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A Businessman & Teacher
出版生涯,教师情怀
Ding: What is it that attracted or ushered you into the publishing industry? And what's the happiest thing as a publisher?
Bourne: For someone with the sort of international background that I have, the global reach of Cambridge University Press was, of course, an attraction to me when I first joined the Press. However, there are three other main features which I found appealing: the high standards of integrity here, which I have always believed is the best way of conducting a business if you want it to survive in the long-term; the intellectual content of what we produce, which is far more satisfying than some of the things that are produced in other kinds of business; and the fact that we also manufacture a
physical product—books—which we can see and touch and which we know will survive for a very long time in libraries.
Ding: You've been in the publishing industry for more than 20 years, Mr. Bourne. Now how would you like to define yourself? A scholar or a businessman?
Bourne: I think of myself as an international businessman and a teacher. The first paid job that I did in my life was as an English language teacher in France, and I come from a family of teachers. So perhaps it is not surprising that, although I have now become a businessman, the mentality of a teacher remains with me and I get great satisfaction from that.
Ding: OK, the last question: What's the book that influenced you most, and why?
Bourne: Curiously, perhaps, the book that has made the greatest impression on me was by a French author, Gustave Flaubert6), and the book was Madame Bovary. What particularly impressed me was the fact that Flaubert had spent so long writing and re-writing the text until he was satisfied that his use of the French language was as perfect as it could be and it expressed his ideas in the very best way he was able to achieve. That search for perfection and the love of words in highly developed languages is something that has always remained with me.
1. provost n. (大学中某些学院的)院长;教务长
2. ethos n. 社会精神特质
3. asset n. 资源,优势
4. recruit n. 新成员
5. disseminate vt. 传播
6. Gustave Flaubert:古斯塔夫·福楼拜(1821~1880),法国现实主义作家,代表作为《包法利夫人》(Madame Bovary)。