So summary were the decisions made about relocation that in one case eighty-seven individuals, … …
语法上说,这是一个典型的以so引导的倒装句。正常语序是:The decisions were made so summary that ...。而So summary提前后,were就要提前到主语前,和主动词分离了。这样的语法结构在英语中可以说是比比皆是。什么?你没见到过?那就是你读英文的东西太少了。
另外一个重点词就是summary。我们熟知的是它的名词,表示“摘要,总结”之类的意思。但这里,summary显然是个形容词,而且是个带点贬义的形容词:done suddenly, without discussion or a legal process。很难找到一个中文词儿来翻译。
第一本购于1992年4月,算是一本很原汁原味的印本。收录了作者最有名的两篇:Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland以及Through the Looking-Glass。
第二本是中文版,购于2007年2月。主要是买了给老彼得看。
这本书翻译得非常好。将一些几乎不可翻译的地方都很好地翻译了过来。
比如这一段:
I beg your pardon, said Alice very humbly: you had got to the fifth bend, I think?
I had not! cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily.
A knot! said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking anxiously about her. Oh, do let me help to undo it!
“And how many hours a day did you do lessons?” said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.
“Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock Turtle: “nine the next, and so on.”
“What a curious plan!” exclaimed Alice.
“That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” the Gryphon remarked: “because they lessen from day to day.”
道奇森终生未娶。根据一般的看法,认为他对“小姑娘”特别有兴趣,特别关爱。维基百科上有一张他为Alice Liddel拍的照片,即使以现在的眼光来看,这张由一个成年男子为一个当时只有十几岁的女孩子拍的照片,也是有点离奇和unappropriate的。(他还有一些画作和照片上裸体的小姑娘。而根据一些考证,在当时,studies of child nudes were mainstream and fashionable in Dodgson’s time。因此用20/21世纪的眼光回头去判定,是不对的。)