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今天给大家推荐一本英语小说。这本小说曾被《绅士》杂志评为“史上最幽默的五十部文学作品”之一。
点击书虫英语阅读|英语听力小程序，即可阅读、测评全文。
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome is about three friends and a dog rowing their way along the Thames toward Oxford. The human characters on the boat are George, Harris, and the author, Jerome. The dog, Montmorency, is a rat terrier.
杰罗姆·K·杰罗姆的《三怪客泛舟记》讲述了三个朋友和一条狗沿着泰晤士河向牛津划船的故事。船上的人物有乔治、哈里斯和作者杰罗姆。那条狗叫“元帅”，是一只捕鼠犬。
The three young men consider themselves capable outdoorsmen, though they have trouble with simple outdoor survival skills. Setting up a tent flummoxes them. Cooking on a camp stove proves to be too complicated a task.
这三位年轻人认为自己是有能力的户外健将，尽管他们在户外生存技能方面还有困难。搭帐篷让他们很困惑，在露营炉上做饭也是一项过于复杂的任务。
Yet, they enjoy their journey, even though they end up taking a train for the last part of their trip back home from Oxford to London, due to foul weather. They get along relatively well, though they are occasionally at odds with one another.
然而，他们很享受自己的旅程，尽管恶劣天气让他们在从牛津到伦敦回家的最后一段旅程中搭乘了火车。他们相处得还不错，只是偶尔会有分歧。
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These disagreements are healed by Jerome’s humor. Their friendship is shown in the way they are willing to not only share a room at an inn, but also sleep three to a bed when necessary.这些分歧被杰罗姆的幽默所化解。他们的友谊表现在不仅愿意在旅店里同住一个房间，而且必要时还愿意同睡一张床。Along the way, Jerome tells stories about the places they visit. His stories tend in the direction of his own fanciful preferences, which harken back to tales of knights and damsels in distress. He extols, or praises and reveres, chivalry, the code of conduct that once bound the knights of Medieval Europe and England.杰罗姆这一路上讲述他们所到之处的故事。他的故事倾向于自己的幻想偏好，这让人想起了骑士和遇难少女的故事。他颂扬，或者说赞美和崇尚骑士精神，这是曾经约束中世纪欧洲和英国骑士的行为准则。The book flows much the same way their progress along the Thames progresses--it meanders. Traveling by rowboat, they are not controlled by the wind, so are able to determine their own path.这本书的行文方式与他们沿着泰晤士河前进的方式差不多，蜿蜒曲折。乘坐小艇旅行，他们不受风的控制，所以能够决定自己的道路。![]()
Jerome, known as J in the story, is the narrator. He represents the author, and shares many similarities with him at the time of the book’s publication in 1889. He is single, young, and a member of the middle class from London.杰罗姆，在故事中被称为J，是故事的叙述者。J如同作者，1889年该书出版时两人身上有许多相似之处。J单身，年轻，是伦敦中产阶级的一员。On occasion, his daydreaming about knights leads him to lose track of steering the boat, which causes some mischief for the three young men and Montmorency. He uses his humor to make fun of his own vanity, as well as that of his friends.有时候，他对骑士的白日梦会让他失去划船的方向，这给三个年轻人和元帅带来了一些麻烦。他用他的幽默来取笑自己的虚荣心，也取笑他的朋友。Humor and its relativity play a major part in the story and are principal themes. J states that point of view determines whether a person finds a situation funny. Beyond that, acknowledgement of this relativity leads to a new understanding of humor. The other unique thing about Three Men in a Boat is that J uses observational humor.幽默及其相对性在故事中起着重要作用，是故事的主题。J指出，观点决定了一个人是否觉得某种情况有趣。除此之外，对这种相对性的认可导致了对幽默的新理解。《三怪客泛舟记》的另一个独特之处在于，J使用了观察性幽默。![]()
For example, he comments that rope has a supernatural ability to tangle, even without human involvement. The same joke has lived on to the modern age with twinkle lights, which always seem to tangle once removed from their packaging.例如，他评论说，即使没有人参与，绳子也有一种超自然的“纠结”能力。同样的笑话一直延续到现代，闪闪发光的灯，一旦从包装上取下，似乎总是纠缠在一起。Observational comedy became popular in the 1950s, so this book is interesting in that it proves this style of humor was in use decades earlier. The other major theme in Three Men in a Boat is the pace of the narrative. As mentioned previously, the story moves as the river does.观察型喜剧在20世纪50年代开始流行，所以这本书很有意思，它证明了这种幽默风格在几十年前就开始使用了。《三怪客泛舟记》的另一个重要主题是叙事的节奏。如前所述，故事随着河流的流动而发展。For the most part, J tells the story--and all the stories within the story--at a relaxed pace, but there are certain moments and scenes where the tension rises. This mimics the way a river can become powerful in certain areas while remaining calm in others.在大多数情况下，J以轻松的节奏讲述这个故事--以及故事中的所有故事，但在某些时刻和场景中，紧张程度会上升。这模仿了河流在某些地方变得强大而在其他地方保持平静的方式。
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