The Great Gatsby读书笔记（二）

下面是第四章的读书笔记。

（接上篇）

9.

He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American - that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work or rigid sitting in youth and, even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games. This quality was continually breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of
restlessness.

我觉得，这句话算是比较难的了。不过，菲茨杰拉德就最爱写这种风格的句子。

10.

It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous
length with triumphant hat-boxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of wind-shields that mirrored a dozen suns.

这是描写20年代的一辆豪华汽车的。我觉得，用在描写暴发户身上也很合适。不过，令人不解的是挡风玻璃为什么会是"terraced with a labyrinth"呢？今天的汽车似乎都只有一块挡风玻璃的呀。

11.

A little overwhelmed, I began the generalized evasions which that question deserves.

当你遇到你不想回答的问题，开始搪塞了。就可以用到上面这句话来描述你的反应。

12.

I saw him opening a chest of rubies to ease, with their crimson-lighted depths, the gnawings of his broken heart.

对于某些人来说，金钱的意义在于它有助于抚平内心的空虚。

13.

Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.

这句话写的是通过皇后区大桥进入纽约时的情景。这个城市令人惊奇，充满希望和奇迹。最后一句中的"promise"一词令人叹服。

14.

She began to cry - she cried and cried. I rushed out and found her mother's maid, and we locked the
door and got her into a cold bath. She wouldn't let go of the letter. She took it into the tub with her and squeezed it up into a wet ball, and only let me leave it in the soap-dish when she saw that it was coming to pieces like snow. But she didn't say another word. We gave her spirits of ammonia and put ice on her forehead and hooked her back into her dress, and half an hour later, when we walked out of the room, the pearls were around her neck and the incident was over.

这段很像后来海明威的风格。

15.

They moved with a fast crowd, all of them young and rich and wild, but she came out with an absolutely perfect reputation.

在这句里面，move是"交往"的意思，fast是行为放荡的意思。

16.

The clear voices of girls, already gathered like crickets on the grass, rose through the hot twilight.

很诗意的句子。

17.

A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: "There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.."

（中译）我的耳边兴奋的跳出一句警句："世界上只有追求者，被追求者，忙碌的人和疲倦的人......"

18.

Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, I had no girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs, and so I drew up the girl beside me, tightening my arms. Her wan, scornful mouth smiled, and so I drew her up again closer, this time to my face.

肉体的幸福胜于相思的痛苦。