【赏析】
本章中随着两人的交往,更加细致地刻画了Julia, 她是一个比Winston更精明的人,其实在前两章都是这个女孩在聪明机智地安排约会地点,就可以看得出虽然她比Winston年轻很多,但是她很精明,更能看清形势,知道如何巧妙地得到自己想要的东西。在这两章中我们可以更清楚地了解到Julia,she became alert and business-like….It paid, she said, it was camouflage. If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones. 可以看出她非常清楚地知道如何伪装和保全。在本章中对Julia有一段非常到位的概括….who had grown up in the world of the Revolution ,knowing nothing else ,accepting the Party as something unalterable ,like the sky, not rebelling against its authority but simply evading it ,as a rabbit dodges a dog. 像Julia这样的年青一代,很清楚天命难违,极权难抗,但他们有自己的活法,知道如何钻空子和伪装,去过自己想要的生活,所以我说,他(她)们有着“兔子一样的精明”,纵然有猎狗穷追不舍,但兔子有兔子的手段,能逃一天算一天;The clever thing was to break the rules and stay alive all the same. 这句是多么经典的“兔子哲学”。Julia非常清楚这一体制的运作,所以才那么清楚地知道如何规避风险。例如,unlike Winston ,she had grasped the inner meaning of the Party’s sexual Puritanism . 她也非常清楚地知道自己所面临的风险,但是她有及时行乐的洒脱和保全自己的聪明。She realized that she herself was doomed, that sooner or later the Thought Police would catch her and kill her, but with another part of her mind she believed that it was somehow possible to construct a secret world in which you could live as you chose. All you needed was luck and cunning and boldness. 所以在Julia身上我们看到的就是这样的cunning 和boldness.
读到这里,很想把Winston和Julia 拿来做比较,他们都憎恨这样的极权社会,但是两个人是两种完全不同的活法。Winston沉浸在这种愤懑痛苦之中,通常都是在默默忍受,并不清楚自己何去何从,日子过得也很苦逼;而Julia也痛恨这样的社会,但她选择带着枷锁的舞蹈,纵然是被束手束脚,但是她在精神上应该要比Winston快乐。如果她只有boldness,那么她早就被抓玩完;如果她只有cunning,那么她的聪明想法将难于付诸实施。正因为她两者兼备,她实现了她自己的活法:痛并快乐着,也正如她所愿,构筑了自己理想生活的秘密花园。
第四章最后一段很有意境,the paperweight was the room he was in ,and the coral was Julia ‘life and his own ,fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal . 我也突然想买个漂亮的纸镇…….
【表达】
1、 ill-lit workshop 灯光昏暗的(twig-littered floor 洒满树枝的)
2、 she had won the gymnastics trophy two years running 连续两年
3、 文中几次出现 bloody stuff . bloody 在这里并不是指血腥的,而是 to emphasize what they are saying, especially when they are angry. 该死的; 气恼时用来加重语气
4、 They were so sour that it set your teeth on edge even to smell them .酸倒牙