(流利说)85 岁诺奖得主 V.S. 奈保尔逝世，曾以无情之书探索殖民主义

今日导读

他的一生身份复杂，争议不断，有人称他将天才和混蛋兼于一身，有人则把他比做尖酸刻薄的“毒舌男”，而诺奖评委对他的评价则是：“其作品中具有统一的叙事感和未受世俗侵蚀的洞察力，使我们看到了被扭曲的历史的存在，并激发了我们探寻真实状况的动力。”他就是 2001 年诺贝尔文学奖得主 V.S. 奈保尔。尽管人们对他褒贬不一，但他杰出的文学创作能力是不可否认的。令人遗憾的是，这位伟大作家最近在伦敦家中去世了。今天，就让我们随着《纽约时报》的文字来缅怀这位英语文学大师。

带着问题听讲解

Q1: 文中提到了哪几种修辞手法？

Q2: "displacement" 这个词该如何理解？

Q3: 试着用英文简单说说你对“殖民主义”和“普世文明”的看法。

新闻正文

V.S. Naipaul, who explored colonialism through unsparing books, dies at 85

85 岁诺奖得主 V.S. 奈保尔逝世，曾以无情之书探索殖民主义

V.S. Naipaul, the Nobel laureate who documented the migrations of peoples, the unraveling of the British Empire, the ironies of exile and the clash between belief and unbelief in more than a dozen unsparing novels and as many works of nonfiction, died Saturday at his home in London. He was 85.

诺贝尔文学奖得主 V.S. 奈保尔于周六在伦敦家中辞世，享年 85 岁。他曾在逾 12 部毫不留情的小说和同等数目的非小说类纪实文学作品中记录了民族迁徙、大英帝国解体、极具讽刺意味的流亡生活以及信仰与无信仰之间的冲突。

His family confirmed the death in a statement, The Associated Press reported.

美联社报道，他的家人在一份声明中证实了他的死讯。

In many ways embodying the contradictions of the postcolonial world, Naipaul was born of Indian ancestry in Trinidad, went to Oxford University on a scholarship and lived the rest of his life in England, where he forged one of the most illustrious literary careers of the last half century. 

以多种方式表现后殖民世界里种种矛盾的奈保尔出生于特立尼达（曾属英殖民地）的一个印度裔家庭，曾凭奖学金前往牛津大学求学，并在英格兰度过余生。在那他开创自己的文学事业，使其成为过去半个世纪以来最为杰出的文学生涯之一。

Naipaul personified a sense of displacement. Having left behind the circumscribed world of Trinidad, he was never entirely rooted in England. In awarding him the Nobel Prize in literature in 2001, the Swedish Academy described him as “a literary circumnavigator, only ever really at home in himself, in his inimitable voice.”

奈保尔将一种移位感人格化。即使远离了特立尼达的封闭世界，他也未曾完全扎根于英格兰。瑞典文学院在 2001 年授予他诺贝尔文学奖时，称他是“一位文学界的世界周游者，他真正的家，只在他的心中，在他独特的观点里。”

Yet his existential homelessness was as much willed as fated. Although he spent his literary career mining his origins, Naipaul fiercely resisted the idea of being tethered to a hyphen, or to a particular ethnic or religious identity. His guiding philosophy was universalism which he described as “Our Universal Civilization”.

然而，他这种存在主义式的无家可归既是命中注定，也是意志所致。虽然奈保尔的整个文学生涯都在寻找自己的根，但他强烈反对将自己拴在某个连字符上，或系于某个特定的种族或宗教身份。他的人生哲学是普世主义，他称之为“我们的普世文明”。

—————  文章来源 / 纽约时报

重点词汇

colonialism /kəˈloʊniəlɪzəm/

n. 殖民主义

unsparing/ʌnˈsperɪŋ/

adj. 苛刻的；无情的

e.g.

She is unsparing in her criticism.

laureate/ˈlɔːriət/

n. 戴桂冠的人；获奖者（laurel n.）

e.g.

a poet laureate

migration/maɪˈɡreɪʃn/

n. 迁徙；迁移

unraveling/ʌnˈrævlɪŋ/

n. 解体；瓦解（unravel v.）

irony/ˈaɪrəni/

n. 反语；反讽

e.g.

The irony is that when a man gets something he wants badly, he doesn't like it anymore.

exile/ˈeɡzaɪl/

n. 放逐；流亡

embody/ɪmˈbɑːdi/

v. 表现；体现

e.g.

Many scholars think that The Great Gatsby embodies the American spirit.

postcolonial/ˌpoʊst ˈkəloʊniəl/

adj. 后殖民的

ancestry/ˈænsestri/

n. 祖籍；血统

forge/fɔːrdʒ/

v. 开创；创造

e.g.

She forged a new career for herself as a singer.

illustrious /ɪˈlʌstriəs/

adj. 杰出的 ；辉煌的

e.g.

illustrious accomplishments

personify/pərˈsɑːnɪfaɪ/

v. 拟人化；人格化

e.g.

Animals are often personified in fairy tales

In Keats' 'To Autumn', the autumn is personified as a close friend of the sun.

displacement/dɪsˈpleɪsmənt/

n. 移位（dislocation n.）

circumscribed /ˈsɜːrkəmskraɪbd/

adj. 局限的；受约束的（circumscribe v.）

circumnavigator/ˌsɜːrkəmˈnævɪɡeɪtər/

n. 世界周游者

inimitable/ɪˈnɪmɪtəbl/

adj. 无法模仿的；独一无二的

e.g.

He was describing, in his own inimitable style, how to write a best-selling novel.

existential/ˌeɡzɪˈstenʃəl/

adj. 存在主义的

willed/wɪld/

adj. 具有…的意志的

e.g.

weak-willed

strong-willed 

fated /ˈfeɪtɪd/

adj. 命中注定的（fate n.）

e.g.

He was fated to die young.

mine/maɪn/

v. 挖掘；探寻

tether/ˈteðər/

v. 将…拴(到)

e.g.

He tethered his horse to a tree.

hyphen/ˈhaɪfn/

n. 连字符；连字号

e.g.

a Trinidadian-British writer

philosophy/fəˈlɑːsəfi/

n. 人生哲学；生活信条

e.g.

Hemingway’s philosophy is that a man can be destroyed but not defeated

universalism /ˌjuːnɪˈvɜːrsəlizəm/

n. 普世主义