相信大家都知道,阅读原版英文小说是提高词汇量和语感的很好的方法。英国广播公司(BBC)通过对82位外国评论家的调查,评选出了最经久不衰十本英文小说。快来看看这里面你读过几本?哪本又是你的最爱呢?
1、 Middlemarch
《米德尔马契》,1874年
作者:George Eliot 乔治·艾略特
A novel of great characters, it's an even greater novel of ideas and ideals. Middlemarch is the greatest social and psychological novel ever written in English.
这部小说人物角色卓越,更精妙之处在于其想法与理念。《米德尔马契》是迄今最伟大的英文写就的社会和心理学小说。
2、To the Lighthouse
《到灯塔去》,1927年
作者:Virginia Woolf 弗吉尼亚·伍尔芙
Subtle, beautiful, staggeringly intelligent and flat-out original. A masterpiece of modernism, its stream-of-consciousness, richness of language and perceptions has continued to reveal itself.
细腻美妙、智慧惊人,极其新颖独到。现代派的大师之作,运用意识流写法,其语言丰富、观察敏锐,不言自明。
3、Mrs Dalloway
《达洛卫夫人》,1925年
作者:Virginia Woolf 弗吉尼亚·伍尔芙
If the most precious gift of the novel as a medium is the power it has to break into the prison of human consciousness, to expose the gossamer (蛛丝似的,纤细缥缈的) weave of thought and feeling and memory that makes up our innermost lives, then Woolf's fourth novel stands alone at the pinnacle(顶峰). Virginia Woolf made modernism live and breathe.
如果说这部小说作为媒介最天才之处在于其破除人类意识的囹圄、暴露人们那些构成内在世界的细若蛛丝的思绪、情感和记忆,那么伍尔芙的第四部小说就是孤立巅峰之作。弗吉尼亚让现代主义焕发生命、鲜活起来。
4、Great Expectations
《远大前程》,2012年
作者:Charles Dickens 查尔斯·狄更斯
Great Expectations might be the quintessential British novel. To re-read Dickens' classic as an adult is to discover its wit and brio(文笔生动), its influence, and its truth. It has all the elements of classic Dickens – endearing, flawed characters; a plot that skewers(串住、刺穿) the politics of the time; subplots that skewer morality and culture; a love story; and a wonderful storyline.
《远大前程》或许是最地道的英国小说。成年读者重温狄更斯经典,就会发现其智慧与精彩、影响与真理。《远大前程》有狄更斯经典的所有元素,讨人欢喜却不完美的角色、主要故事情节能牵住时局、副线情节串起道德与文化,是部情节精彩的爱情故事作品。
5、Jane Eyre
《简·爱》,2014年
作者:Charlotte Brontë 夏洛蒂·勃朗特
Brontë's revolutionary 1847 Gothic romance about a young woman seeking a richer and more passionate life on her own still resonates with modern readers. Brontë's novel features the orphan Jane Eyre's search for an identity, her powerful attraction to her master, Mr Rochester, and an intimate description of her complex moral choices and sometimes raw emotional states.
勃朗特这部哥特式爱情传奇出版于1847年,内容革新,讲述了一个年轻女性追寻更为充实激情的生活,至今仍能引起现代读者的共鸣。 勃朗特小说的主人翁简·爱是个孤儿,追寻着自我的身份,主人罗切斯特先生深深吸引着她;小说真切描述了简·爱复杂的道德抉择及其有时显得有些原始的情感状态。
6、Bleak House
《荒凉之屋》,2011年
作者:Charles Dickens 查尔斯·狄更斯
Bleak House is among Dickens novels, uniquely original in its alternation of first-person past-tense chapters with a concurrent third-person account in present tense.
《荒凉之屋》是狄更斯的小说之一,以第一人称过去时所写的章节与第三人称现在时的叙述并行,两者间的切换创新独到。
7、 Wuthering Heights
《呼啸山庄》,2012年
作者:Emily Brontë 艾米莉·勃朗特
Wuthering Heights is "powered by more psychological energy than any book ever written". Readers admire Wuthering Heights because of "its layered narrative structure, because it is a work of incredible imagination, and because it is far more than a love story. The story shows "the eternal rocks beneath" our fleeting desires.
《呼啸山庄》“蕴含巨大的心理能量,没有其它书籍能够与之匹敌。”读者推崇《呼啸山庄》是因为其“层层叠叠的叙述结构”和丰富惊人的想象力,更因为《呼啸山庄》超越了爱情故事本身,展现了我们转瞬即逝的欲望之下“永恒的震撼”。
8、David Copperfield
《大卫·科波菲尔》,2006年
作者:Charles Dickens 查尔斯·狄更斯
David Copperfield is populated by some of the most vivid characters ever created. They are as much a part of readers' world, and their way of thinking about the world, as people they have actually met.
《大卫·科波菲尔》中云集了许多创造得最为鲜活的一些人物形象。这些人物角色仿佛是读者所在真实世界的一部分,和读者亲身遇见的人一样,有着相似的世界观。
9、Frankenstein
《弗兰肯斯坦》,1981年
作者:Mary Shelley 玛莉·雪莱
This pioneering work of science fiction and Gothic horror developed an indelible "monster" of a theme that has endured for centuries: of the scientist as a "modern Prometheus".
这部先锋作品集科幻和哥特式恐怖于一身,营造了一个难以磨灭的“恶魔”主题,即科学家中的“现代普罗米修斯”,几世纪以来经久不衰。
10、Vanity Fair
《名利场》,1848年
作者:William Makepeace Thackeray
威廉·梅克皮斯·萨克雷
This novel features probably the greatest anti-heroine in English literature, Becky Sharp, and a plot that revolves around class, social climbing and a financial crisis that will seem eerily familiar to modern readers. Vanity Fair has it all. It both speaks of its time, and speaks of all times.
这部小说的主角或许是英国文学史上最知名的非正统派女主角——贝奇·夏普,小说的情节围绕阶级、跻身上流社会以及引发现代读者奇异的熟悉感的金融危机。《名利场》这些要素全都具备, 讲述那个年代,也讲述着所有年代。