【英语听和读】史蒂芬·金

 Andrea: Hello, I’m Andrea Rose and you’re listening to bbclearningenglish.com.

Today in Entertainment, we speak to well-known American horror writer Stephen

King, who has just released his new novel, “Blaze”.

The author of over 50 best-selling horror novels, such as “Carrie”, “The Shining”

and “Dreamcatcher”, Stephen King has also written novels outside the horror

genre¹, such as “The Green Mile” and “The Shawshank Redemption”. Many of his

books have been made into films.

Stephen King has won 23 major book awards and has sold hundreds of millions of

books around the world, making him a household name. His name is known in

virtually every house around the world.

His latest book, “Blaze”, is about a man called Clayton Blaisedell Junior, who is a

mentally disabled man. He decides to kidnap a baby to get a $1 million ransom².

But ‘Blaze’ eventually grows to love the child as if it were his own. It’s not a

horror novel like many of King’s other books, so does Stephen believe most

writers can switch, like he can, between styles or genres³?

Stephen King

I don’t necessarily and I don’t think that it’s a given that you can write many different things. I

think that you're drawn⁴ in certain directions. You know in some ways I’m in a really good

position because I’ve seen an arc of critical approval for my work build over the years, which is

a lot better, believe me than starting out with a big bank of critical approval and then frittering it

away. 

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Andrea: Stephen says that it’s not a given that you can write lots of different things. ‘A given’

is something certain or definite. Not all writers can switch between styles. He

believes that all writers are drawn in certain directions – they are good at writing

certain stories over others. In his case, he was drawn towards writing horror stories.

He’s happy though, that slowly over the years he’s had more and more critical

approval. He’s had good reviews over the years, and that’s a lot better than getting

good reviews at the beginning of your career and then losing the ability to keep it up.

He talks about ‘frittering away’ your reputation. That means losing it, wasting it.

Instead, he has enjoyed his gradual acclaim⁵.

So how did Stephen King become one of the world’s best-selling horror writers?

Stephen King

That label has been put on me and I never put it on myself. More importantly in my head, I never

said ‘It's time to write another horror novel’. I would just say, ‘I have an idea it’s time to write a

book’. I’ve been able to tell stories from tales of outright⁶ horror like “Pet Cemetery” to stories

like “The Shawshank Redemption” and a lot of time people don’t believe that I had anything to

do with writing that, so, I wear different hats.

Andrea: Stephen says that he didn’t choose to be known as a horror writer. He didn’t choose

that label. If you’re labelled, people choose to see you in a certain way. They label

you. But Stephen feels that he is much more than just a horror writer. People

sometimes don’t believe that he wrote stories like “The Shawshank Redemption”.

But he likes to write different things. He talks about ‘wearing different hats’. He

likes to be different people and write a variety of things.

Unfortunately in 1999, Stephen King almost gave up his writing career. He had a

terrible car accident.

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Stephen King

I was walking and a guy came along in his van and I was where I belonged which was off on the

side of the road. The last piece of memory that I have is of the top of his van coming over the hill

and then I was in the ditch with my lap on sideways. I was pretty well shattered from the collar

bone, ribs⁷ broken, skull⁸ fractured, spine⁹ chipped in two or three places, hip¹⁰, pelvis, thigh¹¹, knee,

shins, so it was all busted¹² up all down one side, boom.

Andrea: Stephen describes how he was hit by a van while he was walking on the side of

the road. His last piece of memory, the last thing he remembers, was the van

coming over the hill. He was very badly injured from head to toe. He uses the

American expression ‘busted up’. He was broken into lots of pieces and badly

hurt. But he’s back now with his new novel and hopes it will do well.

 

Let’s recap the language we’ve heard in the programme today.

 

drawn in a certain direction

a given

critical approval

frittering it away

to be labelled

to wear different hats

last piece of memory

busted up 

1 genre   

n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格

参考例句：

• My favorite music genre is blues.我最喜欢的音乐种类是布鲁斯音乐。
• Superficially,this Shakespeare's work seems to fit into the same genre.从表面上看， 莎士比亚的这个剧本似乎属于同一类型。

2 ransom   

n.赎金，赎身；v.赎回，解救

参考例句：

• We'd better arrange the ransom right away.我们最好马上把索取赎金的事安排好。
• The kidnappers exacted a ransom of 10000 from the family.绑架者向这家人家勒索10000英镑的赎金。

3 genres   

（文学、艺术等的）类型，体裁，风格( genre的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Novel and short story are different genres. 长篇小说和短篇小说是不同的类别。
• But confusions over the two genres have a long history. 但是类型的混淆，古已有之。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译

4 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

5 acclaim   

v.向…欢呼，公认；n.欢呼，喝彩，称赞

参考例句：

• He was welcomed with great acclaim.他受到十分热烈的欢迎。
• His achievements earned him the acclaim of the scientific community.他的成就赢得了科学界的赞誉。

6 outright   

adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的

参考例句：

• If you have a complaint you should tell me outright.如果你有不满意的事，你应该直率地对我说。
• You should persuade her to marry you outright.你应该彻底劝服她嫁给你。

7 ribs   

n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹

参考例句：

• He suffered cracked ribs and bruising. 他断了肋骨还有挫伤。
• Make a small incision below the ribs. 在肋骨下方切开一个小口。

8 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

9 spine   

n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊

参考例句：

• He broke his spine in a fall from a horse.他从马上跌下摔断了脊梁骨。
• His spine developed a slight curve.他的脊柱有点弯曲。

10 hip   

n.臀部，髋；屋脊

参考例句：

• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。
• The new coats blouse gracefully above the hip line.新外套在臀围线上优美地打着褶皱。

11 thigh   

n.大腿；股骨

参考例句：

• He is suffering from a strained thigh muscle.他的大腿肌肉拉伤了，疼得很。
• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。

12 busted   

adj. 破产了的，失败了的，被降级的，被逮捕的，被抓到的 动词bust的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• You are so busted! 你被当场逮住了！
• It was money troubles that busted up their marriage. 是金钱纠纷使他们的婚姻破裂了。