廊桥遗梦读后感(英文版)

Review of The Bridges of Madison County

It is a romantic love story between a married woman called Francesca and an elegant photographer named Robert Kincaid.

Francesca grows up in a traditional family in Naples. She once had a nice romance with an artist, which was ended because of her parents’ disapproval. The cruelty of life reminded her that her future was so limited. Then her husband, Richard, who is kind, reliable and able to support a peaceful life, comes to her life. So she comes to America with Richard, leading a calm life in a small county.

But the male lead, Robert Kincaid, lives “in strange, haunted places, far back along the stems of Darwin’s logic.” He once was a soldier, becoming a photographer later. He has been running an uncertain life filled with all kinds of tale of the marvelous.

On a hot, summer’s day, they come to know each other, falling in love at their first sight. They exchange their hearts, regardless of everything of secular: money, prejudice and gossip. During the following four days, which could be their whole emotional life, they live together, shooting photos, kissing, making love, talking about dreams and love.

All good things must come. When it’s time for Richard’s coming back and Robert’s leaving, the two of them is in so much pain as if the sky was to fall. The soul inside Francesca calls a thousand time to go with Robert, but the responsibility of marriage forces her to stay. Although Robert promises a marvelous future: “We'll make love in desert sand and drink brandy on balconies in Mombasa, watching dhows from Arabia run up their sails in the first wind of morning. I'll show you lion country and an old French city on the Bay of Bengal where there's a wonderful rooftop restaurant, and trains that climb through mountain passes and little inns run by Basques high in the Pyrenees. In a tiger preserve in south India, there's a special place on an island in the middle of a huge lake. If you don't like the road, I'll set up shop somewhere and shoot local stuff or portraits or whatever it takes to keep us going.

That’s almost an adult fairytale. But two people living together means more peace and calm other than crazy and romance. I’m convinced that Francesca may not find happiness even if she went away with Robert.

Robert is gone, without her. She spends her whole life recalling the short love with him. Life goes on, like the flowing water.

What differs love and life is passion and the emphasis – the process or the result?

Summary of a TED talk

The Electric Rise and Fall of Nikola Tesla

With the assist of a projector and a three-dimensional book, the speaker, Marco Tempest, magically delivered the story of Nikola Tesla, who is considered the most impressive geek in history, about the identity transformation from the Father of Alternating Current to a impecunious

man.(The show is awesome!!)

Tesla is kind of a genius. He showed his great talent about mathematics and imagination when he was young. He took advantage of it by creating inventions in his mind instead of the lab. And then he build them in his work shop. Throughout his life, he owned over 700 patents to his name, the most famous of them being alternating current. He had a dream, which turned out an expensive one, to transmit all the media instantly and wirelessly with the technology of radio communication. The problem of fund wrecked his life since then. Tesla's career as an inventor never recovered. He became a recluse.After his death, people put his ashes in a golden globe at the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade.

The combination of magic-like illustration and a dramatic story made the speech a great success.