首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
The Writer’s Life A survey of Britain’s youth found that many aspire(渴望)to become writers. They clearly don’t know how hard it i
The Writer’s Life A survey of Britain’s youth found that many aspire(渴望)to become writers. They clearly don’t know how hard it i
admin
2014-07-25
80
问题
The Writer’s Life
A survey of Britain’s youth found that many aspire(渴望)to become writers. They clearly don’t know how hard it is, writes Alix Christie ...
A)Britain’s most respected writers have at least one trait in common: all had childhoods steeped in a passion for reading, enabled by public libraries. At a time when government cuts threaten to close some 450 libraries around the country, the British Library has released "The Writing Life", a new two-CD set of writers discussing their life, their work and, yes, their fondness for libraries. In gathering these interviews, the British Library was not aiming for a defending statement. But as affordable access to literature becomes increasingly precarious(不牢靠的)— in libraries or booksellers large and small — this collection is a reminder of its importance.
B)That isn’t to say that the authors here speak with an agenda. The pleasure of this series is in hearing writers convey their private thoughts on their profession. We learn that Beryl Bainbridge thinks "there’s no such thing as the imagination." Ian McEwan "always felt something of an out-sider." Hilary Mantel believes that "In the ideal world, all writers would have a Catholic childhood, or belong to some other religion which does the equivalent for them." Howard Jacobson, the most recent Booker prize winner, spent more of his youth stockpiling books than reading them. Michael Holroyd, a biographer, fears that literature "has become the younger brother of the performing arts."
C)Judging from the online reaction to excerpts(摘录)published in the Guardian, not all readers are ready for a glimpse at the appalling hubris(骇人的自大)and distressing self-doubt that troubled most writers. But for those who seriously attempt to write — for whom this collection is explicitly intended — these voices offer great encouragement. "Such a lot of it is about keeping up your confidence," says last year’s Booker prize winner Mantel, whose own first novel took nearly 20 years to make it into print. D)Stunned by a survey that showed "writer" as the number one career goal of British youth — ahead of astronaut and footballer — Sarah O’Reilly at the British Library saw the project as a way to put across the real challenges that come with the profession. Selected from hundreds of hours of archived interviews, the excerpts "provide a useful corrective to the idea that the writing life is a glamorous(魅力四射的)life," she says. Indeed, aspiring writers should anticipate inhabiting a "place of total and complete solitude(独处)," offers Linda Grant, a novelist included in the collection.
E)Yet these CDs are instructive, too, with authors weighing in on developing characters, finding ideas, researching context and figuring out how it all works together. The specific details of when, where and how — pencil, pen or computer? Morning or night? Each day or as the spirit calls? — are as varied as the writers. If there is a single bit of common advice, it is to(in the words of Penelope Lively): "read, read, read". About this, everyone agrees. "You learn how to structure a novel from looking at the great novels of the past," says Philip Hensher, a novelist. As Peter Porter, a late Australian poet asks, "If literature had no effect on you, why would you write it?" "Writers are made by reading," says Mantel. "By the time I was 18 I had read such a huge number of novels that I think I knew how to write one, because I do think that’s how it’s done... that you learn the different ways as patterns, almost like visual patterns."
F)Nearly all, too, say the chief delight of writing is the ineffable(难以用语言表达的)process of discovery. "You don’t have very much choice in the matter," says Michael Frayn, a playwright and novelist. "The thing seems to have some kind of reality in one’s head... it seems to be something that one is discovering rather than inventing." For U. A. Fanthorpe, a late poet, "There is a way in which the poem exists before you write it." Adds Dame P. D. James, a celebrated crime novelist, "I don’t think we choose our genre(风格). I think that it — a genre — chooses us."
G)All would-be writers should listen to this series, as it corrects some common misconceptions. No, the work does not emerge complete and perfect, like Athena from Zeus’s head. Texts are written and rewritten dozens of times. Anne Fine, a children’s writer, says she has filled boxes three-feet high with drafts for any given book. No, the media appearances are not really what writers enjoy. "The book should do the speaking and I should stay at home," says Holroyd. But, he complains that now "you have to go out and blow the trumpet and bang the drum in front of your book. I think that because we’re not longer a literary culture... it isn’t the word that speaks, you have to perform the word a bit, you have to demonstrate it, you have to appear, you have to be the book."
H)This imperative(必须完成的事)of celebrity is what’s most damaging, says Wendy Cope, a poet. "I’m very depressed with this whole thing of young people just wanting to be famous for the sake of being famous. If you want to be a writer, a serious writer, your focus has to be on writing as well as you can and all those other things are incidental." While true, this also shows that many of these writers came of age in a much quieter, gentler time. If Shakespeare were writing now, said Porter, he too would be forced to make the rounds of morning news shows. Contemporary authors who chose to live a quiet life and avoided other people, such as Harper Lee and Anne Tyler, wouldn’t stand a chance in today’s din.
I)And yet, the writing life continues to capture its victims. The final word on the series goes to Maureen Duffy, a poet and novelist, who in turn quotes a poem by Gerald Manley Hopkins: "What I do is me, for that I came." One hopes the Library of Congress will be inspired to capture America’s most important writers the same way.
"The Writing Life" series attract the author because they convey writers’ private thoughts on writing.
选项
答案
B
解析
B)段第2句提到,这个系列的有趣之处在于听众能够听到作家们对自己职业发表的个人看法。本题是对原文的同义转述,其中的writing对应文中的their profession。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/xHv7777K
0
大学英语四级
相关试题推荐
A、Wehavebetterappetiteandeatmore.B、Wearemorelikelytoeatoutthesedays.C、Weconsidermoreaboutthefoodbudgets.D
ThePowerofNiceInfiction,filmandpopularculture,niceisthelastwordeverassociatedwithbosses.There’sLordSuga
Forthefirsttimein25yearstheFoodandDrugAdministration(FDA)isbringinginnewhealthwarningsforcigarettes.Thenine
A、Beauty.B、Loyalty.C、Luck.D、Durability.A短文中提到,钻戒代表美丽,故答案为A)。
OnAccommodationArrangements1.有些人认为要为学生提供“单人宿舍”2.有些人认为“集体宿舍”更好3.我的观点
A、Becausepeoplelackedtheknowledgetoprovidescientificanswers.B、Becausepeoplewantedtounderstandwhycertainthingsha
A、ShewentshoppinginLondon.B、Shewenthikingwithfriends.C、Shewenttoameeting.D、Shewatchedamovieondisasters.C
A、Afraid.B、Curious.C、Approving.D、Uninterested.A四个选项均为形容词,并结合第16、17题选项推测,本题可能考查某人对dirt的态度。短文中提到HenryIVwasfamously(出了名地)dir
EvenbeforehistorianJosephEllisbecameabest-sellingauthor,hewasfamousforhisvividlectures.Inhispopularcoursesat
随机试题
把图像(或声音)数据中超过人眼(耳)辨认能力的细节去掉的数据压缩方法属于_______方法。
窝沟龋中最多的致龋菌为
二陈汤主治之咳嗽属于
A.退现性不良反应B.A类不良反应C.B类不良反应D.新的药品不良反应E.药品不良反应
港口与航道工程中,影响挖泥船时间利用率因素的说法,错误的是()。
关于代位权的行使,如果原债务人的债务人向原债务人履行债务,原债务人拒绝受领时,则债权人有权代原债务人受领。但在接受之后,应当 将该财产( )。
1975年()开展房地产抵押券的期货交易,标志着金融期货交易的开始。
跳水运动员在跳水比赛过程中营救了落水人。但是比赛成绩仍然以开始的跳水成绩计算。只给了一个平均成绩。对于这个问题你怎么看?
有人再三声称倾倒核废物不会对附近的居民生命造成威胁。如果这种说法正确,那么不能把核垃圾场设在人口密集的地区就显得毫无道理。但是要把这些核废物倒在人口稀少的地区的方针表明,这项政策的负责者们至少在安全方面还是有些担忧的。下面哪一个如果正确,能最严重地削弱上述
党的十九大报告指出,实现“两个一百年”奋斗目标、实现中华民族伟大复兴的战略支撑是()
最新回复
(
0
)