经典的开篇不一定留下经典的作品，但经典的作品多数要有经典的开篇。譬如耳熟能详A Tale of Two Cities : It was the best of times,it was the worst of times,it was the age of wisdom,it was the age of foolishness,it was the epoch of belief,it was the epoch of incredulity.
it was the season of Light,it was the season of Darkness,it was the spring of hope,it was the winter of despair,we had everything before us,we had nothing before us.
亦或
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.(Pride and Prejudice)
The Great Gatsby的开头也被引用了再引用。初次读到惊为天人，见得多了也就麻木了。
In my younger and more vulnerable(without protection ,easily hurt) years my father gave me some advice([u]) that I’ve been turning over(thinking over) in my mind ever since.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advanttages that you’ve had.”
我年纪还轻，阅历不深的时候，我父亲教导过我一句话，我至今还念念不忘。
“每逢你想要批评任何人的时候， ”他对我说，“你就记住，这个世界上所有的人，并不是个个都有过你拥有的那些优越条件。”
很多人将此作为信条或者毒鸡汤或者自由主义等等，但仔细读一读只单纯觉得写得挺好。因为文中父亲和Nick也不过是点到为止。
I come to the admission that it has a limit.(I admit that…) Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on.
尽管Nick(本书的叙述者)对于周围人种种倾诉的诉求给予理解，默许，逃避，容忍诸如种种。但这些都是有限度的。在他看来:人根本的格调是天生注定的，人的品行有些似建立在坚硬的岩石之上，有些似建于沼泽之中。但这些如超过限度就随它们去了。
If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous(remarkable) about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life(hope), as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away.
假如人的品格是一系列连续不断的成功的姿态，那么这个人身上就有一种瑰丽的异彩，他对于人生的希望具有一种高度的敏感，类似一台能够记录万里以外的地震的错综复杂的仪器。(取自译文)
这一段话莫名想起《面纱》中的一段:
She did not know why she thought suddenly of an instrument she had been shown in Hong-Kong upon which a needle oscillated a little and she had been told that this represented an earthquake a thousand miles away in which perhaps a thousand persons had lost their lives. (女主在犹豫是否撒谎的一段，一种答案就是一种内心不同的回应，有时也成就了不同人生的走向。)
It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.
“How do you get to West Egg village?”(East Egg与West Egg隔着一条海湾，新旧势力的对比) he asked helplessly.
I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood.
这一段很有同感。Nick Carraway(the narrator)先介绍了家里的背景以及一战后准备去东部闯荡一番，做证券(侧面写出来了当时的背景)。合租的房子勉强凑合最终因对方调离，计划破产。
也因此有了乡下的这块租处，有了后续Daisy(Nick的远房表亲)和Gatsby的交集地。莫名想起forshadowing(铺垫)这个词。
这一段在于一个外地人问外地人方向，莫名给了后者当地居民的归属感。
...the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I’d known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.
故事正式进入开始，主要人物与故事的开端。这本书其实很有意思，书名为伟大的盖茨比，却让人觉得悲凉。主人公是盖茨比，却在前几章多存在于别人的认知中。
Her husband, among various physical accomplishments(体育成就), had been one of the most powerful ends (橄榄球中的边锋)that ever played football at New Haven — a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax.(21岁走上了人生巅峰，savor of有点下坡路不好的成分)
His family were enormously wealthy — even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach(blame) — but now he’d left Chicago and come East in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for instance, he’d brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. it was hard to realize that a man in my own generation (age)was wealthy enough to do that.
这一段是Daisy的丈夫Tom的背景介绍，总有人说投胎是个技术活。Tom Buchanans爱运动，有钱。也因此后文中出现了各种花草事件以及性格说一不二的专暴就有了凸显的条件。
Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion(见到mansion就可以确定是大豪宅，乔治殖民时代风格，1714-1830), overlooking the bay.
The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials(日晷) and brick walks and burning gardens — finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines(爬山虎一类) as though(as if) from the momentum of its run.(动词的几处作用很细节)
The front was broken by a line of French windows(落地窗，常见词汇), glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternnoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart (带有个人特征的状态)on the front porch.
Tom和Daisy的家是本书特别喜欢的着墨之一，尤其是中间部分以草坪一路跑过的各种地方，非常美的描写。特意没有去看翻译，反复自己读会更有一种场景感。
这一段开头部分a cheerful red-and-white来修饰这栋房子，也有说法cheerful以及红白明亮的色彩来和Tom与Daisy的婚姻形成比照和掩饰。
A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, (图案犹如婚礼蛋糕糖霜上的图案的天花板) and then rippled(涟漪) over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.
一阵轻风吹过屋里，把窗帘从一头吹进来，又从另一头吹出去，好像一面面白旗，吹向天花板上糖花结婚蛋糕似的装饰，然后轻轻拂过绛色地毯，留下一阵阴影有如风吹海面。(摘自巫宁坤版译文)
这一段真的太有代入感，忽明忽暗破碎明亮的微风有一种恬静。
The only completely stationary (standstill) object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed (与boy发音相同)up as though upon an anchored balloon.
They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering(billowing) as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind (余风)died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.
初见Daisy与(Jordan)Baker，因为Daisy开始介绍时没有将first name说清楚。
这一段是第一章反复读的段落，电影中也有所呈现。飘荡的窗帘，白裙子，懒洋洋却优雅的两个女子如同乘坐着热气球，微风吹进窗帘声，墙上画的咯吱声。随着Tom哐得关窗，截下的余风就将飘荡在半空的两个人静静送回了地面。太细腻。
第一章第一部分暂时到这，有空往后出。不一定完全按剧情或者喜好走，做些笔记也是想让自己尽快将这本书重新系统过一遍。不能为了笔记而笔记，这样太耽误时间精力反而本末倒置了。
最近快速读完了Wonder《奇迹男孩》，挺失望的一本书，特别碎和多，语言相当简单，高中就可以入手。不大推荐，电影不错。
另:纳尼亚的精讲扔到爪哇岛了，很惭愧，但已经将The Horse and His Boy《能言马与男孩》读完了，还挺有意思。发现纳尼亚系列还挺好看的。
推荐电影《一个叫欧维的男人》。
以上。