Vol.11 国庆力荐| 罗尔德·达尔经典系列，品味英语之美的必读书目
多读点书
这期要重点介绍的不是一本书，而是英国著名儿童作家罗尔德-达尔所写的16本书。更准确的说，是通过这16本书，来隆重介绍一下罗尔德-达尔，这位享誉全球的英国著名儿童作家，聊聊他传奇的一生，以及他的行文风格。罗尔德被泰晤士报称为1945年以来，英国最伟大的50位作家之一。在2017年的英国全民调查中，他被选为英国史上最擅长讲故事的作家，他的被喜爱程度甚至超过狄更斯、莎士比亚，以及哈利波特的作者杰克罗琳。
听过我第一期节目的听众都知道，我之所以决定做这个节目，很大程度上要感恩于罗尔德，就是因为他生动有趣的文字、和充满想象力的故事情节，让我不仅重温了自己的童年时代，还决定把这份快乐带给更多的人。
罗尔德是一个非常多产的作家，他生于1916年9月13，1942年也就是26岁的时候才正式开始写作，1990年11月去世，享年74岁，可以说他2/3的生命都在写作。根据百度百科和维基百科的不完全统计，他的集结出版的著作一共有51部
* 长篇成人小说：2部
* 短片小说集15部
* 儿童文学：19部
* 儿童诗歌：3部
* 非虚构小说：7部
* 剧本：5部
今天要推荐的这套书是企鹅出版社于2013年出版的儿童经典系列，涵盖了14本儿童文学作品，以及2本自传体回忆录：Boy《好小子-童年故事》和Going Solo《独闯天下》。14本儿童文学中，有很多都是被拍成电影或音乐剧而广为流传的作品，比如好心眼儿巨人或圆梦巨人（The BFG）查理和巧克力工厂（Charlie and the Chocolate Factory）玛蒂尔达（Matilda），以及《了不起的狐狸爸爸》。
我在show notes里也把16本书都罗列了出来，每本标记了他们首次出版的时间、蓝思阅读指数也就是阅读难度，以及大致字数，需要的小伙伴可以自行下载保存。国庆节就要到了，大家也可以把这些书买来好好读读。
先来看查理与巧克力工厂中的选段。先来看关于胖的描写：
The picture showed a nine-year-old boy/ who was so enormously fat /he looked as though he had been blown up with a powerful pump. Great flabby folds of fat bulged out from every part of his body, and his face was like a monstrous ball of dough /dəʊ/ with two small greedy currant /'kʌr(ə)nt/ eyes /peering out upon the world. (Chapter 6, p.26)
The man behind the counter looked fat and well-fed. He had big lips and fat cheeks and a very fat neck. The fat around his neck bulged out all around the top of his collar like a rubber ring. (Chapter 11, p.52)
再来看他对瘦的描写：
They were as shriveled as prunes, and as bony as skeletons. (Chapter 2, p.9)
And every day, Charlie Bucket grew thinner and thinner. His face became frighteningly white and pinched. The skin was drawn so tightly over the cheeks that you could see the shapes of the bones underneath. (Chapter 10, p.48)
He is thin as a straw/wire. (Chapter 29, p.172)
先来看詹姆斯与仙桃中的描述：
Aunt Sponge was enormously fat and very short. She had small piggy eyes, a sunken mouth, and one of those white flabby faces that looked exactly as though it had been boiled. She was like a great white soggy overboiled cabbage.
Aunt Spiker, on the other hand, was lean and tall and bony, and she wore steel- rimmed spectacles that fixed on to the end of her nose with a clip. She had a screeching voice and long wet narrow lips, and whenever she got angry or excited, little flecks of spit would come shooting out of her mouth as she talked.
另外还有《了不起的狐狸爸爸》中三个人类主角
* ‘ Boggis and Bunce and Bean
* One fat, one short, one lean.
* These horrible crooks
* So different in looks
* Were none the less equally mean.
因为罗尔德书中的大部分成年人，似乎都对孩子怀有恶意，所以在他的书中，也总能看到非常多对于小孩子辱骂和诅咒的表达，比如
* You lazy good-for-nothing brute
* You disgusting little beast
* You filthy nuisance /ˈnjuːsns/
* You miserable creature
* Repulsive little bum
* Disgusting brat
比如在查理与巧克力工厂中，作者在描述小查理对巧克力喜爱的时候，所使用的文字：
Twice a day, on his way to and from school, little Charlie Bucket had to walk right past the gates of the factory. And every time he went by, he would begin to walk very, very slowly, and he would hold his nose high in the air and take long deep sniffs of the gorgeous chocolatey smell all around him. (Chapter 1, p.8)
Each time he received it, on those marvelous birthday mornings, he would place it carefully in a small wooden box that he owned, and treasure it as though it were a bar of solid gold; and for the next few days, he would allow himself only to look at it, but never to touch it. Then at last, when he could stand it no longer, he would peel back a tiny bit of the paper wrapping at one corner to expose a nibble--just enough to allow the lovely sweet taste to spread out slowly over his tongue. The next day, he would take another tiny nibble, and so on and so on. And in this way, Charlie would make his six-penny bar of birthday chocolate last him for more than a month.
当然还有一段：
Charlie looked down at the bar of chocolate. He ran his fingers slowly back and forth along the length of it, stroking it lovingly, and the shiny paper wrapper made little sharp crackly noises in the quiet room.
比如The Twits蠢特夫妇中，在介绍蠢特夫人的时候，就有下面这段关于相由心生的描述：
Mrs Twit was no better than her husband.
She did not, of course, have a hairy face. It was a pity she didn't /because that at any rate would have hidden some of her fearful ugliness.
Take a look at her.
Have you ever seen a woman with an uglier face than that?
I doubt it. But the funny thing is that Mrs Twit wasn't born ugly. She'd had quite a nice face when she was young. The ugliness had grown upon her year by year as she got older.
Why would that happen? I' ll tell you why.
If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until it gets so ugly you can hardly bear to look at it.
A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick- out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.
