读与朝暮第八期：《一天的等待》

选择作品：A Day’s Wait  by Ernest Hemingway

    “文坛巨匠海明威的著名小说，冰山理论的集成之作，硬汉精神的全新维度。”

    “绝望之中的勇气，重压之下的优雅。”

     《一天的等待》围绕着一个简单的误会展开，讲述了一个九岁的男孩在寒冷的冬日患上流感，因为不懂得摄氏度和华氏度的区别，在误以为自己即将发烧死去的复杂心情中度过了一整天的故事。小说以其简明精炼的语言风格，从孩子的视角展示了海明威作品一贯的主题——在命定的失败和厄运面前能够保持人的尊严,在重压下表现出勇气和优雅风度,平静而坚定地接受自己的命运,内心的信念也从未因此而丧失。

内容干货

1. 作者简介，本文概要

    作者简介：Ernest Miller Hemingway, (born July 21, 1899, Cicero, Illinois, U.S.—died July 2, 1961, Ketchum, Idaho), American novelist and short-story writer, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. He was noted both for the intense masculinity of his writing and for his adventurous and widely publicized life. His succinct and lucid prose style exerted a powerful influence on American and British fiction in the 20th century.

    Notable Works: The Old Man and the Sea，A Farewell to Arms，The Sun Also Rises

     

    作品梗概：The story’s plot revolves around a simple misunderstanding with complicated consequences. The boy of nine, sick with influenza, is convinced that he is going to die because he is confused about a reading of his temperature. The boy’s father, unaware of his son’s confusing the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales, has no idea that his young son has been waiting to die all day.

 

2. 单词词组，地道表达

     九岁的孩子受困于the germs of influenza，却不知道这只是a light epidemic of flu。医生给miserable的孩子take the temperature并留下instructions for giving medicines。整整一天他seem detached from what is going on，父亲以为他变得lightheaded，解释过Celsius and Fahrenheit scales的区别的之后，孩子终于放下心来，slack and easy。

 

3. 散文佳句，沉浸赏析

     It was a bright, cold day, the ground covered with a sleet that had frozen so that it seemed as if all the bare trees, the bushes, the cut brush and all the grass and the bare ground had been varnished with ice.

    晴空下，千里冰封，雪径人踪灭。

    It was difficult to stand or walk on the glassy surface and the red dog slipped and slithered and I fell twice, hard, once dropping my gun and having it slide away over the ice.

    孩子陷入焦虑与恐惧的同时，外出打猎的父亲也遇到了困难……

    I went up to him and found him in exactly the position I had left him, white-faced, but with the tops of his cheeks flushed by the fever, staring still, as he had stared, at the foot of the bed.

    父亲打猎回来后，孩子依然面色苍白，保持着原来的姿势一动不动……

 

4. 主旨哲思，流连赏玩

     脆弱其表，坚硬其核

    “But when I came downstairs he was dressed, sitting by the fire looking a very sick and miserable boy of nine years.”

    “The hold over himself relaxed too, finally, and the next day it was very slack and he cried very easily at little things that of no importance.”

    分明是为微不足道的小事就哭笑打闹的年纪，在面对生死攸关时却展现出超常的魄力。

    坚忍强大，人性光辉

    “His face was very white and there were dark areas under his eyes. He lay still in the bed and seemed very detached from what was going on.”

    “Courage is grace under pressure.”

    “一个人如果害怕，还能勇敢么？” “人唯有恐惧时方能勇敢。”

    故事平静的海面之下涌动着隐隐的波澜，高歌生命的韧性，带读者领略其强大的内核。人生天地间，长路有险夷，在死亡阴影的笼罩之下，人的勇气与尊严愈加光辉。