C S 刘易斯(Clive Staples Lewis,1898-1963),出生于北爱尔兰首府贝尔法斯特的一个新教家庭,但长年居住于英格兰,是威尔士裔英国知名作家及护教士。他以儿童文学经典《纳尼亚传奇》系列闻名于世,此外他还写作了其他神学著作、中世纪文学研究等诸多作品。
刘易斯小时候因讨厌学校,只接受家庭教师授课。1916 年他获奖学金进入牛津大学就读,期间曾应征入伍参与第一次世界大战。1925 年起,他在牛津大学莫德林学院担任研究员,任教期间,他参加名为“吉光片羽(The Inklings)”读书会,并结识牛津大学英国文学教授N 柯格希尔,以及著名的《魔戒》作者J R R 托尔金,这场相遇改变了他整个人生。
1954 年,他当选为剑桥大学中世纪与文艺复兴期英国文学讲座教授,所写文学批评论文已成传世之作。他是一位甚受学生爱戴的老师。而他写作的神学和具神学深度的文学作品早已脍炙人口。其重要作品有:《纳尼亚传奇系列》、《太空三部曲》、《痛苦的奥秘》、《返璞归真》、《四种爱》等。
目錄:
Chapter 1 The Picture In The Bedroom 卧室里的图画 001
Chapter 2 On Board The Dawn Treader 在“黎明”号船上 017
Chapter 3 The Lone Islands 孤独群岛 036
Chapter 4 What Caspian Did There 卡斯宾大显身手 051
Chapter 5 The Storm And What Came Of It 暴风雨及其后果 066
Chapter 6 The Adventures Of Eustace 尤斯塔斯的历险 082
Chapter 7 How The Adventure Ended 历险如何告一段落 100
Chapter 8 Two Narrow Escapes 两次绝处逢生 116
Chapter 9 The Island Of The Voices 会发声的岛屿 135
Chapter 10 The Magician’s Book 魔法师的书 152
Chapter 11 The Dufflepuds Made Happy 独脚矮人尽开怀 168
Chapter 12 The Dark Island 黑暗之岛 184
Chapter 13 The Three Sleepers 三个好睡手 199
Chapter 14 The Beginning Of The End Of The World 世界尽头的开始 214
Chapter 15 The Wonders Of The Last Sea 最后一海的奇景 229
Chapter 16 The Very End Of The World 世界的尽头 245
向和平
2013年12月
【文摘】
The Picture In The Bedroom
卧室里的图画
There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. His parents called him Eustace Clarence and masters called him Scrubb. I can’t tell you how his friends spoke to him, for he had none. He didn’t call his Father and Mother “Father” and “Mother”, but Harold and Alberta. They were very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegetarians, non-smokers and tee-totallers and wore a special kind of underclothes. In their house there was very little furniture and very few clothes on beds and the windows were always open.
Eustace Clarence liked animals, especially beetles, if they were dead and pinned on a card. He liked books if they were books of information and had pictures of grain elevators or of fat foreign
children doing exercises in model schools.
Eustace Clarence disliked his cousins the four Pevensies—Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. But he was quite glad when he heard that Edmund and Lucy were coming to stay. For deep down inside him he liked bossing and bullying; and, though he was a puny little person who couldn’t have stood up even to Lucy, let alone Edmund, in a fight, he knew that there are dozens of ways to give people a bad time if you are in your own home and they are only visitors.
Edmund and Lucy did not at all want to come and stay with Uncle Harold and Aunt Alberta. But it really couldn’t be helped. Father had got a job lecturing in America for sixteen weeks that summer, and Mother was to go with him because she hadn’t had a real holiday for ten years. Peter was working very hard for an exam and he was to spend the holidays being coached by old Professor Kirke in whose house these four children had had wonderful adventures long ago in the war years. If he had still been in that house he would have had them all to stay. But he had somehow become poor since the old days and was living in a small cottage with only one bedroom to spare. It would have cost too much money to take the other three all to America, and so only Susan had gone.
Grown-ups thought her the pretty one of the family and she was no good at school work though otherwise very old for her age and Mother said she “would get far more out of a trip to America than the youngsters”. Edmund and Lucy tried not to grudge Susan her luck, but it was dreadful having to spend the summer holidays at their Aunt’s. “But it’s far worse for me,” said Edmund, “because you’ll at least have a room of your own and I shall have to share a bedroom with that record stinker, Eustace.”
The story begins on an afternoon when Edmund and Lucy were stealing a few precious minutes alone together. And of course they were talking about Narnia, which was the name of their own private and secret country. Most of us, I suppose, have a secret country but for most of us it is only an imaginary country. Edmund and Lucy were luckier than other people in that respect. Their secret country was real. They had already visited it twice; not in a game or a dream but in reality. They had got there of course by Magic, which is the only way of getting to Narnia. And a promise, or very nearly a promise, had been made them in Narnia itself that they would some day get back. You may imagine that they talked about it a good deal, when they got the chance.
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有一个名叫尤斯塔斯?克拉伦斯?斯克拉布的男孩子,他也基本上名副其实a。他的父母管他叫尤斯塔斯?克拉伦斯,而老师们则喊他斯克拉布。我无法告诉你,他的朋友怎么称呼他,因为他没有一个朋友。他对自己的父母不叫“爸爸”和“妈妈”,而是直呼其名,喊他们哈罗德和艾伯塔。他们俩是非常新潮的时代领军人物,是素食主义者,从不吸烟,滴酒不沾,穿一种特殊的内衣。在他们的房子里,家具少得可怜,床上的被褥也寥寥无几,而且窗户总是敞开着。
尤斯塔斯喜爱动物,特别喜欢钉在卡片上的甲虫标本。他喜欢读那些能够获取知识的书籍,里面有一些插图,画着粮仓,或者胖嘟嘟的外国儿童在模范学校里做操。
尤斯塔斯不喜欢珀文西家的四个表兄表姐——彼得、苏珊、埃德蒙和露西。不过,听说埃德蒙和露西要来做客,他还是蛮高兴的。因为他打心眼儿里喜欢颐指气使,欺负别人。虽说他还只是一个小屁孩儿,打起架来,甚至不是露西的对手,更不用说埃德蒙了,可他毕竟是在自己家里,而他们不过是客人,他有几十种招数,可以使客人痛苦不堪。
埃德蒙和露西压根儿也不想来艾伯塔姨妈和哈罗德姨父家里做客,可是他们没有办法。那年夏天,父亲得到一个美差,要到美国去讲学十六周,母亲要陪他一同前去,因为在过去的十年间,她从来都没有度过一个像样的假期。彼得正在勤奋学习,准备参加一场考试。这个暑期,他将在老教授柯克的指导下紧张备考。在很久之前的“二战”期间,就是在这位老教授的家里,四个孩子曾经有过一番奇妙的历险。如果教授还住在那座大房子里,他肯定会邀请他们全都过去做客。但是有好长时间了,教授不知怎么就破产了,现在住在一个小屋里,只有一间多余的卧室。父母决定只带苏珊一个人去美国,如果把另外三个孩子都带上,花销太大,他们承受不了。
大人们认为,苏珊是个漂亮的女孩子,在学校成绩不怎么样(说起来,她也是个大姑娘了)。妈妈说,苏珊“到美国去旅游,能比两个小不点儿学到更多的东西”。埃德蒙和露西尽力不去妒忌苏珊的好运气,但到姨妈家过暑假,的确是件很不爽的事情。“对我来说尤其郁闷,”埃德蒙说,“你至少还有自己的一间卧室,而我则必须跟那个超讨厌的尤斯塔斯同住一间卧室。”
故事发生在一天下午,埃德蒙和露西抽出宝贵的几分钟独自待在一起。自然而然的,他们又谈论起了纳尼亚,纳尼亚是他们所拥有的神秘国度的名字。我想,大多数人都有一个神秘国度,但那个国度只是存在于我们的想象中而已。在这一点上,埃德蒙和露西比其他人都要幸运。他们的神秘国度真实存在,他们已经亲自去过两次,而不是在游戏时,或者在梦中见到的。当然,他们是凭借着魔法去的,那是到纳尼亚去的唯一途径。在纳尼亚,他们曾经得到过一个应许,或者说是一个承诺,即有一天他们还会旧地重游。你可以想象得到,他们一有机会,就会大谈特谈这些经历。
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