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James Michener

时间:2017-10-14 23:58来源:互联网 提供网友:nan   字体: [ ]
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James Michener

00:00:02 OPRAH WINFREY: "Hattie Mae, this child is gifted," and I heard that enough that I started to believe it.

00:00:08 ROGER BANNISTER: If you have the opportunity, not a perfect opportunity, and you don't take it, you may never have another chance.

00:00:14 LAURYN HILL: It all was so clear. It was just, like, the picture started to form itself.

00:00:19 DESMOND TUTU: There was no way in which a lie could prevail over the truth, darkness over light, death over life.

00:00:27 CAROL BURNETT (quoting CARRIE HAMILTON): “Every day I wake up and decide, today I'm going to love my life. Decide.”

00:00:35 JOHNNY CASH: My advice is, if they're going to break your leg once when you go in that place, stay out of there.

00:00:40 JAMES MICHENER: And then along come these differential experiences that you don't look for, you don't plan for, but boy, you’d better not miss them.

00:00:52 ALICE WINKLER: This is What It Takes, a podcast about passion, vision, and perseverance1 from the Academy of Achievement. For this week’s episode, I’ve dug into the Academy’s vault2 and pulled out a 1991 interview with author James Michener. Michener wrote over 50 books of fiction and nonfiction, including historical epics3 like Hawaii, The Source, and Texas, along with Tales of the South Pacific, which won a Pulitzer. I loved listening to this conversation with Michener. He was 85 at the time. The story of his childhood could have come straight out of Dickens, and the story of his success is full of surprising twists. But listen first to this frank assessment4 he gave of his own talents as a writer.

00:01:44 JAMES MICHENER: Let me say what I cannot do. I am not extremely good in plotting. I really don't care how the story works out. Let it find its own way. I am not good in psychology5, and I don't deal with characters who are driven by forces which I, myself, don't understand, and my understandings are rather simplistic. I am not especially good at humor.

00:02:10 I wish I were. And I am certainly not a stylist in the English language using arcane6 words and very fanciful constructions and so on. There's a great deal I can't do, but boy, I can tell a story. I can get a person with moderate interest in what I'm writing about, and if she or he will stay with me for the first hundred pages, which are very difficult — and I make them difficult — he'll be hooked. He'll want to know what's happening in the next story and the next story and the next story.

00:02:49 And that I have. I prize it, and I'm wretched when I fail, and I feel a sense of terrible defeat. But I believe throughout history, way back to the most early days of the human race, when people gathered around the fireplace at night, they wanted to remember what had happened and reflect upon the big events of that day. Well, I'm one of the guys who sat around the fireplace and did the talking.

00:03:24 ALICE WINKLER: Michener was one of the all-time great storytellers. It’s why his books were so popular, why they were published in nearly every country and every language in the world, and why they sold so well, something like 75 million copies. A lot of Michener's novels go way back in history, and they tell expansive stories about particular places, like Texas, or the Chesapeake Bay, or Israel.

00:03:51 Journalist Irv Drasnin, who interviewed Michener for the Academy of Achievement, started their conversation by asking, “How far back do you have to go to understand James Michener?”

00:04:03 JAMES MICHENER: Well, that's a very complex question because I don't know who my parents were. I know nothing about my inheritance. I could be Jewish. I could be part Irish. I could be Russian. I am a — spiritually a mix, anyway, but I did have a solid childhood, fortunately, because of some wonderful women who brought me up.

00:04:34 Never had a father or a man in the house. That was a loss, but you live with that loss, and so you don't have to go back very far. You pick me up around 1912 when I was five years old.

00:04:53 IRV DRASNIN: I mean, your early life reads like a novel.

00:04:56 JAMES MICHENER: I lived in extreme poverty. My mother, who took in stray children — and had eight or nine of them around sometimes — we moved often, in the dead of night and on a few minutes' notice, so I grew up in a small town. I think we lived in nine different houses, and I remember each one most vividly7.

00:05:23 So I was different to begin with, and that made me very tough. Now if you look at my nose carefully, it goes around a corner. I didn't discipline myself, but older fellows and tougher fellows did. That's one of the great things about growing up as a boy. There's always somebody who's tougher than you are. And I was suspended from every school I was ever in. I was a difficult child, but I was also — by our standards of how they were measured, I was really quite bright.

00:05:59 I always had straight A's and did extremely well in tests, but I think it was in the accumulation and amassing8 and organizing of data, rather than using it creatively. I was a Germanic type of mind. I had a bear trap, and education was very easy for me.

00:06:22 ALICE WINKLER: Michener’s bear trap of a mind will not come as a surprise to anyone who’s ever read one of his books. They are filled with extraordinary detail based on years of meticulous9 research, but Michener’s path in life and his success, he says, was more the result of a decision he made very early on as a child not to let money be an important factor in his life.

00:06:47 JAMES MICHENER: Now how did that come about? I think through Christmas. At Christmas, we rarely had anything. I never had a pair of skates. Never had a bicycle. Never had a little wagon10. Never had a baseball glove. Never had a pair of sneakers. I didn't have anything, and you know, at about seven or eight — I really think, seven or eight — I just decided11, well, that's the way it is.

00:07:20 That's not part of my life. I'm not going to worry about it, and I never have. So the first influence was an entirely12 different view toward economics. Economics, for me, was a way of survival. I never saved much money. I think when I married, I had maybe 60 bucks13 in the bank. When I left for the Navy, I didn’t have anything in the bank.

00:07:52 When I got out of the Navy, I had a little pay in the last pay envelope, as they had. That was it. So, for me later to have stumbled upon a profession, which, in my case, paid very well, was a radical14 shift.

00:08:10 ALICE WINKLER: A shift that happened pretty quickly once Michener’s first book was published, but that didn’t happen until he was 40. What a debut15, though. The book was Tales of the South Pacific, based on his time in the Navy. It won him a Pulitzer Prize and is still considered one of the greatest novels of World War II. Here’s the opening passage, read by actor Andy Ferlo.

00:08:35 ANDY FERLO: “I wish I could tell you about the South Pacific, the way it actually was. The endless ocean, the infinite specks16 of coral we called islands, coconut17 palms nodding gracefully18 toward the ocean, reefs upon which waves broke into spray, and inner lagoons19, lovely beyond description. I wish I could tell you about the sweating jungle, the full moon rising behind the volcanoes, and the waiting, the waiting, the timeless, repetitive waiting.”

00:09:12 ALICE WINKLER: If you’ve never read Tales of the South Pacific, you’ve probably seen the stage adaptation by Rodgers and Hammerstein and Josh Logan. They shortened the title to just South Pacific, one of the biggest Broadway musicals of all time. Or maybe you’ve watched the movie version on Netflix or Hulu or whatever. And even if you’ve never seen that, then then you definitely still know some of the music. If you don’t, I give up.

00:09:40 MUSIC: A COCKEYED OPTIMIST20

00:09:40 When the sky is a bright canary yellow

I forget every cloud I've ever seen

So they called me a cockeyed optimist

Immature21 and incurably22 green

00:10:00 MUSIC: SOME ENCHANTED23 EVENING

00:10:00 Some enchanted evening

You may see a stranger

00:10:09 MUSIC: YOUNGER THAN SPRINGTIME

00:10:09 Younger than springtime are you

Softer than starlight are you

Warmer than winds of June

Are the gentle lips you gave me

00:10:26 MUSIC: I'M GONNA WASH THAT MAN RIGHT OUTTA MY HAIR

00:10:26 I went and washed that man right outta my hair

I went and washed that man right outta my hair

I went and washed that man right outta my hair

And sent him on his way

She went and washed that man right outta her hair

She went and washed that man right outta her hair

00:10:47 ALICE WINKLER: Michener’s overnight success with Tales of the South Pacific really was just that. He hadn’t been intending to be a novelist, hadn’t been rejected from a hundred publishers before one finally accepted him. And although he laid out just a moment ago how dirt poor he was as a child, he describes the rest of his life as a cockeyed optimist might.

00:11:10 JAMES MICHENER: Starting about age fourteen, my life became rather easy. The hard years were from zero to fourteen. The easy ones came thereafter. Now, they were only relatively24 easy. They were — I still had no money, and I still had no car, and I had no great prospects25, but I did get scholarships. I was one of the leaders of the team, and I was good in everything I did in athletics26 as well as scholarships.

00:11:45 And so, starting about age fourteen, and continuing unbroken until today, I had a clear field. I never in my life applied27 for a job, or asked for a raise, or asked for a promotion28, or sought any kind of reward whatsoever29. I just have never done it. I don’t discuss with my publisher about royalties30.

00:12:14 I don't argue five minutes with my agent about what to do. That's a world over there that I've never been a part of.

00:12:22 IRV DRASNIN: Your life could have taken a different turn than the one it took.

00:12:27 JAMES MICHENER: Oh, yes. I think the bottom line, sir, is that if you get through a childhood like mine, it's not at all bad. Obvious, you come out a pretty tough turkey, and you have had all the inoculations you need to keep you on a level keel for the rest of your life. The sad part is most of us don't come out, and most of the boys and girls like me that I knew never had a life like mine. They had tough life all the way down.

00:13:05 IRV DRASNIN: What got you through it? What made it different for you?

00:13:10 JAMES MICHENER: Well, I — my mother read to me when I was a boy. I had all the Dickens and Thackeray and Charles Reade and Sienkiewicz before I was the age of seven or eight, so that I knew about books, and there was a good library in our town, and I read almost everything in there.

00:13:32 ALICE WINKLER: He read about the bigger world in books, and then he went out to see it.

00:13:38 JAMES MICHENER: When I was fourteen, I had already hitchhiked, with no money whatsoever, from Central Pennsylvania down to Florida. Didn’t get into Florida — the police stopped me — and from there up to Canada. Hitchhiked down to Detroit, I remember, to visit an aunt, and from there I went out to Iowa, and then I fanned out, again and again, when I was fourteen and fifteen.

00:14:08 I would leave home with 25 or 35 — 35 sticks in my mind. I think I had a quarter and a dime31 on two of my trips. Never fazed me a bit. Go straight across the continent. In those days, it was easy to do. Everybody had a new car. They wanted to show it off. They liked you. They would pick you up, oftentimes feed you; oftentimes take you to their home.

00:14:36 I had a vivid experience in those years. I went everywhere, and I did it on nothing.

00:14:45 ALICE WINKLER: He was part of that generation, the one that would volunteer for World War II. They defined the word “grit.” It was a different time, with a different ethos, but Michener says the lessons in his story are universal.

00:15:00 JAMES MICHENER: I do believe that everyone growing up faces differential opportunities. With me, it was books and travel and some good teachers. With somebody else, it may be a Boy Scout32 master; somebody else, it could be a clergyman; somebody else, an uncle who was wiser than the father. But I think young people ought to seek that differential experience that is going to knock them off dead center.

00:15:37 I was a typical American schoolboy. I happened to get straight A's and be pretty good in sports, but I had no great vision of what I could be, and I never had any yearning33. My job was to live through Friday afternoon, get over the — get through the week and eat something. And then along come these differential experiences that you don't look for, you don't plan for, but boy, you’d better not miss them — the things that make you bigger than you are, the things that give you a vision.

00:16:24 ALICE WINKLER: Michener’s vision was more about how he would live his life than about his career. His vision, for instance, did not involve becoming a writer, even though he loved storytelling and started writing when he was quite young. In fact, he remembers reading a children’s book about the Trojan War and deciding the Greeks were a bunch of frauds with their tricky34 horses and their wife-stealing.

00:16:48 JAMES MICHENER: So at that very early age, I rewrote the ending of The Iliad so that the Trojans won, and boy, Achilles and Ajax got what they wanted, believe me.

00:17:00 ALICE WINKLER: Michener says he wrote a good many bold stories when he was young, even if they weren’t very good, and he wrote for his school paper. Then, of course, he wrote lots of academic work during college and grad school, but as he told journalist Irv Drasnin in this interview, it still didn’t occur to him to be professional writer.

00:17:19 JAMES MICHENER: Again, the phrase “set out” or “wanted to be,” either one them, just doesn’t apply to me at all. I lucked into everything I did. My senior year in college, when I did not have a clue in the world as to what I would do the next year, a very wonderful, private school in Pennsylvania came to me and said, "How would you like to work for us?"

00:17:44 "I would like it very much, sir," and I became a teacher by almost accident. I loved it. I was a good teacher and had students whom I still correspond with, and for whom I still have great affection.

00:18:02 IRV DRASNIN: I mean, I don’t want to suggest that you couldn't hold a job, but you had a lot of different kinds of jobs in your life before World War II. Can you tell me about some of the jobs you had before you went into the Navy?

00:18:16 JAMES MICHENER: In those days, the dreadful disease had not hit the chestnut35 trees, and all through our part of Pennsylvania there were these wonderful chestnut trees that grew very high, and on their lower branches they produced chestnuts36, and inside the most delicious meat there ever was. And we kids could go out with clubs and knock down those chestnuts after the first frost, and we could sell them anywhere.

00:18:50 And I think that I peddled37 chestnuts in my hometown at the age of ten, and everybody wanted them. I — as many as I had, that many I could sell. At the age of twelve or thirteen, I worked for the Burpee Seed Company ten hours a day in summer, 75 cents a day, $4-and-a-half a week, all the money going back to my mother.

00:19:17 Then next, I was a private detective in an amusement park. After that, I was a night watchman in a hotel and so on. I have worked all my life, never very seriously and never with any long-term purpose. Even when I was a teacher in the schools, I never wanted to be headmaster or head of the English department.

00:19:45 I was just a pretty good teacher, and it was the same in the Navy.

00:19:45 ALICE WINKLER: Michener didn’t join the Navy until he was 36 years old. It was another one of those differential experiences he talked about earlier. He was a Quaker and was exempt38. He was also beyond the age of the draft, so he could have escaped service.

00:20:06 JAMES MICHENER: But I didn’t. I had taught about Hitler, and I had taught about the Japanese war machine, and I knew that this was a battle to the death. It was a vivid experience. I think I saw the devastation39 of war. I saw the loneliness of that terrible Pacific duty. I had two complete tours out there. I saw a lot of the war and a lot of the aftermath of it, and wonder what might have happened had I stayed home and not gone. I might never have become what I did become.

00:20:47 ALICE WINKLER: So what about Michener’s service in the South Pacific did lead him toward a writing career? He said it had a lot to do with the men he was surrounded by.

00:20:58 JAMES MICHENER: The system had, in those days, decided that the fine men in the society would go and conduct this war. So I had men who had had positions of great importance in Wanamaker's department store and Macy’s, and a wonderful guy in Tennessee who had been troubleshooter for the Chattanooga Times, a New York Times subsidiary.

00:21:24 I had a great oil field geologist40. I was small potatoes in my group, and I lived with these men, and I noticed that almost all the ones that I liked had decided they did not want to go back and do what they had done before. They wanted to be something else. Quite a few of them went into religion.

00:21:51 They had been deeply moved by this. They had a spiritual awakening41. Quite a few of them went into politics. They said, "I'm as bright as that clown." Quite a few of them at that advanced age went back to college on the GI bill, and I was one of that group, who said, "Now, wait, if you're ever going to change direction, let's do it now."

00:22:16 ALICE WINKLER: That was one of Michener’s wartime revelations, but another came on a single night, after landing by plane on a mountainous island 900 miles east of Australia. The approach was a treacherous43 one.

00:22:32 JAMES MICHENER: We had to make three passes at the airfield44. The weather was really quite bad. The third time, I said, "Wait a minute. This isn't going to work. This is tough. We may have had it." Wonderful pilot, did it, came back, came into a perfect landing. That night, I could not sleep, and I went out on that airstrip at Tontouta — I'll never forget it — and I walked along the airstrip.

00:23:08 And that's when the war hit me, and that's when the phenomenon I spoke45 of before hit me. I said, "When this is over, I'm not going to be the same guy. I am going to live as if I were a great man." I never said I was going to be a great man, because I had no idea what my capacities were. I had no great confidence.

00:23:37 Nothing in my background gave me a reason to think so, but I was not forestalled46 from acting47 as if I were. “Let us deal with big subjects, associate with people who are brighter than you are, grapple with the problems of your time,” and it was as clear to me as if a voice were telling me to do this, that “this is the choosing-up point, kiddo."

00:24:13 From here on — I had no idea then that life was as short as it is. That concept comes very late in any human life, I think. I thought life was immeasurable and extensive to the horizon and beyond. But I did know that my capacities were not unlimited48. I had only so much to spend, and let’s do it in a big way.

00:24:41 ALICE WINKLER: Which brings us back again to Tales of the South Pacific, the first book of fiction James Michener wrote. It was based on his observations and his research when he was a lieutenant49 commander in what’s now called Vanuatu. The war and the tropical paradise are backdrops, but the fictional50 stories he weaves deal with people of different cultures crossing and often colliding. A young Marine51 falls for a Tonkinese girl and gets her pregnant. A Navy nurse tries to broaden her horizons and accept the illegitimate Polynesian children of the wealthy Frenchman she’s in love with. It was potent52 stuff in the late 1940s.

00:25:26 NELLIE: Joe, you're trying to get over to Bali Hai. That little girl you told me about?

00:25:32 JOSEPH: Liat? You know, the way you look at me now is just the way my mother would look. Damn it to hell, why? What difference does it make if her hair is blonde and curly or black and straight? If I want her to be my wife, why can't I have her?

00:25:47 NELLIE: Well, you can! It's just... people! I mean, they say it never works, don't they?

00:26:00 JOSEPH: They do. And then everybody does their damnedest to prove it. A hell of a chance Liat and I would have in one of those little gray stone and timber houses on the main line. Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Cable, entertained by Susie with a housewarming!

00:26:13 NELLIE: Stop it, please. Joe!

00:26:15 JOSEPH: Nobody came!

00:26:15 NELLIE: Stop it!

00:26:18 JAMES MICHENER: It came along when it was needed. People were thinking about these things. It was very daring for its day. We were advised to drop all the racial comments, that they would never be acceptable on Broadway and it would destroy the play. I think that is a particularly American problem. I was not smart enough to perceive that it was an American problem until much later when race problems became dominant53 in this country.

00:26:58 But I had certainly staked out my position on it when I was a very young man, and I've never wavered from that.

00:27:07 ALICE WINKLER: Michener would explore the people of different climates and religions, skin colors, and cultures again and again in his novels. To write them with authenticity54, he would not only conduct exhaustive research, he’d often move to whatever location he’d chosen as the setting for his next book. Michener loved travel and said he had some kind of a geographer's divining rod, pointing him toward places that would soon become center stage.

00:27:35 JAMES MICHENER: If Hobart Lewis were here, the former editor and publisher of Readers Digest, he could verify the fact that about 20 years ago I wanted to stop everything I was doing and write a great book about the Muslim world, because I was probably the only American who had ever lived in all of the Muslim countries in the world, except Arabia.

00:28:04 I'd lived in Indonesia. I'd lived in Pakistan. I'd lived in Malaysia. People don't think of that much — lived all across North Africa, lived in Spain, and I understood the Muslim world at that time as well as an outsider could. I had a great affinity55 for it, and Hobart was going to set up an arrangement whereby I could do that. And somehow or other, it — I was diverted to other things.

00:28:31 It was one of the great mistakes of my life, because had I written that book, I would, this very day, when things are in turmoil56 in that part of the world, have been an invaluable57 citizen.

00:28:45 ALICE WINKLER: Michener was a world traveler, at home on virtually every continent, and he would not begin to write until he had absorbed every nuance58 of the culture, the history, the geography, and the people of the country he’d chosen for his next work. But when he got down to writing, how did he walk that precarious59 line between fact and fiction while blending them together?

00:29:09 Other writers, and filmmakers too, have been taken to task when attempting such feats60. Oliver Stone comes to mind. So how did James Michener make it work so artfully?

00:29:21 JAMES MICHENER: I pioneered this form, in certain respects. I have tried to — in this wonderfully exciting form, always to pin the story upon fictional characters or fictional boats or fictional regiments61. I would never write about the Mayflower because everybody's done that, and everybody knows too much about that. I'll write about the third ship that came in. Nobody knows what it was. I'm going to say it's the Thetus.

00:29:58 And boy, are there going to be some interesting people on the Thetus, and they're going to get to a Plymouth colony. They're going to tear that damn place apart, because nobody knows really who they were. That's a device I use. And the adjunct to that is, basing my story upon those imaginary characters, I then am not averse62 to bringing in historic characters to give it authenticity and color, but only insofar as the historic character might really have impinged on these lives.

00:30:33 And I think the best example of that is in my novel The Source, in which I'm dealing63 with the digging of this well in a place like — it's over in Northern Israel. And anybody who was doing that would ultimately come into contact with King David, and so my boy comes into contact with King David, and I try to show David as a troubled king, a king who sent his prime general into the front lines so that the general would be killed so that David could inherit the general's widow.

00:31:18 That's my David, and I'm entitled to do that because I know David. I know everything about him that a man like me could know, and so I will use David to elucidate64 this whole period, but I will not fake him. I will not give him resounding65 statements of what we're going to do about the people living out in the desert when there's no evidence he ever even bothered with that.

00:31:47 ALICE WINKLER: When James Michener sat in his home for this interview with the Academy of Achievement, The Source was among the dozens of his novels that sat nearby on a shelf, books with fat, fat spines66 and bold one-word titles, like Alaska, Centennial, Chesapeake, many of them New York Times bestsellers, many of them adapted as films or TV mini-series, all of them based on his meticulous brand of research.

00:32:15 JAMES MICHENER: The best books, by and large, are written by people who don't do a great deal of research, who don’t follow my pattern, who just sit down in a little room like this with a typewriter and maybe a word processor and some maps, and write a great book out of your own experience. That's what Jane Austin did. That's what the Bront? Sisters did. That's what Emily Dickinson did. That's what Tennessee Williams did.

00:32:45 That's what Truman Capote did. But then there are the writers like Gore67 Vidal and Herman Wouk and me. And the great classics who are greater than any of us: Balzac, the son of a gun could write; Tolstoy — writers like that who did need data, did need research.

00:33:13 Now if you look at the best books of the research writers, they're as good as anything anybody else did. But the bulk of the best books, I think, come from people who just sit at a desk and write. And if I were starting over again, knowing that I had the ability that I did have, I might well go that route.

00:33:42 ALICE WINKLER: But then we’d have some James Michener from a parallel universe, not the James Michener who spent three, four, five, even seven years becoming an expert in a new topic for each book he wrote; not the James Michener who made his indelible literary mark with deep dives into the past. In Centennial, his novel about a town on the plains of Northeast Colorado, Michener’s story includes events that happened three-and-a-half billion years ago, with the formation of the earth’s crust. Why did he often think it necessary to take the long view to such extremes?

00:34:20 JAMES MICHENER: I would hate for any young person to think that she or he was the center of the universe. I lived in a little town in a medium-sized state in a medium-sized country. I mean, Canada and Brazil and China and Russia are all much bigger than we are. And I live on a medium-sized planet, and our galaxy68, our stars — you know, one of the smallest stars, and doomed69 after four-and-a-half billion years — and our galaxy's not the big one in the sky.

00:35:06 And it's only one in about a billion or more. So I cannot believe that I am the hottest thing in the universe, and I think that sobers you up.

00:35:19 ALICE WINKLER: James Michener seemed to revel42 in the things that sobered him and kept him humble70. Maybe it was his way of reconciling the wealthy, celebrity71, bestselling author he became with the scrappy, impoverished72 foster kid he had inside him. James Michener died in 1997 at the age of 90. During his lifetime, he published over 50 books of both fiction and nonfiction. He spent many happy years working in government.

00:35:49 He gave away over a hundred million dollars to museums, libraries, and universities, and he won the Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian73 award. Thanks for gathering74 around the fire to listen to him. I'm Alice Winkler.

00:36:09 And a special shout-out, as always, to the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation for its generous funding of What It Takes.


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 perseverance oMaxH     
n.坚持不懈,不屈不挠
参考例句:
  • It may take some perseverance to find the right people.要找到合适的人也许需要有点锲而不舍的精神。
  • Perseverance leads to success.有恒心就能胜利。
2 vault 3K3zW     
n.拱形圆顶,地窖,地下室
参考例句:
  • The vault of this cathedral is very high.这座天主教堂的拱顶非常高。
  • The old patrician was buried in the family vault.这位老贵族埋在家族的墓地里。
3 epics a6d7b651e63ea6619a4e096bc4fb9453     
n.叙事诗( epic的名词复数 );壮举;惊人之举;史诗般的电影(或书籍)
参考例句:
  • one of the great Hindu epics 伟大的印度教史诗之一
  • Homer Iliad and Milton's Paradise Lost are epics. 荷马的《伊利亚特》和弥尔顿的《失乐园》是史诗。 来自互联网
4 assessment vO7yu     
n.评价;评估;对财产的估价,被估定的金额
参考例句:
  • This is a very perceptive assessment of the situation.这是一个对该情况的极富洞察力的评价。
  • What is your assessment of the situation?你对时局的看法如何?
5 psychology U0Wze     
n.心理,心理学,心理状态
参考例句:
  • She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
  • He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。
6 arcane rVmzO     
adj.神秘的,秘密的
参考例句:
  • The technique at one time was arcane in the minds of most chemists.这种技术在大多数化学家心目中一度是神秘的。
  • Until a few months ago few people outside the arcane world of contemporary music had heard of Gorecki.直至几个月前,在现代音乐神秘殿堂之外很少有人听说了戈莱斯基。
7 vividly tebzrE     
adv.清楚地,鲜明地,生动地
参考例句:
  • The speaker pictured the suffering of the poor vividly.演讲者很生动地描述了穷人的生活。
  • The characters in the book are vividly presented.这本书里的人物写得栩栩如生。
8 amassing hzmzBn     
v.积累,积聚( amass的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • The study of taxonomy must necessarily involve the amassing of an encyclopaedic knowledge of plants. 分类学研究一定要积累广博的植物知识。 来自辞典例句
  • Build your trophy room while amassing awards and accolades. 建立您的奖杯积累奖项和荣誉。 来自互联网
9 meticulous A7TzJ     
adj.极其仔细的,一丝不苟的
参考例句:
  • We'll have to handle the matter with meticulous care.这事一点不能含糊。
  • She is meticulous in her presentation of facts.她介绍事实十分详细。
10 wagon XhUwP     
n.四轮马车,手推车,面包车;无盖运货列车
参考例句:
  • We have to fork the hay into the wagon.我们得把干草用叉子挑进马车里去。
  • The muddy road bemired the wagon.马车陷入了泥泞的道路。
11 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
参考例句:
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
12 entirely entirely     
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地
参考例句:
  • The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
  • His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。
13 bucks a391832ce78ebbcfc3ed483cc6d17634     
n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 );钱;(英国十九世纪初的)花花公子;(用于某些表达方式)责任v.(马等)猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 );抵制;猛然震荡;马等尥起后蹄跳跃
参考例句:
  • They cost ten bucks. 这些值十元钱。
  • They are hunting for bucks. 他们正在猎雄兔。 来自《简明英汉词典》
14 radical hA8zu     
n.激进份子,原子团,根号;adj.根本的,激进的,彻底的
参考例句:
  • The patient got a radical cure in the hospital.病人在医院得到了根治。
  • She is radical in her demands.她的要求十分偏激。
15 debut IxGxy     
n.首次演出,初次露面
参考例句:
  • That same year he made his Broadway debut, playing a suave radio journalist.在那同一年里,他初次在百老汇登台,扮演一个温文而雅的电台记者。
  • The actress made her debut in the new comedy.这位演员在那出新喜剧中首次登台演出。
16 specks 6d64faf449275b5ce146fe2c78100fed     
n.眼镜;斑点,微粒,污点( speck的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • Minutes later Brown spotted two specks in the ocean. 几分钟后布朗发现海洋中有两个小点。 来自英汉非文学 - 百科语料821
  • Do you ever seem to see specks in front of your eyes? 你眼睛前面曾似乎看见过小点吗? 来自辞典例句
17 coconut VwCzNM     
n.椰子
参考例句:
  • The husk of this coconut is particularly strong.椰子的外壳很明显非常坚固。
  • The falling coconut gave him a terrific bang on the head.那只掉下的椰子砰地击中他的脑袋。
18 gracefully KfYxd     
ad.大大方方地;优美地
参考例句:
  • She sank gracefully down onto a cushion at his feet. 她优雅地坐到他脚旁的垫子上。
  • The new coats blouse gracefully above the hip line. 新外套在臀围线上优美地打着褶皱。
19 lagoons fbec267d557e3bbe57fe6ecca6198cd7     
n.污水池( lagoon的名词复数 );潟湖;(大湖或江河附近的)小而浅的淡水湖;温泉形成的池塘
参考例句:
  • The Islands are by shallow crystal clear lagoons enclosed by coral reefs. 该群岛包围由珊瑚礁封闭的浅水清澈泻湖。 来自互联网
  • It is deposited in low-energy environments in lakes, estuaries and lagoons. 它沉淀于湖泊、河口和礁湖的低能量环境中,也可于沉淀于深海环境。 来自互联网
20 optimist g4Kzu     
n.乐观的人,乐观主义者
参考例句:
  • We are optimist and realist.我们是乐观主义者,又是现实主义者。
  • Peter,ever the optimist,said things were bound to improve.一向乐观的皮特说,事情必定是会好转的。
21 immature Saaxj     
adj.未成熟的,发育未全的,未充分发展的
参考例句:
  • Tony seemed very shallow and immature.托尼看起来好像很肤浅,不夠成熟。
  • The birds were in immature plumage.这些鸟儿羽翅未全。
22 incurably d85x2     
ad.治不好地
参考例句:
  • But young people are incurably optimistic and women have a special knack of forgetting their troubles. 可是青年人,永远朝着愉快的事情想,女人们尤其容易忘记那些不痛快。
  • For herself she wanted nothing. For father and myself she was incurably ambitious. 她为她自己并无所求,可为父亲和我,却有着无法遏制的野心。
23 enchanted enchanted     
adj. 被施魔法的,陶醉的,入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词
参考例句:
  • She was enchanted by the flowers you sent her. 她非常喜欢你送给她的花。
  • He was enchanted by the idea. 他为这个主意而欣喜若狂。
24 relatively bkqzS3     
adv.比较...地,相对地
参考例句:
  • The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
  • The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。
25 prospects fkVzpY     
n.希望,前途(恒为复数)
参考例句:
  • There is a mood of pessimism in the company about future job prospects. 公司中有一种对工作前景悲观的情绪。
  • They are less sanguine about the company's long-term prospects. 他们对公司的远景不那么乐观。
26 athletics rO8y7     
n.运动,体育,田径运动
参考例句:
  • When I was at school I was always hopeless at athletics.我上学的时候体育十分糟糕。
  • Our team tied with theirs in athletics.在田径比赛中,我们队与他们队旗鼓相当。
27 applied Tz2zXA     
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用
参考例句:
  • She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
  • This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。
28 promotion eRLxn     
n.提升,晋级;促销,宣传
参考例句:
  • The teacher conferred with the principal about Dick's promotion.教师与校长商谈了迪克的升级问题。
  • The clerk was given a promotion and an increase in salary.那个职员升了级,加了薪。
29 whatsoever Beqz8i     
adv.(用于否定句中以加强语气)任何;pron.无论什么
参考例句:
  • There's no reason whatsoever to turn down this suggestion.没有任何理由拒绝这个建议。
  • All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you,do ye even so to them.你想别人对你怎样,你就怎样对人。
30 royalties 1837cbd573d353f75291a3827b55fe4e     
特许权使用费
参考例句:
  • I lived on about £3,000 a year from the royalties on my book. 我靠着写书得来的每年约3,000英镑的版税生活。 来自辞典例句
  • Payments shall generally be made in the form of royalties. 一般应采取提成方式支付。 来自经济法规部分
31 dime SuQxv     
n.(指美国、加拿大的钱币)一角
参考例句:
  • A dime is a tenth of a dollar.一角银币是十分之一美元。
  • The liberty torch is on the back of the dime.自由火炬在一角硬币的反面。
32 scout oDGzi     
n.童子军,侦察员;v.侦察,搜索
参考例句:
  • He was mistaken for an enemy scout and badly wounded.他被误认为是敌人的侦察兵,受了重伤。
  • The scout made a stealthy approach to the enemy position.侦察兵偷偷地靠近敌军阵地。
33 yearning hezzPJ     
a.渴望的;向往的;怀念的
参考例句:
  • a yearning for a quiet life 对宁静生活的向往
  • He felt a great yearning after his old job. 他对过去的工作有一种强烈的渴想。
34 tricky 9fCzyd     
adj.狡猾的,奸诈的;(工作等)棘手的,微妙的
参考例句:
  • I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手,你能帮我吗?
  • He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题,只做了个笼统的表述。
35 chestnut XnJy8     
n.栗树,栗子
参考例句:
  • We have a chestnut tree in the bottom of our garden.我们的花园尽头有一棵栗树。
  • In summer we had tea outdoors,under the chestnut tree.夏天我们在室外栗树下喝茶。
36 chestnuts 113df5be30e3a4f5c5526c2a218b352f     
n.栗子( chestnut的名词复数 );栗色;栗树;栗色马
参考例句:
  • A man in the street was selling bags of hot chestnuts. 街上有个男人在卖一包包热栗子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Talk of chestnuts loosened the tongue of this inarticulate young man. 因为栗子,正苦无话可说的年青人,得到同情他的人了。 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说
37 peddled c13cc38014f1d0a518d978a019c8bb74     
(沿街)叫卖( peddle的过去式和过去分词 ); 兜售; 宣传; 散播
参考例句:
  • He has peddled the myth that he is supporting the local population. 他散布说他支持当地群众。
  • The farmer peddled his fruit from house to house. 那个农民挨家挨户兜售他的水果。
38 exempt wmgxo     
adj.免除的;v.使免除;n.免税者,被免除义务者
参考例句:
  • These goods are exempt from customs duties.这些货物免征关税。
  • He is exempt from punishment about this thing.关于此事对他已免于处分。
39 devastation ku9zlF     
n.毁坏;荒废;极度震惊或悲伤
参考例句:
  • The bomb caused widespread devastation. 炸弹造成大面积破坏。
  • There was devastation on every side. 到处都是破坏的创伤。 来自《简明英汉词典》
40 geologist ygIx7     
n.地质学家
参考例句:
  • The geologist found many uncovered fossils in the valley.在那山谷里,地质学家发现了许多裸露的化石。
  • He was a geologist,rated by his cronies as the best in the business.他是一位地质学家,被他的老朋友们看做是这门行当中最好的一位。
41 awakening 9ytzdV     
n.觉醒,醒悟 adj.觉醒中的;唤醒的
参考例句:
  • the awakening of interest in the environment 对环境产生的兴趣
  • People are gradually awakening to their rights. 人们正逐渐意识到自己的权利。
42 revel yBezQ     
vi.狂欢作乐,陶醉;n.作乐,狂欢
参考例句:
  • She seems to revel in annoying her parents.她似乎以惹父母生气为乐。
  • The children revel in country life.孩子们特别喜欢乡村生活。
43 treacherous eg7y5     
adj.不可靠的,有暗藏的危险的;adj.背叛的,背信弃义的
参考例句:
  • The surface water made the road treacherous for drivers.路面的积水对驾车者构成危险。
  • The frozen snow was treacherous to walk on.在冻雪上行走有潜在危险。
44 airfield cz9z9Z     
n.飞机场
参考例句:
  • The foreign guests were motored from the airfield to the hotel.用车把外宾从机场送到旅馆。
  • The airfield was seized by enemy troops.机场被敌军占领。
45 spoke XryyC     
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说
参考例句:
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
46 forestalled e417c8d9b721dc9db811a1f7f84d8291     
v.先发制人,预先阻止( forestall的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • She forestalled their attempt. 她先发制人,阻止了他们的企图。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • I had my objection all prepared, but Stephens forestalled me. 我已做好准备要提出反对意见,不料斯蒂芬斯却抢先了一步。 来自辞典例句
47 acting czRzoc     
n.演戏,行为,假装;adj.代理的,临时的,演出用的
参考例句:
  • Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她,她只是假装的。
  • During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代,她的表演生涯黯然失色。
48 unlimited MKbzB     
adj.无限的,不受控制的,无条件的
参考例句:
  • They flew over the unlimited reaches of the Arctic.他们飞过了茫茫无边的北极上空。
  • There is no safety in unlimited technological hubris.在技术方面自以为是会很危险。
49 lieutenant X3GyG     
n.陆军中尉,海军上尉;代理官员,副职官员
参考例句:
  • He was promoted to be a lieutenant in the army.他被提升为陆军中尉。
  • He prevailed on the lieutenant to send in a short note.他说动那个副官,递上了一张简短的便条进去。
50 fictional ckEx0     
adj.小说的,虚构的
参考例句:
  • The names of the shops are entirely fictional.那些商店的名字完全是虚构的。
  • The two authors represent the opposite poles of fictional genius.这两位作者代表了天才小说家两个极端。
51 marine 77Izo     
adj.海的;海生的;航海的;海事的;n.水兵
参考例句:
  • Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
  • When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时,他自愿参加了海军陆战队。
52 potent C1uzk     
adj.强有力的,有权势的;有效力的
参考例句:
  • The medicine had a potent effect on your disease.这药物对你的病疗效很大。
  • We must account of his potent influence.我们必须考虑他的强有力的影响。
53 dominant usAxG     
adj.支配的,统治的;占优势的;显性的;n.主因,要素,主要的人(或物);显性基因
参考例句:
  • The British were formerly dominant in India.英国人从前统治印度。
  • She was a dominant figure in the French film industry.她在法国电影界是个举足轻重的人物。
54 authenticity quyzq     
n.真实性
参考例句:
  • There has been some debate over the authenticity of his will. 对于他的遗嘱的真实性一直有争论。
  • The museum is seeking an expert opinion on the authenticity of the painting. 博物馆在请专家鉴定那幅画的真伪。
55 affinity affinity     
n.亲和力,密切关系
参考例句:
  • I felt a great affinity with the people of the Highlands.我被苏格兰高地人民深深地吸引。
  • It's important that you share an affinity with your husband.和丈夫有共同的爱好是十分重要的。
56 turmoil CKJzj     
n.骚乱,混乱,动乱
参考例句:
  • His mind was in such a turmoil that he couldn't get to sleep.内心的纷扰使他无法入睡。
  • The robbery put the village in a turmoil.抢劫使全村陷入混乱。
57 invaluable s4qxe     
adj.无价的,非常宝贵的,极为贵重的
参考例句:
  • A computer would have been invaluable for this job.一台计算机对这个工作的作用会是无法估计的。
  • This information was invaluable to him.这个消息对他来说是非常宝贵的。
58 nuance Xvtyh     
n.(意义、意见、颜色)细微差别
参考例句:
  • These users will easily learn each nuance of the applications they use.这些用户会很快了解他们所使用程序的每一细微差别。
  • I wish I hadn't become so conscious of every little nuance.我希望我不要变得这样去思索一切琐碎之事。
59 precarious Lu5yV     
adj.不安定的,靠不住的;根据不足的
参考例句:
  • Our financial situation had become precarious.我们的财务状况已变得不稳定了。
  • He earned a precarious living as an artist.作为一个艺术家,他过得是朝不保夕的生活。
60 feats 8b538e09d25672d5e6ed5058f2318d51     
功绩,伟业,技艺( feat的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • He used to astound his friends with feats of physical endurance. 过去,他表现出来的惊人耐力常让朋友们大吃一惊。
  • His heroic feats made him a legend in his own time. 他的英雄业绩使他成了他那个时代的传奇人物。
61 regiments 874816ecea99051da3ed7fa13d5fe861     
(军队的)团( regiment的名词复数 ); 大量的人或物
参考例句:
  • The three regiments are all under the command of you. 这三个团全归你节制。
  • The town was garrisoned with two regiments. 该镇有两团士兵驻守。
62 averse 6u0zk     
adj.厌恶的;反对的,不乐意的
参考例句:
  • I don't smoke cigarettes,but I'm not averse to the occasional cigar.我不吸烟,但我不反对偶尔抽一支雪茄。
  • We are averse to such noisy surroundings.我们不喜欢这么吵闹的环境。
63 dealing NvjzWP     
n.经商方法,待人态度
参考例句:
  • This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
  • His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。
64 elucidate GjSzd     
v.阐明,说明
参考例句:
  • The note help to elucidate the most difficult parts of the text.这些注释有助于弄清文中最难懂的部分。
  • This guide will elucidate these differences and how to exploit them.这篇指导将会阐述这些不同点以及如何正确利用它们。
65 resounding zkCzZC     
adj. 响亮的
参考例句:
  • The astronaut was welcomed with joyous,resounding acclaim. 人们欢声雷动地迎接那位宇航员。
  • He hit the water with a resounding slap. 他啪的一声拍了一下水。
66 spines 2e4ba52a0d6dac6ce45c445e5386653c     
n.脊柱( spine的名词复数 );脊椎;(动植物的)刺;书脊
参考例句:
  • Porcupines use their spines to protect themselves. 豪猪用身上的刺毛来自卫。
  • The cactus has spines. 仙人掌有刺。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
67 gore gevzd     
n.凝血,血污;v.(动物)用角撞伤,用牙刺破;缝以补裆;顶
参考例句:
  • The fox lay dying in a pool of gore.狐狸倒在血泊中奄奄一息。
  • Carruthers had been gored by a rhinoceros.卡拉瑟斯被犀牛顶伤了。
68 galaxy OhoxB     
n.星系;银河系;一群(杰出或著名的人物)
参考例句:
  • The earth is one of the planets in the Galaxy.地球是银河系中的星球之一。
  • The company has a galaxy of talent.该公司拥有一批优秀的人才。
69 doomed EuuzC1     
命定的
参考例句:
  • The court doomed the accused to a long term of imprisonment. 法庭判处被告长期监禁。
  • A country ruled by an iron hand is doomed to suffer. 被铁腕人物统治的国家定会遭受不幸的。
70 humble ddjzU     
adj.谦卑的,恭顺的;地位低下的;v.降低,贬低
参考例句:
  • In my humble opinion,he will win the election.依我拙见,他将在选举中获胜。
  • Defeat and failure make people humble.挫折与失败会使人谦卑。
71 celebrity xcRyQ     
n.名人,名流;著名,名声,名望
参考例句:
  • Tom found himself something of a celebrity. 汤姆意识到自己已小有名气了。
  • He haunted famous men, hoping to get celebrity for himself. 他常和名人在一起, 希望借此使自己获得名气。
72 impoverished 1qnzcL     
adj.穷困的,无力的,用尽了的v.使(某人)贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 );使(某物)贫瘠或恶化
参考例句:
  • the impoverished areas of the city 这个城市的贫民区
  • They were impoverished by a prolonged spell of unemployment. 他们因长期失业而一贫如洗。 来自《简明英汉词典》
73 civilian uqbzl     
adj.平民的,民用的,民众的
参考例句:
  • There is no reliable information about civilian casualties.关于平民的伤亡还没有确凿的信息。
  • He resigned his commission to take up a civilian job.他辞去军职而从事平民工作。
74 gathering ChmxZ     
n.集会,聚会,聚集
参考例句:
  • He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
  • He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。
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