The Gay Genius |Chapter 7阅读笔记

《苏东坡传》

1. 中文感悟

对于王安石的印象，还是停留在写出“爆竹声中一岁除，春风送暖入屠苏”这样优美诗句的文学家的身份上（这首诗也是只想起来第一句，后面那句是查出来的，汗~），没想到他还是一位政治家和改革家，对这个人有了更清晰的了解和认识~

看这一章节的时候还在想怎么写着写着就变成整章来描述王安石了，并没有怎么提到苏东坡，后来又一想，王安石和苏轼一样是朝廷的官员，而且王安石后来身居高位实行变法，实行的各种政策对当时的社会产生了重大的影响，必定也和苏东坡产生了紧密的联系。看了一下目录，果然后面还有关于王安石的内容~

2. guiding task

Q: What was Wang Anshih like and what did he do in his reforms?

A: Wang Anshih was a strenuous but somewhat curious and untruthful man. He was quite hard-working in study and could concentrate on what he was doing, but on the other hand, he was not so careful about his appearance that sometimes he looked dirty.

According to Lin Yutang's summary, there were nine measures that were most important and best-known. They were: three state capitalist enterprises (a government bureau for national trade, a bureau for government stores in retail trade, and the famous seedling loans), three new taxes (the draft exemption tax, the exercise tax, and the income tax), and three systems of registration (the paochia system, and the re-registration of land and horses). Though Wang desired to make his nation stronger, actually these measures made people poorer, so eight years later most of them were suspended.

interesting sentence:

What gave the lie to Wang Anshih's desire to relieve the people from military draft, professed in the proceeding draft exemption tax, was the paochia system.

give the lie to sth. (to show that sth. is not true 揭穿谎言，证明不实)

I just think this sentence is very natural and good. I can't think of this sentence to describe the same idea.

3. 词汇学习

Wang Anshih was a curious man, extraodinary in mind and character. He was an industrious student, a good scholar except in his abominable philology, and certainly a major poet.

abominable    adj.

Something that is abominable is very unpleasant or bad. 恶劣的,令人憎恶的，糟透的

A man of Wang's temperament had to be the boss whenever he was, and when serving as a magistrate in an outlying district, he was the big frog in a little puddle.

temperament        n.

Your temperament is your basic nature, especially as it is shown in the way that you react to situations or to other people. 性格

eg: His impulsive temperament regularly got him into difficulties.

Meanwhile, Ingtsung's son, who was to succeed him, was living at the capital at crown price.

succeed      v.

If you succeed another person, you are the next person to have their job or position. 接替，继承，继任

eg: He will succeed his father's post as a chairman.

On the other hand, another high official, Wu Kuei, who had known Wang Anshih intimately, warned the Emperor that if Wang should ever be given power he would plunge the whole country into chaos.

should      v.

You use should in conditional clauses when you are talking about things that might happen. 用于条件句，表示事情发生的可能性[正式]

eg: If you should be fired, your health and pension benefits will not be automatically cut off.

He could not understand why the farmers should not want the loans, and when loans were not sold up to the quota, he flew into a rage.

fly into a rage

suddenly become extremely angry 勃然大怒，大发雷霆，暴跳如雷

eg: On hearing the bad news, he flew into a rage.