George's Marvellous Medicine读书 6

起太早的结果就是一天都在打瞌睡。

第七章虽然长,但是内容很简单。主要讲了姥姥吃完药之后的变化,罗尔德大爷到底对自己的岳母有多大仇恨,笔下的姥姥从来没有过正常的描述。不过很好看。



7. Grandma Gets the Medicine


Grandma sat hunched in her chair by the window. The wicked little eyes followed George closely as he crossed the room towards her.

‘You’re late,’ she snapped.

If you are hunched, or hunched up, you are leaning forwards with your shoulders raised and your head down, often because you are cold, ill, or unhappy. (常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦) 耸肩弓身的, 伏首前倾的

这一段中hunched, followed, snapped三个小词很形象写出了姥姥古怪乖戾的形象。脑海中都能浮现出一个窝在椅子里眯着眼睛的老太太。



‘Are you going to gulp it all down in one go?’ George asked her. ‘Or will you sip it?’

‘What I do is none of your business,’ the old woman said. ‘Fill the spoon.’

姥姥要吃药了,先晃一晃瓶子,再倒满一勺。乔治问,是一口吞还是抿着喝?最后还是给姥姥直接灌了进去(pop it in),脑海中还不停闪过自己制药的时候添加的各种东西。



It was worth watching.

Grandma yelled ‘Oweeeee!’ and her whole body shot up whoosh into the air. It was exactly as though someone had pushed an electric wire through the underneath of her chair and switched on the current. Up she went like a jack-in-the-box… and she didn’t come down… she stayed there… suspended in mid-air… about two feet up… still in a sitting position… but rigid now… frozen… quivering… the eyes bulging… the hair standing straight up on end.

这一段原谅豹豹不厚道地笑了,真的是worth reading,姥姥吃完药后的变化描写得太奇思妙想了。

shoot up 猛增,快速上升

it was...as though...(as though后面是虚拟)

current在此处是电流的意思。

a jack-in-the-box国外盒子里蹦出小丑的玩具,相当常见的儿童故事词汇。



Suspended up there in space, the old girl was beyond speaking.

You’d have thought she’d swallowed a red-hot poker the way she took off from that chair.

beyond这个词还是很好用的,比如我们会说this is beyond a joke.

姥姥已经被药水刺激得说不出话来了。她就像吞了一个拨火棍一样,在查理和玻璃电梯中有一个吞剑大师a sword-swallower from Afghanistan.



‘Call the fire brigade!’ she shouted suddenly. ‘My stomach’s on fire!’‘Fire!’ the old woman yelled. ‘Fire in the basement! Get a bucket! Man the hoses! Do something quick!’

快叫消防队,水龙头,拿水桶,快。

姥姥吃了药之后浑身开始冒烟,屋子里很快乌央央的。

the fire brigade 消防队

消防车可以说fire engine或者fire truck,属于Emergency Vehicles。补两个小句子:

Fire engines are used to fight fires.

Firefighters like this one often rescue people from burning buildings.



‘Of course I’m on fire!’ she yelled. ‘I’ll be burned to a crisp! I’ll be fried to a frizzle! I’ll be boiled like a beetroot!’

乔治还以为姥姥开玩笑呢,直到发现了屋子里浓烟四起。

姥姥说我都要变成烤薯片,甜菜根,都要嘎嘣脆了。

frizzle:to scorch or be scorched, esp with a sizzling noise (被)烤焦

beetroot:(Brit) Beetroot is a dark red root that is eaten as a vegetable. It is often preserved in vinegar. 甜菜根 [in AM, use 美国英语用 beet]



A sizzling sound, the kind you get if you hold a hot frying-pan under a cold tap, came up from deep down in Grandma’s stomach. The old hag bucked and shied and snorted.

很形象的比喻。

shied原型shy→vi.受惊,后退



Someone was pumping her up, that’s how it looked!

Was she going to explode?

...

But wait! She had a puncture somewhere! George could hear the hiss of escaping air. She stopped swelling. She was going down. She was slowly getting thinner again, shrinking back and back slowly to her shrivelly old self.

姥姥的火扑灭后,突然像打了气一样开始膨胀,之后又好像被扎了个孔,乔治都能听到漏气的嘶嘶声。然后姥姥缩回了原来干枯的模样,莫名想起哈利波特的玛姬阿姨。

细节描写太生动了。



Suddenly she began to grow.

It was quite slow at first… just a very gradual inching upwards… up, up, up… inch by inch… getting taller and taller… about an inch every few seconds… and in the beginning George didn’t notice it.

But when she had passed the five foot six mark and was going on up towards being six feet tall, George gave a jump and

shouted, ...

然后姥姥开始长个子了,直到长到六英尺高乔治才反应过来。

关于foot的计量单位,直接截了一张图,可以看一下。

图片发自简书App

图片来自柯林斯词典。



When the top of her head actually touched the ceiling, George thought she was bound to stop.

...‘Hadn’t you better stop now, Grandma?’ George said. ‘Daddy’s just had this whole room repainted.’

姥姥一直在长个,马上要穿破屋顶了,这把乔治吓坏了。要知道屋子刚被粉刷过。

be bound to 一般翻译为“必定,一定要……” ,是主观上的,在人思维逻辑的一种推理下得出这事儿势必会、一定会怎么怎么样。(解释出自百度知道,侵删。)

had better do

had sth. done更强调结果,屋子不一定是爸爸刷的,或许是他请人(一般取这个意思),或许他参与了。



She’s dotty as a doughnut, George thought.

‘Come on, boy! Give me some more!’ she yelled. ‘Dish it out! I’m slowing down!’

姥姥嫌长个太慢,需要再来一勺药水。

be dotty as a doughnut 很典型的罗尔德式幽默。

看见dish莫名想起纳尼亚中的dish up sth.把......盛盘。

eg. Lucy was helping Mrs. Beaver to dish up the trout, so that...



‘That’s the attic above you, Grandma!’ George called out. ‘I’d keep out of there! It’s full of bugs and bogles!’

姥姥吃完第二勺药,长得更高了,马上穿过顶楼,乔治懵了。

attic也可以用garret替代,这两个词均是常用词汇。

bogle ['bəuɡl] n. 妖怪;可怕的人或物



George stood in his bedroom gazing at the shambles. ...‘To heck with the house!’ she shouted. ‘I want some fresh air! I haven’t been outside for twenty years!’

乔治站在一堆废墟之中,发愁极了。姥姥才不管呢"去他的屋子,我要新鲜空气,我要长个穿过屋顶,我已经二十年没出过屋子了。"

哈哈哈,突然想到查理家的几个老人也是几十年没有下过床,莫名笑点。

If a place, event, or situation is a shambles or is in a shambles, everything is in disorder. 混乱(不要写成shamble,这是两个不一样的词)



姥姥马上穿过屋顶,乔治吓坏了。如果爸妈回到家挨揍的可是自己,然后这章就结束了。还挺长的。

读到这一章基本这本书过半了,因为不是公版书,豹豹最多再过2-3章的笔记就结束这本书了,有兴趣的童鞋可以自己找来看一看,难度不大很有意思。

单词释义出自柯林斯。

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