|
Text 1
About the author
A faculty member at George Mason University since 1976, Shreve founded,
directed, and currently teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing in the
GMU graduate school. She has also taught at George Washington University,
Bennington College, Columbia University, and Princeton University. In addition to her novels and
children's books, she has co-edited an anthology called Skin Deep: Black
Women & White Women Write About Race, and is at work on a new anthology
titled Fiction Beginnings.
Susan Richards Shreve is practically the definition of "prolific."
She's written twelve novels for adults and 24 children's books. One of Shreve's most recent published work is
Plum & Jaggers, a novel that is written for adults but centers around a family of children who
are orphaned during a terrorist attack on a train. Of these characters Shreve
has written, "the children in Plum & Jaggers as well as my own are
conditioned by that moment in our national history when the cultural values
of the first half of the century which belonged to a time of optimism, patriotism,
and self-confidence were shattered, to be replaced by the general cynicism,
insecurity, and inevitable self-interest of today's generations...I'd also been
thinking about the comic voice in America, how dark it is and sometimes very
cruel."
Shreve has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National
Endowment for the Arts, among many others. She is the mother of four grown children
and lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband.
Language notes
1. Anyway, I got my
desk ready to study on since it was stacked with about two
million things.
(桌上堆满了数不清的东西。于是，我先收拾好了书桌以便学习。)
Stack means to put piles of something on or in a place.
2.
My mother's one of those people who tells you everything you've
done wrong for thirty years like you do it every day.
(我母亲就是那种人。你一旦犯了错，她就将这个错挂在嘴边，每天重复，说上整整30年，就好像你天天都在重犯这个错误一样。)
Note like as used here is informal and often seen in American English,
meaning as if or as though.
e.g. He always talks like he is the king of the whole universe.
= He always talks as if he were the king of the whole universe.
3.
I began to wonder whether I was plain bad to the core.
(我开始怀疑自己是否已经坏到根儿了。)
Here plain is in its American usage, meaning "clearly, simply".
4.
"How come?" he calls back not surprised or anything.
(“到底怎么了？”他大声问道，丝毫也没感到吃惊。)
Or anything is informal, meaning another thing similar to
that mentioned.
e.g. If you want to argue or anything, I'm just not in such a mood.
5.
He doesn't say anything at first and that just about kills
me.
(他一开始并没说什么。正因为如此，我才被折磨得够呛。)
Just about means nearly.
Text 2
About the author
Sherwood Anderson was born in Camden, Ohio. His parents led a transient life,
moving from one place to another after work. His father had served in the Union
Army and declined from the saddlery-and-harness business into odd jobs of
house. Anderson attended school only intermittently, while helping
to support his family by working as a newsboy, housepainter, stock handler,
and stable groom. At the age of 17 he moved to Chicago where he worked as a
warehouse laborer and attended business classes at night. During the Spanish-American
war Anderson fought in Cuba and returned after the war to Ohio, for a final
year of schooling at Wittenberg College, Springfield.
For the next few years Anderson moved restlessly around Ohio. His life calmed
down for some time with marriage and with work as a paint manufacturer. After
suffering an emotional crisis — more or less orchestrated by Anderson himself
— because of the conflicting demands of his family, business and creative life,
he left his wife, 'bourgeois lifestyle', and moved to Chicago. There he took
again a job in advertising and joined the so-called Chicago Group, which included
such writers as Theodore Dreiser and Carl Sandburg.
Anderson's first two novels were Windy Mcpherson's Son (1916) and Marching
Men
(1917), both containing the psychological themes of inner lives of Midwestern
villages, the pursuit of success and disillusionment. His third novel, Winesburg,
Ohio, was "half individual tales, half long novel form", as the author
himself described it. It consisted of twenty-three thematically related sketches
and stories. Writing in a simple, realistic language illuminated by a muted
lyricism, Anderson dramatized crucial episodes in the lives of his characters.
The narrative is united by the appearance of George Willard, a young reporter,
who is in revolt against the narrowness of the small-town life and who acts
as a counterpoint to the other people of the town. The individual tales of Winesburg,
Ohio, and Anderson's other collections of short stories, The Triumphs of
the Egg (1921), Horses and Men (1932), and Death in the Woods (1933), directed the
American short story away from the neatly plotted tales of O. Henry and his
imitators. The stories in these books are characterized by a casual development,
complexity of motivation, and an interest in psychological process.
In 1921 Anderson received the first Dial Award for his contribution to American
literature. He travelled widely in Europe — in Paris he met Gertrude Stein,
whose work he much admired. After he returned back to the United States, he
settled in New Orleans, where he shared an apartment with William Faulkner.
He wrote, among others, the novel Dark Laughter (1925), which became a bestseller.
In the story the disillusioned protagonist travels down the Mississippi imagining
the kind of book Mark Twain might now write.
From New Orleans Anderson moved to New York for some time, and from there finally
to Marion, Virginia, where he built a country house, and worked as a farmer
and journalist. In 1927 he bought both of Marion's weekly newspapers, one Republican,
one Democrat, and edited them for two years. To earn extra income he continued
his series of lectures throughout the country. Commissioned by Today magazine,
Anderson studied the labor conditions during the Depression and collected his
articles in Puzzled American (1935). Anderson's newspaper pieces were collected
in Hello Towns (1929), Return to Winesburg (1967) and The
Buck Fever Papers
(1971).
Anderson's best works influenced almost every important American writer of the
next generation. He also encouraged William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway in
their writing aspirations. Anderson died of peritonitis on an unofficial good-will
tour to South America, at Christobal, Canal Zone, on March 8, in 1941. After
his death, Anderson's reputation soon declined, but in the 1970s, scholars and
critics have found a new interest in his work. During his lifetime Anderson
wrote two autobiographical works, A Story-teller's Story (1924) and semifictional
Tar: A Midwest Childhood (1926).
Language notes
1.
He was, inflammatory rheumatism and all.
(他只是有风湿性关节炎。)
And all means and everything similar, and so on.
e.g. I used to tell lies if asked to do what I didn't like ,even though I often
got punished and all.
2.
I came pretty near telling her right out that I had inflammatory
rheumatism but I thought I'd better not.
(我差点儿就说出自己得了风湿性关节炎，但我想最好还是别说。)
Come near doing something means almost, nearly.
3.
I was pretty sore at Mother.
(我很是生母亲的气。)
Sore at somebody is informal and American expression, meaning to feel hurt and
angry, usually because of unfair treatment.
4.
We had it out, there in the pool.
(于是，我们就在水里一决胜负。)
Have it out means to solve a problem by arguing or fighting.
5.
He was a big one all right.
(它的确是条大鱼。)
All right here means definitely, certainly. This informal usage is also seen in the last
sentence of the story.
TOP |
