提升英文阅读和写作，读一读《现代英文选评注》

再次安利夏济安先生的《现代英文选评注》。文末有彩蛋，北京的朋友别错过啊。

夏先生的这本《现代英文选评注》是为《学生英语文摘》撰写的评注专栏文章合集，首次出版于 1959 年。先生从自己的广泛阅读中，选取了 40 多篇现代英语作家的佳作节选加以评注，非常难得的素材。

通过阅读这本书，我们一来可以读到大师精选的好作品，读懂文字并且知道文字好在哪里；二来可以学习夏先生赏析语言的方法，尤其是对一些精微之处的赏析非常精彩，对我们的阅读、写作和翻译都非常有帮助。

阅读时，我建议大家自己先独立赏析字词句段。并且一定要对自己诚实，通过看先生的评注和查字典、搜索，把每一个细节都弄懂。只有这样，读完这本书后才会增加功力。

接下来我通过几个例子说明我是如何阅读，我从书中学到了什么。

我会先通读整段，遇到不认识的词、没有一次读懂的句子，先做标记。读完整段后再通过查词典、分析语法解决前面的问题，并做自己的赏析笔记。最后，再看先生的批注，通过对比找到差距。

比如书中选段 Two Mutes 来自长篇小说《心是个寂寞的猎者》（The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter）的选段：

The Greek was very fretful, and kept finding fault with the fruit drinks and food that Singer prepared for him. Constantly he made his friend help him out of bed so that he could pray. He fumbled with his hands to say 'Darling Mary' and then held to the small brass cross tied to his neck with a dirty string. His big eyes would wall up to the ceiling with a look of fear in them, and afterwards he was very sulky and would not let his friend speak to him.”

这段文字比较简单，如果是精读我会从字词角度这样做笔记：

• fretful 来自动词 fret，《经济学人》中常用 fret about 表示「担心」。

• find fault with 是个习惯表达，表示「找茬儿」，这里的 fault 是名词，作为动词时也可以表示「找茬儿」。

• fumbled with his hands to say 表示「用手笨拙地比划」。这里的 fumble with 和后面的 held to the small brass cross（紧握铜十字架）、eyes would wall (wall to roll in a dramatic manner）在这里表示写出了这哥们祈祷时的动作。

• sulky 表示「闷闷不乐的」，动词和名词都是 sulk，表示「生闷气」，比如惹到了女朋友，她可能就会 sulk。
  

... he looked up at the paling, peach-colored sky beyond the newly leafed branches.

The tone of the whole book is set in the first paragraph. The tone, in this case, is a mood, a dramatization of the wistful rebellion of youth, confronted with the hard facts of life, love and death. This mood is evoked by the very sound of the words in the first sentence: "In the late summer of that year…" and persists throughout the book.

In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plains to the mountains. 

音乐旋律的能不能感动人，据说是没有理由可讲的。但据我个人看来，海明威的第一句的句法的特点是几乎没有顿挫，少变化，多重复，拍子平整徐缓，然而以缓胜速，以拙胜巧。开头In the late summer of that year，七个字慢慢地拉得很长，隔了两个字，就又出现了in a house in a village，似乎很笨拙地把in重复应用。looked一字，遥指句末的mountains，虽然一气呵成，然而按部就班，不慌不忙，先是river，再是plains；而且两字之前，除冠词 the外，不加任何形容词。（这里加形容词的诱惑是很大的，但是加了形容词，拍子就乱了，作者至此，非沉住气克制自己不可。）第一句句法的要义如此，但是这和感情作用有什么关系呢？这就得请读者细心体会了。

He suffered from frequent indispositions and was seldom free from pain, but he was able by the exertion of his will to turn his attention away from his feelings just as though they did not concern him.

by the exertion of his will：运用其意志力量。此短语（phrase）插在able与to之间，其地位亦值得研究。当able出现之时，读者自然会等着后面的to：能够……能够什么呢？可是作者小弄玄虚，偏偏先来“by the exertion of his will”一个短语，再把to搬出来。这个用法至少有两点好处：一、意义可以更丰富：多一个短语，当然多一层意义；二、气势可以较舒缓：able与to直接相随，气势迫切，分开了语气就较婉转。然文章之道难有定规，有时文章意义要求单纯，气势要求爽利，这种办法就不合适了。总之，在读者意料不到的地方，插进几个字、一两个短语或甚至一个从句（clause），这就是文章的“装饰”，可以帮助文章的美。但是天下一切装饰，都要小心，否则随时都可能弄巧成拙的。如何运用得好，还得靠多读名家著作，培养正确的的品味性情。