My listening diary - Do you listen to audiobooks today? [复制链接]

It took six hours for me to listen to the first four paragraphs. Now I take dictation as follows:

  Scarlet O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin—that skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns.
      
  Seated with Stuart and Brent Tarleton in the cool shade of the porch of Tara, her father’s plantation, that bright April afternoon of 1861, she made a pretty picture. Her new green flowered-muslin dress spread its twelve yards of billowing material over her hoops and exactly matched the flat-heeled green morocco slippers her father had recently brought her from Atlanta. The dress set off to perfection the seventeen-inch waist, the smallest in three counties, and the tightly fitting basque showed breasts well matured for her sixteen years. But for all the modesty of her spreading skirts, the demureness of hair netted smoothly into a chignon and the quietness of small white hands folded in her lap, her true self was poorly concealed. The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent, willful, lusty with life, distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor. Her manners had been imposed upon her by her mother’s gentle admonitions and the sterner discipline of her mammy; her eyes were her own.
  
   On either side of her, the twins lounged easily in their chairs, squinting at the sunlight through tall mint-garnished glasses as they laughed and talked, their long legs, booted to the knee and thick with saddle muscles, crossed negligently. Nineteen years old, six feet two inches tall, long of bone and hard of muscle, with sunburned faces and deep auburn hair, their eyes merry and arrogant, their bodies clothed in identical blue coats and mustard-colored breeches, they were as much alike as two bolls of cotton.
    
   Outside, the late afternoon sun slanted down in the yard, throwing into gleaming brightness the dogwood trees that were solid masses of white blossoms against the background of new green. The twins’ horses were hitched in the driveway, big animals, red as their masters’ hair; and around the horses’ legs quarreled the pack of lean, nervous possum hounds that accompanied Stuart and Brent wherever they went. A little aloof, as became an aristocrat, lay a black-spotted carriage dog, muzzle on paws, patiently waiting for the boys to go home to supper.

原典法网站开通后，徐老师发现，迄今为止，大学生们并不热心。magnolia 是少数几个例外之一，他把自己听读Gone with the Wind 的日记，记录下来，刊登于此。当作是对所有在“大学生原典英语俱乐部”发贴的网友的的支持，徐老师把自己尚未完成、更未发表的一段手稿，在这里刊登。它源自徐老师暂停写作的一本书 《飘》VS《红楼梦》。为着写学术著作说服国内的英语教学专家改弦易辙，徐老师把这部书的写作停顿了，要停好几年，写中文版和英文版的《论中国人学英语》。

　　徐老师在《原典英语自学法》一书的第12章强调提醒，
　　“恰如绝不可用英译本去欣赏《红楼梦》，欣赏Gone With The Wind，万万不可先读中译本再听英语原著，那样绝对煞风景。”

　　这里徐老师仅略举一例。
　　第15章一例。
　　艾希礼从枪林弹雨野的战场上回来，度过短暂的圣诞节，又将返回战场。郝思嘉渴望着能与艾希礼有独处的机会，哪怕是五分钟三分钟，甚至一分钟，倾吐她对艾希礼那刻骨锥心的相思。但艾希礼妻子媚兰，一分一秒寸步不离艾希礼。她太爱他的丈夫了。如今丈夫九死一生回到媚兰身边，而且，那么短暂的相聚后，又要重返战场，那绝不是什么久别胜新婚，那是，天崩地裂降临之际，妻子与丈夫最后的紧紧相拥。
艾希礼将要返回战场前的那一刻，媚兰已经被悲痛压倒，卧床不起。艾希礼整装出发，此时此刻，郝思嘉才逮到那三两分钟与艾希礼独处倾吐的机会。
　　这是全书的一处小高潮。徐老师选很短的一段对话如下。记住，读者一定要听Linda 的朗读。郝思嘉的情感，绝不是文字可以表达的，从Linda 的朗诵里，你能体会郝思嘉，这位充满英雄气质、甚至常常冷酷的少女，那种让百花失色的柔情，以及，艾希礼对少女郝思嘉，那种万千衷肠而无法言说的深情。作者用近乎白描的朴素文字，来表达这种无法表达的情感。

“Ashley,” she begged abruptly, “may I go to the train with you?”
　　“Please don’t. Father and the girls will be there. And anyway, I’d rather　remember you saying good-by to me here than shivering at the depot. There’s so　much to memories.”

   2005版中译本如下：
   “艾希礼”，她突然向他央求道:“我送你上车站好吗？”
“请不要送吧。爸爸和妹妹都要去车站。再说，我宁愿在这里和你话别，我们有许多值得回忆的东西，你何苦到车站去挨冻呢？”
　　黄怀仁、朱攸若先生2005年出版的译作，P248

就两个简易单词 shivering 和 remember，翻译之后韵味荡然无存。remember的翻译只能这样，无法挑剔，但shivering 一词的翻译，让读者不免感觉，翻译家甚至被剥夺了人间常识。
　　读者须知，在小说中，这处离别的场景，发生在最惨烈Gettysburg战役、一场尸横遍野的战役之后。那场战役，亚特兰大的父老乡亲等待前方将士阵亡电报的场景，是全书的前一次高潮。
　　目睹战争杀戮的惨烈与荒诞之后，送情郎回战场就浪漫无存。更何况，无论艾希礼还是郝思嘉，都是天生的和平主义者（郝思嘉生性或有冷酷，但她本能地极端厌恶战争与杀戮，这是她可爱可贵的一面，在这一点上，甚至书中的第一圣女媚兰，都不及郝思嘉）。

这是生死诀别，那临别的最后一眼，刻骨而铭心，将永远永远刻印在情人的心中。生死诀别中的少女瑟瑟发抖，不是源自外在的北风之“冻”，而是源自诀别时，炽热的爱，由烈焰顷刻化作冰凌，穿心透骨，寒极而颤，源自此一别，天人永离的悲惧和绝望。那正是，作者Mitchell笔下，一场正义战争也不免的残酷和荒谬。这残暴与荒谬，是人间的真实，是人类的真实。

　　艾希礼这里用remember和shiver两词，贴切而略带含蓄，他明白自己是在跟思嘉和媚兰永别，他要把最后一眼思嘉美好的形象永远珍藏在心底，直到他在远方的战场流尽最后一滴血；紧接着，他就把媚兰托付给思嘉，那分明就是他的遗嘱！此时此刻的艾希礼，怎么会说什么怕思嘉在车站挨冻！！！

其实如果翻译者恪守原文，简单地翻译，反而能多保留几分原意。
　　“我宁愿记忆中是现在和我话别的你，而不是那个在站台上颤抖的思嘉。”
　　至于思嘉为什么战栗，翻译者完全可以让读者自己去品位。

　　读到此处译文，徐老师为两位著名的翻译家扼腕——他们的英文学识足够，但他们的品位荡然无存——这就是中国的制式教育培养出来的第一流的专家——读到这种译文，你会为翻译家扼腕、遗憾，甚至，为他们倍感难受。为什么？

　　只有从来没有被他人爱过，也从来没有爱过他人，只有这样的人，才能把爱，翻译成如此不堪。翻译成这种样子，这种品位，读起来，似乎是一个老头子，老教授，向一个漂亮的小女生讨好。

爱，尽管被写“滥”了，但爱，确实是人间的真实，如戏剧家汤显祖所言，爱，能令人生而赴死，令人死而复生，如大诗人元好问所言，问世间情为何物，直教人生死相许?
　　如果一个人的一生，从来没有被他人爱过，也从来没有爱过他人，那么，他或她再有知识，也只是，机器人+性繁殖两样东西的叠加。他或她的生命，不免完全苍白，失却了生命的七彩。但这，当然不全是他或她的过错！

原著另一处，作者Mitchell 更直接“解释”了shiver 这个词。
　　The wintry wind swept her damp ankles and she shivered again but her shiver was less from the wind than from the dread his words evoked in her heart.（第31章）
　　读者看到这样一个场景：思嘉在十万火急中去向艾希礼求助，她穿过泥泞，脚踝湿透，疲惫地站在冬天的寒风中，向艾希礼倾吐，渴望得到帮助，哪怕是一点点安慰；但艾希礼梦呓般的话语，令她满怀的希望彻底破灭，那话语穿透了她的心，比寒风更寒，令她瑟瑟发抖。

　　but her shiver was less from the wind than from the dread his words evoked in her heart.
　　这段话中，作者Margaret Mitchell　似乎完全预见了，70年之后全球人口第一的民族的大翻译家，他们的翻译会出错，会令她的韵味丧失，故特别来写下这一段。
　　Margaret Mitchell等于直接在说：
　　你前面的那翻译是不对的，我可怜的教授；也许，你真的从来没有爱过，也没有被爱过，loving, and being loved；你才会如此翻译。

Mr Xu, Thank you very much for your reply. As a matter of fact, don't give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is over until the moment you stop trying.    
I am looking forward to hearing from you  THANKS.

徐老师，您辛苦了

7 Oct.
How wonderful. I can recite the first four paragraphs of GWTW
Here I take dictation as follows:

  Scarlet O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin—that skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns.
      
  Seated with Stuart and Brent Tarleton in the cool shade of the porch of Tara, her father’s plantation, that bright April afternoon of 1861, she made a pretty picture. Her new green flowered-muslin dress spread its twelve yards of billowing material over her hoops and exactly matched the flat-heeled green morocco slippers her father had recently brought her from Atlanta. The dress set off to perfection the seventeen-inch waist, the smallest in three counties, and the tightly fitting basque showed breasts well matured for her sixteen years. But for all the modesty of her spreading skirts, the demureness of hair netted smoothly into a chignon and the quietness of small white hands folded in her lap, her true self was poorly concealed. The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent, willful, lusty with life, distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor. Her manners had been imposed upon her by her mother’s gentle admonitions and the sterner discipline of her mammy; her eyes were her own.
  
  On either side of her, the twins lounged easily in their chairs, squinting at the sunlight through tall mint-garnished glasses as they laughed and talked, their long legs, booted to the knee and thick with saddle muscles, crossed negligently. Nineteen years old, six feet two inches tall, long of bone and hard of muscle, with sunburned faces and deep auburn hair, their eyes merry and arrogant, their bodies clothed in identical blue coats and mustard-colored breeches, they were as much alike as two bolls of cotton.
    
  Outside, the late afternoon sun slanted down in the yard, throwing into gleaming brightness the dogwood trees that were solid masses of white blossoms against the background of new green. The twins’ horses were hitched in the driveway, big animals, red as their masters’ hair; and around the horses’ legs quarreled the pack of lean, nervous possum hounds that accompanied Stuart and Brent wherever they went. A little aloof, as became an aristocrat, lay a black-spotted carriage dog, muzzle on paws, patiently waiting for the boys to go home to supper.

支持 magnolia

It's the last day of the holiday. What are you doing now, My dear friends?

HERE IS MY DICTATION OF GWTW.

  Between the hounds and the horses and the twins there was a kinship deeper than that of their constant companionship. They were all healthy, thoughtless young animals, sleek, graceful, high-spirited, the boys as mettlesome as the horses they rode, mettlesome and dangerous but, withal, sweet-tempered to those who knew how to handle them.
        
  Although born to the ease of plantation life, waited on hand and foot since infancy, the faces of the three on the porch were neither slack nor soft. They had the vigor and alertness of country people who have spent all their lives in the open and troubled their heads very little with dull things in books. Life in the north Georgia county of Clayton was still new and, according to the standards of Augusta, Savannah and Charleston, a little crude. The more sedate and older sections of the South looked down their noses at the up-country Georgians, but here in north Georgia, a lack of the niceties of classical education carried no shame, provided a man was smart in the things that mattered. And raising good cotton, riding well, shooting straight, dancing lightly, squiring the ladies with elegance and carrying one’s liquor like a gentleman were the things that mattered.