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Day 1:Is there a piece of advice that you always remember

 英语共读 2020-12-04

Monday

各位书友,今天我们一起阅读《The Great Gatsby》1-10页。The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in 1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922. 

Question

Is there a piece of advice that you always remember?

是不是曾经也有那么一句忠告,让你永远铭记在心?

欢迎各位书友留言,文字语音都可以,中文英文均不限。

您的每一条留言对于我们都很重要!*3

英语共读编辑团队在后台等您来!在后台等您来!等您来!

  

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

我年纪还轻,阅历不深的时候,我父亲教导过我一句话,我至今还念念不忘。

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." In consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgments. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

“每逢你想要批评任何人的时候,”他对我说,“你就记住,这个世界上所有的人,并不是个个都有过你拥有的那些优越条件。”久而久之,我就惯于对所有的人都保留判断,保留判断是表示怀有无限的希望。我现在仍然唯恐错过什么东西,如果我忘记(如同我父亲带着优越感所暗示过的,我现在又带着优越感重复的)基本的道德观念是在人出世的时候就分配不均的。


When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be inuniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction--Gatsby, whore presented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away.

去年秋天我从东部回来的时候,我觉得我希望全世界的人都穿上军装,并且永远在道德上保持一种立正姿势。我不再要参与放浪形骸的游乐,也不再要偶尔窥见人内心深处的荣幸了。唯有盖茨比——就是把名字赋予本书的那个人——除外,不属于我这种反应的范围——盖茨比,他代表我所真心鄙夷的一切。假如人的品格是一系列连续不断的成功的姿态,那么这个人身上就有一种瑰丽的异彩,他对于人生的希望具有一种高度的敏感,类似一台能够记录万里以外的地震的错综复杂的仪器。

My family have been prominent, well−to−do people in this middle-western city forthree generations. The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we're descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather's brother. I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter−raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm center of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe--so I decided to go east and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business, so I supposed it could support one more single man. Father agreed to finance me for a year, and after various delays I came east, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty−two.

我家三代以来都是这个中西部城市家道殷实的头面人物。姓卡罗威的也可算是个世家,据家平传说我们是布克娄奇公爵的后裔,但是我们家系的实际创始人却是我祖父的哥哥。我在一九一五年从纽黑文毕业,刚好比我父亲晚四分之一个世纪,不久以后我就参加了那个称之为世界大战的延迟的条顿民族大迁徙、我在反攻中感到其乐无穷,回来以后就觉得百无聊赖了。中西部不再是世界温暖的中心,而倒像是宇宙的荒凉的边缘——于是我决定到东部去学债券生意。我所认识的人个个都是做债券生意的,因此我认为它多养活一个单身汉总不成问题。父亲答应为我提供一年的费用,然后又几经耽搁我才在一九二二年春天到东部去,自以为是一去不返的了。


And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, justas things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

眼看阳光明媚,树木忽然间长满了叶子,就像电影里的东西长得那么快,我就又产生了那个熟悉的信念,觉得生命随着夏天的来临又重新开始了。

There was so much to read, for one thing, and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college.

有那么多书要读,这是一点,同时从清新宜人的空气中也有那么多营养要汲取。我买了十来本有关银行业、信贷和投资证券的书籍,除此之外,我还有雄心要读许多别的书。我在大学的时候是喜欢舞文弄墨的。

It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound.

纯粹出于偶然,我租的这所房子在北美最离奇的一个村镇。这个村镇位于纽约市正东那个细长的奇形怪状的小岛上——那里除了其他大自然奇观以外,还有两个地方形状异乎寻常。离城二十英里路,有一对其大无比的鸡蛋般的半岛,外形一模一样,中间隔着一条小湾,一直伸进西半球那片最恬静的咸水,长岛海峡那个巨大的潮湿的场院。

I lived at West Egg, the--well, the less fashionable of the two. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard. It was Gatsby's mansion. Or, rather, as I didn't know Mr. Gatsby, it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name.

我住在西卵,这是两个地方中比较不那么时髦的一个。我的房子紧靠在鸡蛋的顶端,离海湾只有五十码,挤在两座每季租金要一万二到一万五的大别墅中间。我右边的那一幢,不管按什么标准来说,都是一个庞然大物。这是盖茨比的公馆。或者更确切地说这是一位姓盖茨比的阔人所住的公馆,因为我还不认识盖茨比光生。


Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin onceremoved, and I'd known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two dayswith them in Chicago.

小湾对岸,东卵豪华住宅区的洁白的宫殿式的大厦沿着水边光彩夺目,那个夏天的故事是从我开车去那边到汤姆-布坎农夫妇家吃饭的那个晚上才真正开始的。黛西是我远房表妹,汤姆是我在大学里就认识的。大战刚结束之后,我在芝加哥还在他们家住过两天。

Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven. His family were enormously wealthy--even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach--but now he'd left Chicago and come East in a fashion that rather took your breath away.

她的丈夫,除了擅长其他各种运动之外,曾经是纽黑文有史以来最伟大的橄榄球运动员之一。他家里非常有钱——还在大学时他那样任意花钱已经遭人非议,但现在他离开了芝加哥搬到东部来,搬家的那个排场可真要使人惊讶不已。

And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.

于是,在一个温暖有风的晚上,我开车到东卵去看望两个我几乎完全不了解的老朋友。他们的房子比我料想的还要豪华。汤姆-布坎农身穿骑装,两腿叉开,站在前门阳台上。

He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw−haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. It was a body capable of enormous leverage--a cruel body.

从纽黑文时代以来,他样子已经变了。现在他是三十多岁的人了,时体健壮,头发稻草色,嘴边略带狠相,举止高傲。两只炯炯有神的傲慢的眼睛已经在他脸上占了支配地位,给人一种永远盛气凌人的印象。这是一个力大无比的身躯,一个残忍的身躯。

His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousnes she conveyed.

他说话的声音,又粗又大的男高音,增添了他给人的性情暴戾的印象。


"Now, don't think my opinion on these matters is final," he seemed to say, "just because I'm stronger and more of a man than you are."

“我说,你可别认为我在这些问题上的意见是说了算的,”他仿佛在说,“仅仅因为我力气比你大,比你更有男子汉气概。”

We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.

我们在阳光和煦的阳台上谈了几分钟。

"I've got a nice place here," he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly.

“我这地方很不错。”他说,他的眼睛不停地转来转去。

"It belonged to Demaine, the oil man." He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. "We'll go inside."

“这地方原来属于石油大王德梅因。”他又把我推转过身来,客客气气但是不容分说,“我们到里面去吧。”

We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy−colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding−cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine−colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

我们穿过一条高高的走廊,走进一间宽敞明亮的玫瑰色的屋子。两头都是落地长窗,把这间屋子轻巧地嵌在这座房子当中。这些长窗都半开着。在外面嫩绿的草地的映衬下,显得晶莹耀眼,那片草仿佛要长到室内来似的。一阵轻风吹过屋里,把窗帘从一头吹进来,又从另一头吹出去,好像一面面白旗,吹向天花板上糖花结婚蛋糕似的装饰;然后轻轻拂过绛色地毯,留下一阵阴影有如风吹海面。

The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house.

屋子里唯一完全静止的东西是一张庞大的长沙发椅,上面有两个年轻的女人,活像浮在一个停泊在地面的大气球上。她们俩都身穿白衣,衣裙在风中飘荡,好像她们乘气球绕着房子飞了一圈刚被风吹回来似的。

Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.

忽然砰然一声,汤姆-布坎农关上了后面的落地窗,室内的余风才渐渐平息,窗帘、地毯和两位少妇也都慢慢地降落地面。

重点句子

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

“每逢你想要批评任何人的时候,”他对我说,“你就记住,这个世界上所有的人,并不是个个都有过你拥有的那些优越条件。”

I’m still afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

我现在仍然唯恐错过什么东西,如果我忘记(如同我父亲带着优越感所暗示过的,我现在又带着优越感重复的)基本的道德观念是在人出世的时候就分配不均的。

And so with sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer。

眼看阳光明媚,树木忽然间长满了叶子,就像电影里的东西长得那么快,我就又产生了那个熟悉的信念,觉得生命随着夏天的来临又重新开始了。

“Now don’t think my opinion on these matters is final”, he seemed to say,” just because I’m stronger and more of a man than you are.

“我说,你可别认为我在这些问题上的意见是说了算的,”他仿佛在说,“仅仅因为我力气比你大,比你更有男子汉气概。” 

重点词汇

1.vulnerable:易受攻击的,易受伤害的,有弱点的。

2.privileged:享有特权的,有特别恩典的。

3.prominent:突出的,显著的;杰出的;卓越的

4.colossal:巨大的;异常的,非常的

5.supercilious:目空一切的,高傲的;傲慢的,自大的

6.gleam:闪烁;隐约地闪现

本月共读《The Great Gatsbty》英文版

点击公众号菜单栏“每月读原著”立即加入有书英语共读

主播:Wilson,口语培训师。爱音乐,爱运动,爱英语,兴趣广泛,尤其对和声音有关的一切事情充满热情。个人公众号:Wilson语音范

领读达人:谢可慧,专栏作者。热爱读书写字,迷恋任何具有挑战性的人和事。新浪微博:谢可慧的村庄,个人公众号:秋小愚

设计:刘莹,英语共读首席体验官

编校:刘亚南,英语共读负责人,85后


—共读书籍简介—

《了不起的盖茨比》是美国作家弗·司各特·菲茨杰拉德1925年所写的一部以20世纪20年代的纽约市及长岛为背景的中篇小说,小说的背景被设定在现代化的美国社会中上阶层的白人圈内,通过卡拉韦的叙述展开。

《了不起的盖茨比》问世,奠定了弗·司各特·菲茨杰拉德在现代美国文学史上的地位,成了20年代"爵士时代"的发言人和"迷惘的一代"的代表作家之一。20世纪末,美国学术界权威在百年英语文学长河中选出一百部最优秀的小说,《了不起的盖茨比》高居第二位,傲然跻身当代经典行列。


如何花3咖啡的价格一年轻松读完12本英文原著

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