大学综合教程第六册on reading

On Reading罗琴刘春玲唐海浪Do you find reading enjoyable?why or why not•What are the two books do you like best?Could you mention one or two books that you find most enjoyable to read?Reading is so important to us,and almost everyone is involved in some kind of reading.As a way of diversion,reading is usually relaxing and enjoyable.However,can reading always be an enjoyable experience?If not,when and why?•Part 1•(Para 1) defines the scope of this passage•Part 2•(Para2)specifies the readers who are eligible to read the books•Part 3•(Para3)touches on the criterion of book selection•Part 4•(Para4)the relationship between intellectual pleasure and the habit of reading•Part 5•(Para5)the author continues his discussion on the habit of reading•Part 6•(Para6)discussion of an important reading skill—skippingW.Somerset Maugham (1874–1965),British novelist,one of the most popular writers in England in the20th century,is noted for his clarity of style and skill in storytelling.His best-known works include Of Human Bondage(1915), The Moon and Sixpence (1919),Ashenden:or,The British Agent(1928),and Cakes and Ale:or,The Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930).ON READING1.The first thing I want to insist on is that reading should be enjoyable. Of course, there are many books that we all have to read, either to pass examinations or to acquire information, from which it is impossible to extract enjoyment.We are reading them for instruction, and the best we can hope is that our need for it will enable us to get through them without tedium. Such books we read with resignation rather than with alacrity. But that is not the sort of reading I have in mind.The books I shall mention in due course will help you neither to get a degree nor to earn your living.They will not teach you to sail a boat or get a stalled motor to run,but they will help you to live more fully.That, however,they cannot do unless you enjoy reading them.•首先，我要强调的是，读书本应是一种享受。

当然，为了应付考试或者获取信息，许多书我们不得不读，而我们从中却不可能得到任何愉悦。

我们读这些书是出于教育的目的，至多希望自己对它的需要不至于使阅读的过程过于乏味。

我们读这些书并非好之乐之，而是出于无奈。

这当然不是我要谈的读书。

我接下去要谈论的书籍，既不能助您获得学位，也不能帮您谋生；既不能教您怎样驾驶帆船，也不能教您怎样启动熄火的车辆。

然而，它们却可以让您生活得更为充实。

不过，您必须喜欢读书才行，否则也无济于事。

2. The “you” I address is the adult whose avocations give him certain leisure and who would like to read the books which can without loss be left unread. I do not address the bookworm. He can find his own way.I wish to deal only with the masterpieces which the consensus of opinion for a long time has accepted as supreme. We are all supposed to have read them; it is a pity that so few of us have. But there are masterpieces which are acknowledged to be such by all the best critics and to which the historians of literature devote considerable space, yet which no ordinary person can now read with enjoyment.They are important to the students, but changing times an changing tastes have robbed them of their savour and it is hard to read them now without an effort of will. Let me give one instance: I have read George Eliot’s Adam Bede, but I cannot put my hand on my heart and say that was with pleasure. I read it from a sense of duty; I finished it with a sigh of relief.•我这里所说的“您”，是指那些有闲的成年人，他们想读的不是非读不可的那些书。

我指的不是书虫，因为书虫们自有读书之道。

我这里只想谈些名著，那些很久以来广受推崇的杰作。

我们理应都读过这些名著，遗憾的是这类人却为数甚少。

有些名著不仅为优秀的批评家们所公认，文学史家也会有长篇大论，然而，今天的普通读者读之却味同嚼蜡。

这些作品对研究者来说是重要的，然而，时移事易，人们喜好变更，如今这些书早已失其原味，要读完全凭意志。

举例来说，我读过乔治·艾略特的《亚当·比德》，但我不能违心地说这个过程是愉悦的。

我读它是出于义务，读完了自然如释重负。

3.Now of such books as this I mean to say nothing. Every man is his own best critic.Whatever the learned say about a book,however unanimous they are in their praise of it,unless it interests you,it is no business of yours.Don’t forget that critics often make mistakes—the history of criticism is full of the blunders the most eminent of them have made,and you who read are the final judge of the value to you of the book you are reading.This,of course,applies to the books I am going to recommend to your attention.•关于这类书籍，我无意置喙。

每个人自有自己的评价和意见。

不论学者们对某本书作何评价，即便他们众口如一，极尽溢美之词，除非您感兴趣，否则它与您毫不相干。

不要忘记批评家也经常犯错，批评史上那些最著名的评论家的低级错误比比皆是。

一本书对您价值几何，只有作为读者的您才是最终评判人。

当然，这适用于我将要向您推荐的书籍。

•We are none of us exactly like everyone else, only rather like, and it would be unreasonable to suppose that the books that have meant a great deal to me should be precisely those that will mean a great deal to you. But they are books that I feel the richer for having read, and I think I should not be quite the man I am if I had not read them. And so I beg of you, if any of you who read these pages are tempted to read the books I suggest and cannot get on with them, just put them down; they will be of no service to you if you do not enjoy them•我们每个人都不可能与他人完全一样，至多只是相仿而已。