The Gay Genius |Chapter 2阅读笔记

《苏东坡传》

1.中文感悟

以前没有去过眉山，也不太清楚那里的风俗环境。不过既然这里是“唐宋八大家”里“三苏”的家乡，“三苏”一定是这里的文化特色。苏东坡的爷爷看起来性格很洒脱，平时慷慨大方，喜欢饮酒取乐，当苏东坡的爸爸性格古怪不学习时也是不管不问任其发展，坚信他自己会发现自己的错误从而痛改前非，要是放在现代，孩子他妈估计都要愁死了吧~相比东坡爷爷的洒脱，东坡爸爸就显得有些郁郁不得志了，在政治上的抱负和文学上的成就似乎都没有达到自己的预期，反而在自己的孩子身上都实现了。

眉山三苏雕像广场

2.Guiding task

Chapter 2 mainly talks about Su Tungpo's family background. It tells us Tungpo's birthplace, Meishan, a little town which was famous for the Su family and was comfortable for a place of residence. It also introduces Tungpo's father, who was a reticent, talented and crotchety man, and his grandfather, who was a tall, handsome, generous and wise man.

interesting sentence:

When friends asked him why his son did not study and why he had done nothing about it, he replied placidly, "I am not worried," suggesting an enormous confidence that his brilliant but erring son would himself realize the mistake in due time.

This sentence describes a picture of a funny grandpa with free and open mind. Of course he was so confident of his son, not like most of today's parents, who are always stractching their heads wondering why their children don' like studying and how to improve their grades. Anyway, I like this calm, generous and confident grandpa.

3. 词汇学习

The little hill stood against a wast plain of rice fields, orchards, and vegetable gardens, dotted here and there with bamboo groves and curiously dwarfed palm trees.

curiously    adv.

Definition: in a manner differing from the usual or expected

eg: His clothes were curiously old-fashioned.

But first something must be said about this birthday, lest we but added to a certain confusion plaguing Chinese biographies abroad.

but    adv. 仅仅，只

Definition: and nothing more

eg: I don't think I can handle it. Still, I can but give it a try.

According to the Chinese reckoning, therefore, as compared with Western reckoning, a person always counts himself two years older before his birthday...

reckoning      n.

Definition: the act of calculating sth. especially in a way that is not very exact 估算，计算，估计

eg: By my reckoning, there are five hundred people present today.

When the younger brother was born, they were able to hire another wet nurse, ...

wet nurse

Definition: a woman employed to feed another woman's baby with her own breast milk 奶妈，乳母

About the time when his son was born, he began to take himself seriously, regretting rather late, but with a sharp sense of remorse, the wasted years of his youth.

remorse    n.

Definition: the feeling of extremely sorry for sth. wrong or bad that you have done 懊悔，自责，非常遗憾

eg: He was filled with remorse for not taking her advice.