托福听力考点精析：意识流作家

兔斯基

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托福阅读和听力中经常涉及各类别话题和学科的考察，如果我们对所考察人或事有所了解，那么对于我们快速准确做题会大有裨益。 今天我们来了解一位非常高逼格的意识流作家——James Joyce 詹姆斯·乔伊斯，虽然他没有得过诺奖，但托福、SAT里都曾出现过他的身影。


TPO23的conversation2里提到了作家James Joyce 詹姆斯·乔伊斯以及他的作品Dubliners，为啥叫都柏林人呢，因为James Joyce是爱尔兰人，于是他就把早年都柏林的社会景象描绘了出来，这个时候，乔伊斯的书还是能读懂的，属于大家能够理解的realism现实主义，比如其中一篇教授提到的Araby，大家感受一下：
“When the short days of winter came dusk fell before we had well eaten our dinners. When we met in the street the houses had grown somber. The space of sky above us was the color of ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns. The cold air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odors arose from ash pits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness. When we returned to the street, light from the kitchen windows had filled the areas. ”


(参考译文：到了日短夜长的冬天，晚饭还没吃完，夜幕就降落了。当我们在街上玩耍时，一幢幢房屋变得阴森森的。头上的夜空显出一片变幻的紫罗兰色，同街灯的微光遥遥相映。寒气刺骨，我们不停地玩着，直到浑身暖和。我们的喊叫声在僻静的街心回响。我们窜到屋子后面黑暗、泥泞的巷子里，遭到棚屋里那一伙野孩子的夹道鞭打;我们就跑到一家家幽暗阴湿的花园后门口，那里一个个灰坑发出难闻的气味。随后再到黑黝黝的满是马粪味的马厩去。马夫在那儿梳马，或敲着扣上的马具，发出铿锵的声音。当我们折回街道时，灯光已经从一家家厨房的窗子里透出来，把这一带照亮了。)


conversation里面professor评价乔伊斯的作品非常complex，是因为使用了stream of consciousness(意识流)的手法，教授形容意识流是“told through the narrator’s thought, through an inner monologue, as opposed to dialogue or an objective”，啥意思呢，我们知道小说的plot要进行，需要通过dialogue对话、narration叙述等来推动，而意识流小说则是通过consciousness意识即心理描写来推动故事发展的。


除了James Joyce，还是另外三位享誉世界的意识流作家：喜欢“追忆逝水年华”的Marcel Proust，女权斗士Virginia Woolf以及美国“莫言”William Faulkner，下面这段出自Virginia Woolf著名的短篇The Mark On the Wall，作家由墙上的斑点开始联想，通过意识的流动，从古冢想到古物收藏家，再来感受一下：


“In certain lights that mark on the wall seems actually to project from the wall. Nor is it entirely circular. I cannot be sure, but it seems to cast a perceptible shadow, suggesting that if I ran my finger down that strip of the wall it would, at a certain point, mount and descend a small tumulus, a smooth tumulus like those barrows on the South Downs which are, they say, either tombs or camps. Of the two I should prefer them to be tombs, desiring melancholy like most English people, and finding it natural at the end of a walk to think of the bones stretched beneath the turf.... There must be some book about it. Some antiquary must have dug up those bones and given them a name. I wonder? Retired Colonels for the most part, I daresay, leading parties of aged labourers to the top here, examining clods of earth and stone, and getting into correspondence with the neighbouring clergy, which, being opened at breakfast time, gives them a feeling of importance, and the comparison of arrow-heads necessitates cross country journeys to the county towns, an agreeable necessity both to them and to their elderly wives, who wish to make plum jam or to clean out the study, and have every reason for keeping that great question of the camp or the tomb in perpetual suspension, while the Colonel himself feels agreeably philosophic in accumulating evidence on both sides of the question. ”


(参考译文：在某种光线下面看墙上那个斑点，它竟像是凸出在墙上的。它也不完全是圆形的。我不敢肯定，不过它似乎投下一点淡淡的影子，使我觉得如果我用手指顺着墙壁摸过去，在某一点上会摸着一个起伏的小小的古冢，一个平滑的古冢，就像南部丘陵草原地带的那些古冢，据说，它们要不是坟墓，就是宿营地。在两者之中，我倒宁愿它们是坟墓，我像多数英国人一样偏爱忧伤，并且认为在散步结束时想到草地下埋着白骨是很自然的事情……一定有一部书写到过它。一定有哪位古物收藏家把这些白骨发掘出来，给它们起了名字……我想知道古物收藏家会是什么样的人?多半准是些退役的上校，领着一伙上了年纪的工人爬到这儿的顶上，检查泥块和石头，和附近的牧师互相通信。牧师在早餐的时候拆开信件来看，觉得自己颇为重要。为了比较不同的箭镞，还需要作多次乡间旅行，到本州的首府去，这种旅行对于牧师和他们的老伴都是一种愉快的职责，他们的老伴正想做樱桃酱，或者正想收拾一下书房。他们完全有理由希望那个关于营地或者坟墓的重大问题长期悬而不决。而上校本人对于就这个问题的两方面能否搜集到证据则感到愉快而达观。)


James Joyce的Ulysses是他最著名的意识流小说，描述了三位普通的都柏林人在1904年6月16日从早上8点到晚上2点一天之内所发生的事情。为什么会叫Ulysses呢?尤利西斯是罗马神话的名字，在希腊神话中叫做Odysseus奥德修斯。史诗《奥德赛》说的是特洛伊战争结束后，奥德修斯在返乡途中长年漂泊、历经艰险的故事。而James Joyce的Ulysses里面就有一个对应奥德修斯的人物名叫布鲁姆，他在6月16日这一天漫游了都柏林，最后又返回到了家中。作者安排小说和神话对应，其实有一种irony反讽的意味，神话当中的大英雄到了现实生活中成了碌碌无为被生活琐事所困扰的广告推销员，反应了现代社会人们空虚的精神状态。


很多人觉得这本小说晦涩难读，主要是因为书中大量的monologue内心独白，这就是我们所说的意识流，小说的结尾是布鲁姆妻子长达40页的内心独白，而且是没有标点符号断句的，大家最后再来感受一下：


YES BECAUSE HE NEVER DID A THING LIKE THAT BEFORE AS ASK To get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City arms hotel when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting to that old faggot Mrs Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever was actually afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit telling me all her ailments she had too much old chat in her about politics and earthquakes and the end of the world let us have a bit of fun first God help the world if all the women were her sort down on bathing-suits and lownecks of course nobody wanted her to wear I suppose she was pious because no man would look at her twice I hope I'll never be like her a wonder she didnt want us to cover our faces but she was a welleducated woman certainly and her gabby talk about Mr Riordan here and Mr Riordan there I suppose he was glad to get shut of her and her dog smelling my fur and always edging to get up under my petticoats especially then still I like that in him polite to old women like that and waiters and beggars too hes not proud out of nothing but not always if ever he got anything really serious the matter with him its much better for them go into a hospital where everything is clean but I suppose Id have to dring it into him for a month…


(参考译文：对啦 因为他从来也没那么做过 让把带两个鸡蛋的早餐送到他床头去吃 自打在市徽饭店就没这么过 那阵子他常在床上装病 嗓音病病囊囊 摆出一副亲王派头 好赢得那个干瘪老太婆赖尔登的欢心 他自以为老太婆 会听他摆布呢 可她一个铜板也没给咱留下 全都献给了弥撒 为她自己和她的灵魂 简直是天底下头一号抠门鬼 连为自己喝的那杯搀了木精的酒都怕掏四便士 净对我讲她害的这个病那个病 没完没了地絮叨她那套政治啦 地震啦 世界末日啦 咱们找点儿乐子不好吗 唉要是全世界的女人都像她那样可够呛 把游泳衣和袒胸夜礼服都给骂苦了 当然喽 谁也不会要她去穿这样的衣服 想必正因为没有一个男人会对她多看上一眼 她信教才信得那么虔诚 但愿我永远不会变得像她那样 奇怪的是她倒没要求我们把脸蒙起来 话又说回来啦 她的确是个受过良好教育的女人 她就是唠唠叨叨地三句话不离赖尔登先生叨 我觉得他摆脱了她才叫高兴哩 还有她那只狗 总嗅我的毛皮衣服 老是往我的衬裙里面钻 尤其是身上来了的时候 不过我还是喜欢他对那样的老太婆有礼貌 不论对端盘子的还是对叫花子 他都是这样 向来也不摆空架子 但也不会老是这个样儿 要是他真有什么严重的毛病 住院要好得多 那儿什么都那么干净 可我想我得催上他一个月他才肯答应…)


以上就是关于意识流作家的简要分享，文学类话题是托福听力的常考要点之一，需要我们关注之前考过的重要知识点，做好重点话题高频词汇的积累和背景知识的拓展，在以后碰到类似内容的时候可以更沉着应对。


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