外研版选修一册第二单元阅读讲解

Unit 2 Onwards and upwards

第14页阅读讲解

We Regret to Inform You...
我们抱歉地通知您……

1 “We regret to inform you...” These are the words that every writer dreads receiving, but words every writer knows well. The response from a publisher comes back and the writer eagerly opens and reads it, their hearts sinking when they reach that final sentence. You may have spent years giving up your weekends and free time to write your life's work, yet still this is often not enough. Everyone knows that success rarely happens overnight, but perhaps not many know that a lot of highly successful writers have previously faced rejection.
“我们抱歉地通知您……” 这句话对每个作家而言既害怕又熟悉。出版商给了反馈，作家急切地拆开来读，但读到这最后一句，心随即跌落谷底。你可能已经花费数年时间，放弃了周末和空闲时间去创作你的毕生作品，但这往往还不够。大家都明白，成功不是一蹴而就的；但也许很多人都不知道，许多卓越的作家也都曾被拒稿。

2 Take for example J.K. Rowling. When she received her first rejection letter, she decided that it meant she now had something in common with her favourite writers, and stuck it on her kitchen wall. Rowling had spent years surviving on little money, spending all her time writing. When she finally finished her first book, she received comments from publishers along the lines of “too difficult for children”, “too long”, “Children would not be interested in it”. Nevertheless, she persevered. “I wasn't going to give up until every single publisher turned me down, but I often feared that would happen,” she later posted. After a total of twelve rejections, one publisher eventually agreed to print 500 copies of her first book, and as we know, Harry Potter became a global success, with over 400 million books sold and translated into more than seventy different languages.
以J. K. 罗琳为例。当她收到第一封拒稿信时，她决定把这看作是自己与喜爱的作家之间有了共同之处，并把这封信贴在厨房的墙上。罗琳过了很多年拮据的生活，她把所有时间都用在写作上。当她终于完成第一本书时，出版商给出的评价却是“对孩子来说太难理解” “太长” “孩子们不会对它感兴趣”等等。尽管如此，她还是坚持了下来。“我不会放弃的，除非所有的出版商都拒绝我。不过我常常担心这真的会发生。”她后来说。在收到12封拒稿信后，终于有一家出版商同意将她的第一本书印刷500册。我们都知道，《哈利·波特》后来在全球大获成功，销量超过4亿册，被翻译成了70多种不同的语言。

3 All too often writers of great works have had to face criticism along with rejection. J.D. Salinger started writing short stories in high school, but later struggled to get his works published. “We feel that we don't know the central character well enough” was the criticism he received on his manuscript for The Catcher in the Rye. Despite rejections from several publishers, J.D. Salinger refused to give up. Even when serving in the US Army during the Second World War, he carried six chapters of The Catcher in the Rye with him and worked on the novel throughout his war service. When it was eventually published, the book became an immediate best-seller and went on to sell millions and millions of copies.
伟大作品的作家也常常在被回绝的同时还要遭受批评。J. D. 塞林格从高中就开始写短篇小说了，但之后他的作品却难以发表。“我们觉得自己无法充分理解主人公。” 这是他的《麦田里的守望者》的手稿收到的批评。即使被多家出版商回绝，J. D. 塞林格也从未放弃。甚至在二战期间在美国陆军服役时，他还随身携带了《麦田里的守望者》一书的六章内容，并在整个服役期间一直致力于小说的修改。最终，这本书一经出版，便立刻成为畅销书，卖出了上千万册。

4 Perhaps the overall prize for perseverance should go to three sisters from Victorian England who dreamt of seeing their words in print. This, however, was a time when women were not encouraged to become writers. As the then Poet Laureate, Robert Southey, wrote to one of them: “Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be.” Nevertheless, the sisters didn't stop trying. Their response was to write a book of poems under male names. Even when the book sold only two copies, the sisters still didn't give up. They started writing novels, and today Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey are regarded as classics of world literature. In fact, it is within the pages of Jane Eyre that we can find these words: “I honour endurance, perseverance, industry, talent; because these are the means by which men achieve great ends…”
也许坚持不懈的最高荣誉应该颁给来自英国维多利亚时代的三姐妹。她们梦想着看到自己的作品出版。然而，这是一个不鼓励女性成为作家的时代。正如当时的桂冠诗人罗伯特·骚塞在给她们其中一位的信中所说：“文学不可能也不应该成为女人的事业。”尽管如此，三姐妹并没有放弃尝试。她们的应对方式是以男性名字为笔名写了一本诗集。虽然这本诗集只卖出了两册，但她们还是没有放弃，转而开始写小说。如今，夏洛蒂·勃朗特的《简·爱》、艾米莉·勃朗特的《呼啸山庄》和安妮·勃朗特的《艾格妮丝·格雷》被认为是世界文学的经典之作。其实，这正印证了我们在《简·爱》中读到的：“我崇尚忍耐、坚毅、勤奋、天赋；因为只有依靠这些，人们才能实现宏大的目标……”

5 So, it seems that talent alone isn't enough to guarantee success. While a lot of hard work and a touch of luck play a part, perseverance is the key. Keep trying and eventually you will read the words “We are delighted to inform you…”
因此，似乎仅凭天赋不足以保证成功。不懈的努力和一点点运气固然很重要，但坚持不懈才是关键。坚持下去，你终会收到这样的回复：“我们高兴地通知您……”

第20页阅读讲解

Three Days to See
假如给我三天光明

1 I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life. Darkness would make him more appreciative of sight; silence would teach him the joys of sound.
我常常思忖，如果每个人在青年时期都有一段时间看不见、听不见，那会是一件幸运的事情，因为黑暗会使人更加珍惜视力，静默能教会人享受声音的美妙。

2 Now and then I have tested my seeing friends to discover what they see. Recently, I asked a friend who had just returned from a long walk in the woods what she had observed. “Nothing in particular,” she replied.
我时常询问我那些看得见的朋友们，想了解他们看到了什么。最近，我问一个从林子里散步了许久回来的朋友观察到了什么，她答道：“没什么特别的。”

3 How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing worthy of note? I who cannot see find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. If I can get so much pleasure from touch, how much more beauty must be revealed by sight? And I have imagined what I should most like to see if I were given the use of my eyes, say for just three days.
我问自己，在林子里散步一小时之久却没有看到任何值得注意的东西，这怎么可能呢？我一个看不见的人，仅仅通过触觉，就能发现成百上千件引起我兴趣的东西。如果仅仅通过触觉就能得到如此多的快乐，那么视觉能展现多少美好的事物啊。我想象过，如果我能被恩赐恢复视觉，哪怕只有三天，我最希望看到什么。

4 On the first day, I should want to see the people whose kindness and gentleness and companionship have made my life worth living. I do not know what it is to see into the heart of a friend through that “window of the soul”, the eye. I can only “see” through my fingertips the outline of a face. I should like to see the books which have been read to me, and which have revealed to me the deepest channels of human life and the human spirit. In the afternoon I should take a long walk in the woods and intoxicate my eyes on the beauties of the world of nature. That night, I should not be able to sleep.
第一天，我想见几个人，他们用善良、温柔和陪伴让我觉得我有活下去的意义。我不知道通过“心灵的窗户”——眼睛来了解一个朋友是怎样一种体验。因为我只能通过我的指尖“看见”朋友的面部轮廓。我还要看书，那些别人读给我的书，那些为我揭示了人生和人类精神的深刻奥秘的书。到了下午，我要在树林中散步，让我的目光陶醉在大自然世界的美景中。这个夜晚，我夜不能寐。

5 On my second day, I should like to see the pageant of man's progress, and I should go to the museums. I should try to probe into the soul of man through his art. The things I knew through touch I should now see. The evening of my second day I should spend at a theater or at the movies.
第二天，我想看人类发展的奇观，我要去博物馆。我要通过人类的艺术探究人类的灵魂。那些之前通过触摸知晓的事物，我现在要亲眼看一看。而这一天的傍晚，我要在剧院或电影院度过。

6 The following morning, I should again greet the dawn, anxious to discover new delights, new revelations of beauty. Today I shall spend in the workaday world, amid the haunts of men going about the business of life.
第三天清晨，我将再次迎接黎明，热切地去探索更多愉悦，发现更多美好。这天我将在平凡的世界里度过，在为生活奔波的人们常去的地方度过。

7 At midnight permanent night would close in on me again. Only when darkness had again descended upon me should I realize how much I had left unseen.
午夜，永恒的黑暗将再次把我笼罩。唯有在黑暗再次来袭时，我才意识到我还有那么多事情没有看到。

8 I who am blind can give one hint to those who see: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can be applied to the other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. But of all the senses, I am sure that sight must be the most delightful.
我，一个盲人，可以给那些看得见的人一个忠告：要像明天就要惨遭失明之痛一样去使用你的眼睛。同样的方法也能用于其他感官：要像明天就要惨遭失聪之痛一样，去仔细聆听音乐的旋律、鸟儿的歌唱、交响乐的震撼音符；要像明天就会触觉衰退一样，去触摸你想摸的每件物品；要像明天就会丧失嗅觉和味觉一样，去闻鲜花的芬香，品尝美味佳肴。但是，在所有的感觉中，我相信，视觉一定是最令人愉快的。

(Excerpts from “Three Days to See” by Helen Keller)
(节选自海伦·凯勒的《假如给我三天光明》)