THU生活英语慕课|名著导读｜欧·亨利短篇小说选

【THU生活英语慕课|名著导读｜欧·亨利短篇小说选】_本文原题：名著导读｜欧·亨利短篇小说选
温馨提示：这是《THU生活英语慕课》推荐的第806篇文章，共779词，预计阅读时长6分钟。

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Part 1. 作者生平
O’Henry was born in the State of North Carolina,US,on September 11th,1862.His original name was William Sydney Porter.
The childhood of little William was quite a tough one.Suffering from his mother’s death,the 3-year-old boy had to move to live with his grandma and aunt.It was his aunt who made him study in her private school and nourished his enthusiasm for literature.
In 1877,O’henry was forced to drop out of high school.Ever since then,he had worked in turn as an apprentice in his uncle’s drugstore, a sheep herder in western ranches,then a singer,an actor ,a reporter and so on.His perception helped him grow an insight of the inner worlds of people coming from all walks,all classes of life,which contributed to the role shaping in his novels later and even became prototypes of his characters.His special working experiences also served as a source of inspiration for the stories.
It was not until 1899 that he first earned people’s attention as ‘O’Henry’,with the short novel Whistling Dick’s Christmas Stocking.He had been charged of embezzling, escaped to Honduras,then come back(to visit his sick wife)and been arrested again. Fortunately his father-in-law bailed him out.In 1902,he moved to New York and has became a professional writer since then.
O’henry suffered from alcohol addiction and gambling in his later years.The indulging and irregular living habits caused great harm to his health.In 1910,he died from liver cirrhosis.
Part 2. 部分文章简介
Magi’s Gift:
It might be the most popular one among all his short novels.A poor couple,Jim (having a precious pocket watch) and Della (having long and beautiful brown hair)both decided to send each other a best Christmas gift. Something ‘valuable’ was lost,yet something more priceless than that would live on in their heart.
The Ransom of Red Chief:
The Skylight Room:
There was a time when countless young girls went to cities to earn their own living,many of them working as typists.Miss Leeson is just one of them.What makes this young little lady different from others is that she seems to be hiding a secret, a secret that has something to do with the skylight in her room,and with a star named’Billy Jackson’.Sometimes we all need a secret,a secret to back us up in tough times,give us warmth in dark nights—or just to remind us of someone we love.
Part 3. 句段导读
She was too weak to light the lamp or to undress . She fell upon the iron cot , her fragile body scarcely hollowing the worn springs . And in that Erebus of the skylight room , she slowly raised her heavy eyelids , and smiled.
她太累了，没有力气开灯，也没有力气换衣服。她倒在小铁床上，瘦小的身体几乎都没把破旧的弹簧床压凹一点儿。在这一片黑暗的带天窗的房间里，她慢慢地抬起她那沉重的眼皮，微笑了。分页标题
For Billy Jackson was shining down on her , calm and bright and constant through the skylight . There was no world about her . She was sunk in a pit of blackness , with but that small square of pallid light framing the star that she had so whimsically and oh , so ineffectually named . Miss Longnecker must be right ; it was Gamma , of the constellation Cassiopeia , and not Billy Jackson . And yet she could not let it be Gamma .
因为比利·杰克逊正透过天窗，把安静的、明亮而永恒的光辉倾泻在她的身上。她如同沉入了一个黑暗的深渊，只有包围着那颗星星的一方苍白的光辉陪伴着她。她曾心血来潮给它命了一个，哦，一个那么毫无意义的名字。朗耐克小姐是对的，它是天后座的伽马星，不是什么比利·杰克逊。可她还是不愿叫它伽马。
After eating, the boy takes a leather object with strings tied around it from his clothes and goes outside the cave unwinding it. Then we heard a kind of shout. It was Red Chief holding a sling in one hand. He moved it faster and faster around his head.
吃过饭后，男孩从他的衣服里拿出一个绑着皮筋的皮革制的玩意儿，走出山洞把皮筋解开。然后我们听到了一种大叫。红酋长一只手里拿着一个投石器，他把它在脑袋旁边挥得越来越快。
Just then I heard a heavy sound and a deep breath from Bill. A rock the size of an egg had hit him just behind his left ear. Bill fell in the fire across the frying pan of hot water for washing the dishes. I pulled him out and poured cold water on his head for half an hour.
就在那时我听到一声闷响，伴随着比尔沉重的呻吟。一块儿鸡蛋大的石头刚刚击中他左耳后头。比尔倒在烧着用来洗碟子的热水的锅对面的火堆上。我把他拖出来，一个劲的往他头上浇冷水，浇了足足半小时。
Part 4. 书评
Enough of O. Henry's work relies on similar twists and themes that I did find myself predicting the outcomes by the end, but even knowing there was a twist coming and looking for it, the majority of the stories still surprised me.
—Amazon user,
MattLeFevers
he combination of technical excellence with whimsical sparkling wit, abundant humour, and fertile invention is so rare that the reader is content without comparisons.
—Smith, O. Henry Biography, p.12
生词本
向上滑动阅览
apprentice 学徒
perception 洞察力
prototype 原型
embezzling 盗用公款
bail somebody out 保释某人出狱；援救某人脱离困难
liver cirrhosis 肝硬化
skylight 天窗
cot 幼儿床，行军床
pallid 苍白的
whimsically 心血来潮地
constellation 星座
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