all that self-conscious irony of the story,

那些故事中不自觉地冷嘲
all that humor at the level of names,

还有取名层面上的幽默
what really finally mattered was not that search for meaning,

真正有意义的不在于小说内涵的探索
but the moment when you could touch another human being.

而是你能够接触到另一种人群的那一刻
And Pynchon is interested in certain kinds of essences

品钦对于这类的精髓感兴趣
--like dandelion wine, or tears, or the sailor's mattress--

就像蒲公英酒眼泪或是水手的床垫
that hold in them, in suspension,

那些在人们生活的循环和活动中
the cycles and movements of human life.

将你包容在内使你飘飘然的东西
Morrison has that same desire to hold the human in her fiction,

莫里森也有着让人们融入小说这个愿望
and so this is one reason why Morrison chooses the novel.

这就是莫里森选择小说的一个原因
This is the first of the reasons:

这就是第一个原因
to hold the human in suspension in the novel.

让人们沉溺地融入到小说之中