15.《大空头》The Big Short

The book we're talking about today is called The Big Short.
This book is about the waves of people who shorted the market during the 2007 financial crisis in the US and who made a fortune during the crisis. Today we are going to focus on the author of this book, the famous American financial writer Michael Lewis.
When Michael Lewis was in college, he was studying art history at Princeton and his undergraduate thesis was a study of how the Italian sculptor Donatello drew on Greek and Roman sculpture, and had nothing to do with finance. Lewis took his thesis very seriously and when he had finished it, he handed it to his thesis advisor, an archaeologist, and asked him: How do you think I've done? The teacher said, "Let's put it this way, you mustn't write for a living. That's when Lewis' stubbornness got the better of him. In a speech back at his alma mater, he later said: "The moment I handed in my thesis, I knew what I wanted to do with my life: write senior theses, or rather, books.
After his undergraduate studies, Lewis went on to read economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science and after graduating he worked as a trader at the famous investment bank Salomon Brothers. How did he get this job? Very serendipitously, to put it mildly.
I was invited to a dinner party one evening and I happened to be sitting next to the wife of a big investment banker," Lewis recalls. The investment bank was Salomon Brothers. This bigwig's wife, almost by force, got her husband to give me a job. I knew nothing about Salomon Brothers at the time. However, Salomon Brothers was on the cusp of a Wall Street that was changing dramatically, and I was almost randomly placed in the best position to witness that madness. They groomed me to become an expert in financial derivatives within the firm. 
A year and a half later, Salomon Brothers started paying me hundreds of thousands of dollars to give guidance to professional investors on financial derivatives. Now I had something to write about: how crazy had Wall Street become at that time? Getting students fresh out of Princeton who had no understanding of money to pretend they were financial experts in general and paying them a substantial salary. That's how I lucked out with my next thesis.
It was at that moment that I called my father. I told him I was quitting a job that would bring me millions of dollars to write a book that would only get me a $40,000 advance, only to hear a long pause on the other end of the line - he said, "You can think about it. I asked: Why? He said, "You can work at Solomon for 10 years first, make your first buck, and then write your book." But I didn't think there was much to think about. I know the kind of feeling you get when you're passionate about something, because I felt it at Princeton. I longed to have that experience again.
So Lewis wrote Liar's Poker, based on his own experiences, when he was under 30, and it sold millions of copies. Suddenly, everyone said I was a genius writer," Lewis says. How ridiculous is that. Even I know that there is a more plausible explanation, and that its theme is "luck".
This is, of course, Lewis's self-deprecating remark. In fact, Lewis did have a great talent for writing, and the famous bestselling author Gladwell, who wrote Point Break and The Alienist, idolised Michael Lewis, whose work he felt was so good that he could not imitate it. Gladwell says that he reads Michael Lewis' books with the same mindset as watching Tiger Woods play golf: not up to the level of genius, but it's good to look at them every now and then to remind yourself what genius looks like. That's a really high rating.
And does Lewis himself have any idols? Yes, there was Fitzgerald, the author of The Great Gatsby. Lewis says: "Everyone read Fitzgerald in our day. The first day I got to Princeton, I thought, I'm going to be Emory Blaine! I'm a redneck who's going to hang out with these rich eastern kids! This Emory Bryan, a character in a Fitzgerald novel.
You see, the passion and skill of writing is thus passed on from one generation of writers to another through the power of example.
译文：
今天要聊的这本书叫《大空头》。
这本书讲的是2007年美国金融危机期间，有几波做空市场的人，他们在危机期间大赚了一笔。今天我们重点来聊聊这本书的作者，美国著名财经作家迈克尔·刘易斯。
迈克尔·刘易斯上大学时，是在普林斯顿修艺术史，他的本科毕业论文是研究意大利雕塑家多纳泰罗如何借鉴了希腊和罗马雕塑，和金融一点边儿都沾不上。刘易斯很认真地写论文，写完后交给他的论文导师，一个考古学家，问他：你觉得我写得怎么样？老师说，这么说吧，你可千万别以写作为生。这时候，刘易斯的倔脾气上来了。他后来在回母校的演讲中说：当我交上论文的那刻，我知道了我这一生想要从事的事业：写高级论文，或者说，写书。
本科毕业后，刘易斯去伦敦政治经济学院读经济学，毕业后在著名投资银行所罗门兄弟当交易员。他是怎么得到这份工作的呢？说起来非常偶然。
刘易斯回忆说：有一天晚上，我被邀请参加一个晚宴，我碰巧坐在了一个投资银行界大佬的夫人旁。那个投资银行就是所罗门兄弟。这位大佬夫人几乎是以强迫的方式，让她老公给了我一份工作。当时我对所罗门兄弟一无所知。然而，所罗门兄弟又处于正发生剧变的华尔街的风口浪尖，我几乎是被随机地安排到了可以见证那段疯狂历史的最佳岗位。他们把我培养成了公司内部金融衍生品的专家。 
一年半后，所罗门兄弟开始付给我好几十万美金的工资，来让我给职业投资人提供关于金融衍生品方面的指导。这下我就有了可以写的东西：当时的华尔街已经变得疯狂到什么程度？让那些刚从普林斯顿毕业的、对钱毫无理解的学生，假装自己是金融专家一般，付给他们可观的薪水。我就这样幸运地找到了我的下一个毕业论文。
就在那个时刻，我打电话给我父亲。我告诉他我会辞掉这份会给我带来上百万美金收入的工作，去写一本只能得到4万美金预付款的书，只听见电话那头一阵很长的停顿——他说，你可以再好好想想。我问：为什么？他说：你可以在所罗门先工作10年，赚好第一桶金，然后再写你的书。”但是我觉得没什么好多想的。我知道那种当你对某件事情产生热情时会有的感受，因为我在普林斯顿就感受到过。我渴望能再次得到这样的体验。
于是，刘易斯就根据自己的亲身经历，在不到30岁的时候写出了《说谎者的扑克牌》，一共卖了上百万本。刘易斯说：突然间，所有人都说我是个天才作家。这多么荒谬。就连我自己都知道，还有一个更加合理的解释，它的主题是“运气”。
这当然是刘易斯的自谦之词。事实上，刘易斯的确有很高的写作天分，著名畅销书作家格拉德威尔，就是写过《引爆点》和《异类》的那位，他把迈克尔·刘易斯当偶像，他觉得偶像的作品厉害到自己根本模仿不了。格拉德威尔说，他看迈克尔·刘易斯的书，跟看泰格·伍兹打高尔夫的心态是一样的：达不到天才的水平，但时不时地看看他们，提醒一下自己天才是什么样，也是一件好事。这评价真的非常高。
那刘易斯自己有没有偶像呢？有，是菲茨杰拉德，就是《了不起的盖茨比》的作者。刘易斯说：我们那时候人人都读菲茨杰拉德。我到普林斯顿的第一天，就在想，我这下可就成了艾默里·布莱恩啊！我这个乡巴佬要在这帮有钱的东部小孩里混日子了！这个艾默里·布莱恩，是菲茨杰拉德的小说里的一个人物。
你看，写作的热情和技巧，就这样通过榜样的力量，在一代代作家之间传承。