The Great Gatsby (5)



WQC

  • 第一次的餐桌对话。
  • 集中凸显了养尊处优的贵族们的日常生活;对Daisy和Tom的语言、语气、身体姿态的细节描写,多次用到跟“强迫”有关的词汇,以及随意打断人讲话,突然转换话题…
  • 抓住了人物特点,即这些人已经在骨子里习惯于对其他人颐指气使、指指点点、不容置疑,让他人听命与自己,只能自己占主导,他人只能跟从… 仿佛一切都是默认的理所当然。

Notes

  • Before I could reply that he was my neighbor dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively undermine Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.
  • Slenderly, languidly, …
  • four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.
  • “Why CANDLES?” objected Daisy, frowning.
  • …, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed.
  • Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresseds and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire.
  • It was sharply different from the West where a n evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.
  • I meant nothing in particular by this remark but it was taken up in an unexpected way.
  • infinitesimal hesitation
  • she whispered enthusiastically
  • For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened – then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.