with Eurocentrism and even imperialism, the once-sacred literary canon is now more likely to be ridiculed than revered. While this seismic shift—brought on by advances in technological communication, intellectual specialization, and cultural sensitivity—has eroded the former primacy of the humanities, Edward Said argues that a more democratic form of humanism—one that aims to incorporate, emancipate, and enlighten—is still possible. A lifelong humanist, Said believed that self-knowledge is the highest form of human achievement and the true goal of humanistic education. But he also believed that self-knowledge is unattainable without an equal degree of self-criticism, or the awareness that comes from studying and experiencing other peoples, traditions, and ideas.
Proposing a return to philology and a more expansive literary canon as strategies for revitalizing the humanities, Said contends that words are not merely passive figures but vital agents in historical and political change. Intellectuals must reclaim an active role in public life, but at the same time, insularity and parochialism, as well as the academic trend toward needless jargon and obscurantism, must be combated. The "humanities crisis," according to Said, is based on the misperception that there is an inexorable conflict between established traditions and our increasingly complex and diversified world. Yet this position fails to recognize that the canonized thinkers of today were the revolutionaries of yesterday and that the nature of human progress is to question, upset, and reform. By considering the emerging social responsibilities of writers and intellectuals in an ever more interdependent world and exploring the enduring influence of Eric Auerbach's critical masterpiece, Mimesis, Said not only makes a persuasive case for humanistic education but provides his own captivating and deeply personal perspective on our shared intellectual heritage.
Related Subjects
Series
About the Author
《文化與抵抗》愛德華.薩依德(Edward W. Said), 2009
文化與抵抗 愛德華.薩依德(Edward W. Said), 巴薩米安(David Barsamian)著 梁永安譯
薩伊德 (Said, Edward W.)，臺北：立緖文化出版，2004文化与抵抗——萨义德访谈录
作 者： （美）萨义德，（美）巴萨米安 著，梁永安 译 出 版 社： 上海译文出版社 出版时间： 2009-5-1
内容简介
文化，是“记忆”抵抗“遗忘”的一种方式。
2003年9月25日，萨义德因患白血病去世，本书于当年底出版，是他生前最后数年美国知名媒体人巴萨米安对他的系列访谈录。
最早的一篇始于1999年2月8日，而最后一篇完成于2003年2月25日。其中经历了“9·11”恐怖袭击事件，正值美国与伊斯兰世界的多事之秋。
萨义德与巴萨米安的这一系列访谈，主题包含了反恐战争、伊拉克战争、巴以冲突，乃至当代的巴勒斯坦音乐与诗歌。通过文化的延续，萨义德说明了大众抵抗对于文化、历史及社会变迁的核心价值。
《文化与抵抗》是这位“巴勒斯坦之音”发出的最后一声呐喊。
2003年9月25日，萨义德因患白血病去世，本书于当年底出版，是他生前最后数年美国知名媒体人巴萨米安对他的系列访谈录。
最早的一篇始于1999年2月8日，而最后一篇完成于2003年2月25日。其中经历了“9·11”恐怖袭击事件，正值美国与伊斯兰世界的多事之秋。
萨义德与巴萨米安的这一系列访谈，主题包含了反恐战争、伊拉克战争、巴以冲突，乃至当代的巴勒斯坦音乐与诗歌。通过文化的延续，萨义德说明了大众抵抗对于文化、历史及社会变迁的核心价值。
《文化与抵抗》是这位“巴勒斯坦之音”发出的最后一声呐喊。
作者简介
爱
德华·萨义德（Edward
W.Sald，1935-2003），当今世界极具影响力的文学与文化批评家之一。生于耶路撒冷，在英国占领期间就读于埃及开罗的西方学校，接受英式和美
式教育，1950年代赴美就学，获哈佛大学博士学位，从1963年起在美国哥伦比亚大学任教，教授英语文学和比较文学，是享有声誉的文学和文化批评家，同
时也是乐评家、歌剧鉴赏者、钢琴家。他的乐评、文学评论和他的理论著作一样，学识渊博，兼有清晰明快的行文风格。其主要著作包括《东方学》、《巴勒斯坦问
题》、《报道伊斯兰》、《文化与帝国主义》以及《流离失所的政治：巴勒斯坦自决的奋斗》等等。
目录
导论
第一章 单一国家方案
第二章 二○○○抵抗运动：巴勒斯坦人的起义
第三章 他们希望的是我闭嘴
第四章 恐怖主义的根源
第五章 以巴勒斯坦人的观点看以巴冲突
第六章 在胜利的集合点
第一章 单一国家方案
第二章 二○○○抵抗运动：巴勒斯坦人的起义
第三章 他们希望的是我闭嘴
第四章 恐怖主义的根源
第五章 以巴勒斯坦人的观点看以巴冲突
第六章 在胜利的集合点
书摘插图
第一章 单一国家方案一九九九年二月八日 科罗拉多州，博尔德，KGNU电台
阿拉法特（Yasir Arafat）的健康明显欠佳。他会抖，形容憔悴。你对他的健康状况有所了解吗？
上 星期我相当凑巧遇到阿拉法特的一个忠实追随者（我们坐同一班机），他告诉我阿拉法特的健康好得不得了，只是有一点点抖，如此而已。但其他人却相信他得了 帕金森症，一个住在加沙地带、不久前见过他的医生也是这种看法。不管怎样，过去一年来见过阿拉法特而又跟我谈过话的人都表示，他的灵活性和警觉性都大不如 前。所以我怀疑帕金森症之说是真的。尽管如此，他仍然抓住一切不放。大至国家文件小至下属请假单都要经过他签署。任何事情都要先经过他的办公桌。他仍然是 个鸡毛蒜皮都管的总经理（micromallager）。他的大部分下属（包括他的部长）都有怨言，却没能力改变什么。
我 觉得有一件很重要的事是大多数人都忽略的：阿拉法特是巴勒斯坦地区内最大的一名雇主。除了臃肿的官僚体系以外，他的安全卫队人数高达四万。这是非常没有 生产性的经济部门。除此以外，拜他的消费习惯所赐，自治政府对任何下层建设毫无认真的投资。所以，依我所见，巴勒斯坦现在的状况是死水一摊，一天比一天 坏，而这主要是归咎于他的统治方法。他关心的只是抓牢权力，确保没有对手挑战他的地位或政治结构发生任何改变。就像约旦的统治者一样，他的权力大部分都是 以色列和美国所授予的。
主流媒体完全知觉不到有什么正在发生着
你的书从前在阿拉法特统治的地区被禁。现在还这样吗？
确 实情况很难知道。你可以买得到它们。它们偷偷摸摸在流通。在一个电子邮件、影印和传真大行其道的时代，没有什么是真的禁得了的。一年前我在那里的时候， 被一个杂货店老板认出（他也卖书）。他告诉我：“我有卖你的书，但都是放在柜台下面，以防有‘民族权力机构’的人经过看到。”那是在希伯伦市 （Hebron）。更讽刺稀奇的是，在我的书被禁的一年后，我收到资讯部长拉布的（Yasir Abed Rabbo）——禁书令就是他签署的——一封信，想征得我的同意，让他们可以在约旦河西岸出版我的书。我当然不同意。
Islam and the West are inadequate banners
The
United States may too often have failed to look outside but it is
depressing how little time is spent trying to understand America
Observer special: War on terrorism
The globalisation debate
Observer special: War on terrorism
The globalisation debate
- The Observer, Sunday 16 September 2001
- Article history
For the residents of this wounded city, the consternation, fear, and sustained sense of outrage and shock will certainly continue for a long time, as will the genuine sorrow and affliction that so much carnage has so cruelly imposed on so many.
New Yorkers have been fortunate that Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a normally rebarbative and unpleasantly combative, even retrograde figure, has rapidly attained Churchillian status. Calmly, unsentimentally, and with extraordinary compassion, he has marshalled the city's heroic police, fire and emergency services to admirable effect and, alas, with huge loss of life. Giuliani's was the first voice of caution against panic and jingoistic attacks on the city's large Arab and Muslim communities, the first to express the commonsense of anguish, the first to press everyone to try to resume life after the shattering blows.
Would that that were all. The national television reporting has of course brought the horror of those dreadful winged juggernauts into every household, unremittingly, insistently, not always edifyingly. Most commentary has stressed, indeed magnified, the expected and the predictable in what most Americans feel: terrible loss, anger, outrage, a sense of violated vulnerability, a desire for vengeance and un-restrained retribution. Beyond formulaic expressions of grief and patriotism, every politician and accredited pundit or expert has dutifully repeated how we shall not be defeated, not be deterred, not stop until terrorism is exterminated. This is a war against terrorism, everyone says, but where, on what fronts, for what concrete ends? No answers are provided, except the vague suggestion that the Middle East and Islam are what 'we' are up against, and that terrorism must be destroyed.
What is most depressing, however, is how little time is spent trying to understand America's role in the world, and its direct involvement in the complex reality beyond the two coasts that have for so long kept the rest of the world extremely distant and virtually out of the average American's mind. You'd think that 'America' was a sleeping giant rather than a superpower almost constantly at war, or in some sort of conflict, all over the Islamic domains. Osama bin Laden's name and face have become so numbingly familiar to Americans as in effect to obliterate any his tory he and his shadowy followers might have had before they became stock symbols of everything loathsome and hateful to the collective imagination. Inevitably, then, collective passions are being funnelled into a drive for war that uncannily resembles Captain Ahab in pursuit of Moby Dick, rather than what is going on, an imperial power injured at home for the first time, pursuing its interests systematically in what has become a suddenly reconfigured geography of conflict, without clear borders, or visible actors. Manichaean symbols and apocalyptic scenarios are bandied about with future consequences and rhetorical restraint thrown to the winds.
Rational understanding of the situation is what is needed now, not more drum-beating. George Bush and his team clearly want the latter, not the former. Yet to most people in the Islamic and Arab worlds the official US is synonymous with arrogant power, known for its sanctimoniously munificent support not only of Israel but of numerous repressive Arab regimes, and its inattentiveness even to the possibility of dialogue with secular movements and people who have real grievances. Anti-Americanism in this context is not based on a hatred of modernity or technology-envy: it is based on a narrative of concrete interventions, specific depredations and, in the cases of the Iraqi people's suffering under US-imposed sanctions and US support for the 34-year-old Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Israel is now cynically exploiting the American catastrophe by intensifying its military occupation and oppression of the Palestinians. Political rhetoric in the US has overridden these things by flinging about words like 'terrorism' and 'freedom' whereas, of course, such large abstractions have mostly hidden sordid material interests, the influence of the oil, defence and Zionist lobbies now consolidating their hold on the entire Middle East, and an age-old religious hostility to (and ignorance of) 'Islam' that takes new forms every day.
Intellectual responsibility, however, requires a still more critical sense of the actuality. There has been terror of course, and nearly every struggling modern movement at some stage has relied on terror. This was as true of Mandela's ANC as it was of all the others, Zionism included. And yet bombing defenceless civilians with F-16s and helicopter gunships has the same structure and effect as more conventional nationalist terror.
What is bad about all terror is when it is attached to religious and political abstractions and reductive myths that keep veering away from history and sense. This is where the secular consciousness has to try to make itself felt, whether in the US or in the Middle East. No cause, no God, no abstract idea can justify the mass slaughter of innocents, most particularly when only a small group of people are in charge of such actions and feel themselves to represent the cause without having a real mandate to do so.
Besides, much as it has been quarrelled over by Muslims, there isn't a single Islam: there are Islams, just as there are Americas. This diversity is true of all traditions, religions or nations even though some of their adherents have futiley tried to draw boundaries around themselves and pin their creeds down neatly. Yet history is far more complex and contradictory than to be represented by demagogues who are much less representative than either their followers or opponents claim. The trouble with religious or moral fundamentalists is that today their primitive ideas of revolution and resistance, including a willingness to kill and be killed, seem all too easily attached to technological sophistication and what appear to be gratifying acts of horrifying retaliation. The New York and Washington suicide bombers seem to have been middle-class, educated men, not poor refugees. Instead of getting a wise leadership that stresses education, mass mobilisation and patient organisation in the service of a cause, the poor and the desperate are often conned into the magical thinking and quick bloody solutions that such appalling models pro vide, wrapped in lying religious claptrap.
On the other hand, immense military and economic power are no guarantee of wisdom or moral vision. Sceptical and humane voices have been largely unheard in the present crisis, as 'America' girds itself for a long war to be fought somewhere out there, along with allies who have been pressed into service on very uncertain grounds and for imprecise ends. We need to step back from the imaginary thresholds that separate people from each other and re-examine the labels, reconsider the limited resources available, decide to share our fates with each other as cultures mostly have done, despite the bellicose cries and creeds.
'Islam' and 'the West' are simply inadequate as banners to follow blindly. Some will run behind them, but for future generations to condemn themselves to prolonged war and suffering without so much as a critical pause, without looking at interdependent histories of injustice and oppression, without trying for common emancipation and mutual enlightenment seems far more wilful than necessary. Demonisation of the Other is not a sufficient basis for any kind of decent politics, certainly not now when the roots of terror in injustice can be addressed, and the terrorists isolated, deterred or put out of business. It takes patience and education, but is more worth the investment than still greater levels of large-scale violence and suffering.
209.11 大陸的注解很不錯。台灣在諸如"當下""現在"等的德文翻譯錯誤 (全沒注)。
世界.文本.批评家(the World,the Text,and the Critic)
基本信息
·出版社：生活·读书·新知三联书店·页码：620 页
·出版日期：2009年08月
·ISBN：7108031639/9787108031631
·条形码：9787108031631
·包装版本：第1版
内容简介
《世界·文本·批评家》是萨义德十二年内写成的论文结集，也是他早期的一部闻名遐迩的著作，共计十二章，内容十分广泛，对文本与文化批评理论进行了全面的 阐释，标志着当代文学理论继结构主义和解构主义之后的新发展。他的理论对福柯和德里达的有关理论均有所借鉴：用德里达的延异理论提出作为自由游戏的杂交文 化理论；用福柯的知识与权力关系理论、权力与反抗关系理论来剖析东方学，揭示东方学的实质是东方主义、文化霸权主义或霸权话语，指出消解话语霸权的方式是 争夺话语权。
作者简介
萨义德（Edward W Said，1935-2003），当今世界极具影响力的文学与文化批评家之一。出生于耶路撒冷，在英国占领期间就读于埃及开罗的西方学校，接受英式和美式 教育，1950年代赴美就学，获哈佛大学博士学位，1963年起任教于哥伦比亚大学，讲授英国文学与比较文学。代表作有：《起始：意图与方法》、《世界· 文本·批评家》、《东方学》、《文化与帝国主义》、《知识分子论》、《巴勒斯坦问题》等。萨义德还是有名的乐评家、歌剧学者、钢琴家，并以知识分子的身份 积极参与巴勒斯坦的政治运动，为巴勒斯坦在西方世界最雄辩的代言人。
媒体推荐
阅读一部截然不同于照本宣科，对于一种纯粹的、新生的思维方式不仅深思熟虑而且将之具体化的著作，实是一大愉悦。
——雷蒙·威廉斯，《先锋报》
这些令人深恩且必须以极大耐心来阅读的文章，激起了人们对于当代文学理论的质疑，并且需要读者付出这些争议问题所当然要求的审慎和严谨……本书出自一位敏锐天纵的智慧心灵，迫使我们去面对一切文学理论家不愿提出的问题和可能性。
——丹尼斯·多诺格霍，《新共和》
这部引人瞩目的著作，代表着对于文学批评的重大贡献，同时指出了批评所应该采取的新方向。
——《出版者周刊》
——雷蒙·威廉斯，《先锋报》
这些令人深恩且必须以极大耐心来阅读的文章，激起了人们对于当代文学理论的质疑，并且需要读者付出这些争议问题所当然要求的审慎和严谨……本书出自一位敏锐天纵的智慧心灵，迫使我们去面对一切文学理论家不愿提出的问题和可能性。
——丹尼斯·多诺格霍，《新共和》
这部引人瞩目的著作，代表着对于文学批评的重大贡献，同时指出了批评所应该采取的新方向。
——《出版者周刊》
编辑推荐
《世界.文本.批评家》是由生活·读书·新知三联书店出版的。
目录
序
致谢
绪论 世俗批评
第一章 世界·文本·批评家
第二章 斯威夫特的托利党人的无政府状态
第三章 知识分子的斯威夫特
第四章 康拉德：叙事的表征
第五章 论重复
第六章 论独创性
第七章 当代批评所历与未历之路
第八章 美国“左翼”文学批评的思考
第九章 文化与体系间的批评
第十章 旅行中的理论
第十一章 雷蒙·施瓦布与思想罗曼史
第十二章 伊斯兰教、语文文献学与法国文化：勒南和马西农
结论 宗教批评
注释
索引
译者后记
序言
爱德华·萨义德（1935-2003）在中国学术界的影响足令当代任何一位美国学者羡慕。三联书店近年推出他的作品系列，共两辑十一种，第一辑五种已出， 第二辑六种正在翻译出版过程中，其中以《世界-文本·批评家》（1983）最为著名。萨义德在这本书中曾说：“任何事物一旦取得了文化偶像或者商品的地 位，便不再叫人感到兴趣。”也许他没想到自己日后也类乎文化偶像。萨义德曾任规模庞大的美国现代语言学会会长，在学界有很高的声望；他在1991年诊断出 罹患白血病后与之顽强抗争，保持了压力下的优雅风度；他崇敬的加拿大钢琴家格兰·古尔德放弃公开演奏的生涯，而他自己以言辞为琴弦，始终出现在媒体和公众 场合，发表演说，接受数以百计的采访；他音乐上的造诣赢得普遍的尊敬，多年与犹太裔指挥家巴伦博依姆合作；他长期为巴勒斯坦人的权利抗争，但是谴责阿拉法 特并指奥斯陆和平协议为巴勒斯坦的凡尔赛和约。所有这一切使他在国际上成为文化偶像般的公共知识分子。自从上世纪90年代以来，他在我国读书界也是炙手可 热，成为一个反抗所谓的“西方话语霸权”的符号，而这失之简单的符号一旦流行，与商品也相去不远了。不过，作为他的读者。
文摘
第一章 世界·文本·批评家1964年， 加拿大钢琴家格伦·古尔德告别了音乐舞台。其后，他的工作便仅只限于制作录音，或在电视和电台上进行广播。而对于这一或那一部钢琴曲，他是否一向或者偶尔 是一个令人信服的阐释者，虽然批评家们人言人殊，但毫无疑问的是，起码来说，他现在的每场演出都特色各异。至于古尔德近来工作怎样，这里有个例子可以考 虑。1970年，他根据李斯特改编的钢琴曲，发行了自己演奏的贝多芬《第五交响乐》（“TheFifthSymphony”）唱片。除了人们对于他奇怪地 选择这一钢琴曲（这甚至对为人非常偏执的古尔德本人也似乎不比寻常，以前他那些引发争议的演出，要么与古典音乐有关，要么与当代音乐有关）感到惊讶之外， 唱片的特别推介还另有奇特的地方。李斯特改编的贝多芬的乐曲不但是19世纪的事，而且，用钢琴家的话来说，还有其最异乎寻常的方面：它不仅没有满足于把音 乐会演出变成一场音乐鉴赏大师（virtuoso）自我展示的盛宴，而且因袭沿用其它器乐旋律，把它们的音乐变成钢琴家技艺的盛大演艺。由于过去往往试图 摹仿管弦乐的音质，总的说来，大多数改编乐曲都流露着浑厚和滞重。与多数改编乐曲相比，李斯特[改编]的《第五交响乐》却不那么叫人不快，这主要是因为它 改编得非常出色，适合于钢琴演奏，不过，即使它声音最为清澈的乐段，由古尔德演奏出来也十分不同寻常。他以往的演奏，其声调在所有钢琴家当中最为纯净、朴 素无华，这也是他以不可思议的能力，几乎把巴赫的复调音乐变成视觉经验的原因。简单说来，李斯特改编的乐曲虽然风格迥异，但古尔德在演奏上还是取得了巨大 成功。他的演奏，就像过去是巴赫式那样，现在听起来是李斯特式的了。
还不仅此。在我记忆中，伴随这一主要唱片发行的还有另外一张，那是古尔德和一 家唱片公司执行官的一次稍长的非正式访谈。古尔德告诉对方，他之回避“现场”演出，原因之一就是他养成了一个很不好的演奏习惯，一种风格上的夸张作风。比 方说，他在苏联巡回演出期间，便有几次觉得，自己进行演出的大厅使他曲解了巴赫变奏曲里的某些乐句——说到这里，他示范性地演奏了被曲解了的乐句——以便 “抓住”三楼包厢里的听众同他们进行交流。接着，他又一次演奏了那些乐句，来说明观众实际上不在场时，他演奏的音乐是怎样地更加准确，更没有诱惑力量。
从这个将改编、访谈和演出风格说明等等一包在内的情况所引申出这些小小的讽刺，似乎有些过分苛刻了。但却有利于说明我的主要论点：任何一方
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