亲历美国流行文化

    作品合集就像袋装的软糖。如果糖果制造商是一个高品质的品牌，比如说吉利贝利（Jelly Belly），即使你不喜欢的味道也还是相当不错的。《魔幻时刻》（Magic Hours）就属于这类。这本本月出版的记者汤姆•比塞尔作品集，涉及了从罗伯特•D•卡普兰的战争报道到沃纳•赫尔佐格的纪录片在内众多颇费脑力的主题。

    比塞尔现在定期为ESPN的Grantland撰写游戏评论，他的文笔非常迷人，经常（但并非总是）把那些似乎不可能吸引主流读者的主题写得妙趣横生。比塞尔的写作对象大都晦涩难懂，但把任何主题都写得生动有趣不正是记者的职责吗？需要事先警告一下的是，这本书大多数文章的真正主角其实是比塞尔自己。

    比如，比塞尔撰文，描写杰夫•丹尼尔2001年在密歇根州埃斯卡诺巴市拍摄一部独立电影的过程时，文章就变成了他个人对家乡的回忆，因为比塞尔就是在这个城市长大的。再如，在撰写一篇关于一个有趣但书呆子气十足、名为地下文学联盟（Underground Literary Alliance）的教派时，他提到了约翰•肯尼迪•图勒深受欢迎的小说《笨蛋同盟》（A Confederacy of Dunces）。这本书的确与主题相关，但他还是按捺不住，写下了自己的评论（“出版史上最被高估的小说之一”）。又比如，为荒原小说家吉姆•哈里森（他碰巧是比塞尔父亲的一位朋友）撰写的一篇人物报道，文章既是在谈论哈里森，也是在谈论比塞尔自己。

    所有这一切都非常精致——这也是比塞尔为何将这些报道称之为“作品”的原因。如今，这个词预示着文章可以通过作者评论、插入语和尖刻的旁白偏离严格的客观性原则。当然，如果你寻找的是一篇对汤米•韦素的邪典电影《房间》（The Room）一本正经的叙述，你应该去维基百科查询，而不要选择阅读比塞尔动人但极具个性化的诠释。

    杂志新闻已经朝这个方向迈进了数十载，特别是古怪的流行文化这些深受比塞尔青睐的主题。甚至如《GQ》和《时尚先生》（Esquire）这类外表光鲜的主流杂志在进行名人报道时也自由运用第一人称，除了援引报道对象的语言之外，作者本人的反应和内心独白几乎占据了同等篇幅。

    在作者自序中，比塞尔写道，在那篇关于杰夫•丹尼尔的文章发表之后，一位编辑安排他去加拿大报道美国宇航局（NASA），比塞尔的回应是：“你知道我其实并不是记者吧？”然而，书中的这些文章依然属于新闻范畴。比塞尔不仅从事件或个人访谈现场发表报道，而且还充当读者的向导，不断地提醒我们他的存在。约翰•耶利米•沙利文、玛丽•罗奇和大卫•福斯特•华莱士等人（这是比斯尔公开崇拜的作家）的非虚构类作品也都带有这样的特征。

    毫不奇怪的是，这本书包含了两篇不那么放纵的文章，读者在文章中基本上看不到比塞尔的影子，这两篇文章的首发杂志都是《纽约客》（The New Yorker）。其中一篇是关于以《好汉两个半》（Two and a Half Men）成名的情景喜剧之王查克•洛尔，另一篇是关于视频游戏配音演员詹尼弗•哈尔。其他文章最初发表在诸如《追随者》（The Believer）这类媒体上，这本杂志隶属的麦克斯威尼出版社（McSweeney's）碰巧也是这本书的出版商。

    Essay collections are like bags of jellybeans. If the candy-maker is a high-quality brand like, say, Jelly Belly, then even the flavors you don't love will be pretty good. Such is the case with Magic Hours, a collection of essays out this month from journalist Tom Bissell that covers brainy topics ranging from the war reporting of Robert D. Kaplan to the documentary films of Werner Herzog.

    Bissell, who now writes regularly about video games for ESPN's Grantland, is engaging enough -- usually, but not always -- to make interesting even those essays whose topics seem unlikely to absorb the mainstream reading public. Most of Bissell's subjects are abstruse, but it's a journalist's job to make any topic interesting, right? Just be forewarned that the real subject in most of the essays collected here is Bissell himself.

    When he writes about the filming of a 2001 Jeff Daniels indie movie in Escanaba, Mich., the essay becomes a personal reflection on his hometown, because Bissell grew up in Escanaba. Writing about an intriguing, nerdy sect called the Underground Literary Alliance, he mentions John Kennedy Toole's beloved novel A Confederacy of Dunces, which is indeed relevant, but he can't resist including his own review ("one of the most overrated novels ever published"). A profile of the wilderness novelist Jim Harrison, who happens to be a friend of Bissell's father, is as much about Bissell as about Harrison.

    All of this is perfectly fine -- it's why Bissell calls these works of reportage "essays." Nowadays, the word signals a license to depart from strict objectivity via authorial comments, interjections and snarky asides. Of course, if you were looking for a straight-faced account of Tommy Wiseau's cult movie The Room, you would head to Wikipedia rather than reading Bissell's engaging but highly personalized interpretation.

    Magazine journalism has been headed this way for decades, especially journalism on the quirky, pop culture subjects that Bissell favors. Even mainstream celebrity profiles in glossy magazines like GQ and Esquire freely use the first-person voice, and feature the reactions and inner monologue of the author as much as quotes from the subject.

    In an Author's Note, Bissell notes that after his Jeff Daniels essay appeared, an editor assigned him to go report on NASA in Canada, to which Bissell responded: "You're aware that I'm not actually a journalist?" Nonetheless, these essays are works of journalism. Bissell is reporting from events or in-person interviews, but also acting as a guide to the reader, reminding us constantly of his presence. (See, also, the nonfiction of John Jeremiah Sullivan, Mary Roach, or David Foster Wallace, a writer whom Bissell openly worships.)

    It is no surprise, then, that the two least indulgent essays, from which Bissell is mostly absent, both appeared first in The New Yorker. (One is on sitcom-king Chuck Lorre of Two and a Half Men fame, the other on video-game voiceover actor Jennifer Hale). Other pieces were originally published in outlets like The Believer, which, as an imprint of McSweeney's, happens to be the publisher of this book.