Notes on Goodbye, Mr Chips (C1)

This weekend marked the end of the busiest time of year since September. Finally, I had a chance to catch up with what's left there, and reading Goodbye Mr Chips was at the top of my agenda. Thanks to the documents shared in the WeChat group, I managed to finish the Chinese version and I am half done with the Kindle English version. I think it is a very beautiful but tragic story for one is deeply impressed by Mr Chips's lifelong loyalty to Brookfield and his fervent passion for students, though very often in a subtle way. Meanwhile, the book's reference of his cute encounter with his late wife, the profound impact she has had on his life in the short-lived, but happy marriage and the sad ending kept haunting my mind. In a sense, it has reinforced my understanding of loyalty and true love and inspires me to question myself - what kind of life I want to lead.

It's worth making a note of some beautiful sentances and expressions in the book. I hope by reading it through, you'd find something you'd like to take away.

Chapter 1

When you are getting on in years (but not ill, of course), you get very sleepy at times, and the hours seem to pass like lazy cattle moving across a landscape.

• like lazy cattle moving across a landscape
  像一只慵懒的牛在风景中漫步。

Rarely did he read more than a page of it before sleep came swiftly and peacefully, more like a mystic intensifying of perception than any changeful entrance into another world.

• 倒装句可以学习模仿，如：Rarely did I go out in the winter as sitting by the fireplace with a book in hand is extremely cosy.

Take up a firm attitude from the beginning, that’s the secret of it.

And as Chips sat by his fire with autumn gales rattling the windows, the waves of humour and sadness swept over him very often until tears fell, so that when Mrs. Wickett came in with his cup of tea she did not know whether he had been laughing or crying. And neither did Chips himself.

• autumn gales rattling the windows 秋天的大风撞得窗户吱吱响
• the waves of humour and sadness swept over him
  wave and sweep over 这两个词用得非常好，仿佛奠定了整本书的基调

Some good words and expressions:

1. high-pitched voice 高亢的嗓音
2. sprightliness - animation and energy in action or expression
3. die a really natural birth
4. roar over - when east winds .... the fenlands
5. put a strain on his heart
6. rag - chew the rag 发牢骚，闲聊
7. fatherly and courteous 彬彬有礼
8. implacable - incapable of being placated "an implacable enemy"
9. varnish - paint
10. take everyone by surprise
11. roars of laughter 大笑声
12. wind up 上发条