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异国母女: 在另一个宇宙,我们也许是朋友(6)

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My mother had to spend cold nights in jail and drag her two children from her home and remake her life.

我母亲不得不在监狱里度过寒冷的夜晚,把她的两个孩子从家里拖出来,重新开始她的生活。

My mother’s mother, who died last year in London, was a child bride in Tehran.

我祖母去年在伦敦离世,她曾是德黑兰的一位童养媳。

She was 13 when she married an adult man (mercifully 19, not 60).

她13岁时嫁给了一个成年男人(幸运的是,他的年龄是19岁,而不是60岁)。

After that, my grandmother rejected Iranian ways. Until she died, she drew hard western-style boundaries around herself. In London, she distrusted Iranians.

从那以后,祖母不接受伊朗的方方面面。直到她去世,她都给自己划定了严格的西式界限。在伦敦,她不信任伊朗人。

I ask my friend, who has a kinder heart than I do, what these Asian mothers want from us, why they can’t leave us alone.

我问一位心肠比我更善良的朋友,这些亚洲母亲想从我们这里得到什么,为什么她们不能不管我们。

She says: “They want daughters who can understand and protect and translate them, in their old age.”

她说: “她们希望女儿在她们年老时能够理解、保护她们、变成她们。”

Because the world is changing and our mothers’ rules, which might have seemed folksy in the 90s, the stuff of immigrant standup routines, are now unfathomable to younger generations.

因为世界在变化,我们母亲的规则,在90年代可能看起来质朴,但却是移民日常生活中的单口相声,现在对年轻一代来说更是难以理解。

I don’t know about that. I think our broken mothers, though they dominate their daughters, have a way of transforming into folksy movie grandmas for their grandchildren – woefully misguided but unthreatening, like a drunk uncle.

我对此也无法理解。我想,我们那些残缺的母亲,虽然控制着自己的女儿,但却常常在孙子孙女面前变成电影中的和气祖母——悲惨地误入歧途,却不具威胁性,好比一个醉醺醺的叔叔。

My mother and daughter giggle about lipstick and drawings of birds.

我母亲与我女儿对着口红和小鸟的画咯咯笑。

Elena dances like Lizzo and my mother drinks her in, forgetting to chastise.

埃琳娜(女儿)跳得像莉佐一样奔放,母亲入神地看着,忘了责骂。

We want only to brutalise the generations above and below us. Skip forward or backward one and there’s enough distance for kinship, laughter, even understanding.

我们只想残酷地对待上代人与下代人。向上或向下隔一代,这样的距离才远得足以让我们维持亲情、放声大笑、甚至是理解。

I believed my grandmother when she called my grandfather a rapist.

当我祖母将祖父称之为强奸犯时,我相信了她。

Maybe this is because I wasn’t attached to my grandfather.

也许这是因为我不喜欢祖父。

The summer I turned 21, I lived with my grandmother in her London flat.

21岁那年夏天,我和祖母住在伦敦的公寓里。

She gave me Kahlua and pistachios for menstrual cramps, an affliction that she called “the bad situation”.

祖母为治疗痛经为我拿了甘露咖啡酒与开心果,她把这种苦恼称为“糟糕的情况”。

My aunt and mother were 11 and nine when their mother turned 25.

我姨母11岁、我母亲9岁时,她们的母亲、我的祖母才25岁。

My mother and aunt knew that as soon as my grandmother died, I would tell the world about her rape – so they broke into her home just after her death and cleared her devices, burned all her papers, saving a few of her poems and seven pages of harmless, but magnificently weird, Christian sci-fi she had written.

我的母亲与姨母知道,一旦我的祖母去世,我就会把祖母被侵犯的事告诉全世界——所以她们俩在她去世不久后就闯入家中,清理了她的物品,烧毁了她所有的文稿,留下了她的几首诗,以及她写的七页无伤大雅但却异常怪异的基督教科幻小说。

Did she write stories from her aborted childhood?

她写过她童年流产的故事吗?

My grandmother’s final words to me were: “I’m writing my memoir. Will you help me?”

祖母对我说的最后一句话是: “我正在写回忆录。你会帮我吗?”

She had written the first line: I had a very short childhood. That first line is all that’s left of her.

她写下第一行: 我的童年很短暂。第一行是她留下的所有了。

重点单词   查看全部解释    
memoir ['memwɑ:]

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n. 传记,实录 (复数)memoirs: 回忆录,自传

 
jail [dʒeil]

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n. 监牢,监狱,拘留所
vt. 监禁,下狱

 
giggle ['gigl]

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v. 吃吃地笑,格格地笑

联想记忆
understand [.ʌndə'stænd]

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vt. 理解,懂,听说,获悉,将 ... 理解为,认为<

 
affliction [ə'flikʃən]

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n. 痛苦,苦恼,苦难

联想记忆
dominate ['dɔmineit]

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v. 支配,占优势,俯视

 
skip [skip]

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v. 跳过,略过,遗漏
n. 跳跃,跳读

 
harmless ['hɑ:mlis]

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adj. 无害的,无恶意的

 
protect [prə'tekt]

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vt. 保护,投保

联想记忆
chastise [tʃæs'taiz]

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vt. 笞责,惩罚

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