再給哈利·波特一次機(jī)會(huì)

再給哈利·波特一次機(jī)會(huì)

JK羅琳近日承認(rèn)，讓赫敏和羅恩結(jié)婚是一個(gè)錯(cuò)誤，赫敏才應(yīng)該成為波特夫人。倫敦大學(xué)學(xué)院榮譽(yù)教授薩瑟蘭表示，看好羅琳續(xù)寫小說，再給哈利一次機(jī)會(huì)。

測(cè)試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識(shí)：

paparazzi 狗仔隊(duì)

shrift 懺悔，認(rèn)罪

slavering 口水直流

epilogue 結(jié)尾，終曲

閱讀即將開始，建議您計(jì)算一下閱讀整篇文章所用時(shí)間，并對(duì)照我們?cè)谖恼伦詈蠼o出的參考值來估算您的閱讀速度。

Give Harry Potter a second chance to find happiness

By John Sutherland

* * *

If Rowling wants the wizard to be with Hermione, she can make it so, says John Sutherland

JK Rowling remains the most interesting writer Britain has. She is even more interesting just at the moment, after a judicious leak concerning some second thoughts she has had about her great work. Normally Ms Rowling is also the Howard Hughes(legendary American business magnate, aviator, engineer, film maker and philanthropist) of her profession: intensely private. News hounds and paparazzi get short shrift with the creator of Harry Potter. But occasionally she throws teasing morsels to keep the fans slavering. A lecture audience in New York, for example, is informed in passing that Dumbledore, his creator now suspects, is gay. A closet door swings half-open. Quidditch, Ms Rowling elsewhere confides, was inspired by a row with her boyfriend. With her latest revelations, she has thrown her fans another dripping chunk of red meat.

In the epilogue to the seventh and last Potter novel it was revealed that Hermione, the series’ most eligible female character, was destined to marry Ron, the hero’s less gifted (magically) sidekick. This elicited howls of joy from the “Harmoniums” – those who wanted this outcome – but confounded the fairytale convention that the hero always gets his girl. Harry would have to settle for Ginny, Ron’s sister, instead.

Ms Rowling says she did this “for personal reasons”, although she does not reveal what they were, and now thinks she was wrong. She predicts marital breakdowns. Emma Watson, who plays Hermione in the movies, agrees: “I think there are fans out there who know that too and who wonder whether Ron would have really been able to make her happy.”

Ms Rowling’s afterthoughts have not gone down well. She has been accused of meddling with her own creation, as if Michelangelo had picked up his pot and had a second go at the Sistine Chapel ceiling. But there is another explanation.

As with the Jesuits, if Potter got you as a child, you are Pottered for life. The sequence began in 1997. Harry was introduced to the reading world as an abused child, cowering under the stairs in 4 Privet Drive. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was cannily marketed by Bloomsbury, its publisher, as a children’s book, which is what it was. But unlike other children’s stories, Harry has grown up, and his readers have aged with him.

That much was vividly clear in the loyal midnight crowds who waited in their wizard finery outside bookshops until the witching hour, when the doors were flung open and the awaited volume was released to the thundering horde. Those once-upon-a-time children, who cowered with him in their imaginations in Privet Drive, are now marriageable adults.

I suspect William Hill (a lottery firm) is already shortening the odds on the emergence of not just a second epilogue, to follow the one given to us at the end of the last volume, but another whole cycle dealing with the life complications of the grown-up band of Hogwarts alumni. At two years short of 50, Ms Rowling is in her prime. Her attempts at other lines of fiction have not been entirely successful. Fifty years (at least) of Harry’s un-narrated life awaits, temptingly. And, with more than half of marriages failing in modern times, who knows what exciting things may happen.

......

My guess though is that Ms Rowling might give us another Potterian cycle and, who knows, there might be another Mrs Potter at the end of it all. The right Mrs Potter. Place your bets with Mr Hill now before the odds shorten.

請(qǐng)根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內(nèi)容，完成以下自測(cè)題目：

1. What did Rowling confide?

a. Prof. Dumbledore is gay

b. Quidditch was invented by her boyfriend.

c. Marital breakdowns would happen.

d. Ron would have trouble making Hermione happy.

2. What is the writer's conclusion?

a. There might be another epilogue, there might be another Mrs Potter.

b. There would be no new epilogue, not to mention Mrs Potter.

c. There will be another epilogue, but without a second Mrs Potter.

d. There will be a new Mrs Potter in later epilogue(s).

3. Why does the writer believe there would be another epilogue?

a. Lottery firm William Hill has shortened the odds.

b. HP series have mass number of loyal readers.

c. Children who read HP are now approaching marrying ages.

d. Just kidding.

4. Why does the writer believe there might be another Mrs Potter?

a. Children who read HP are now approaching marrying ages.

b. Fifty years (at least) of Harry’s un-narrated life awaits.

c. More than half of marriages fail in modern times.

d. Emma Watson thinks so.

[1] 答案c. Marital breakdowns would happen.

解釋：第三段的第二句話：She predicts marital breakdowns. A只是懷疑Dumbledore, his creator now suspects, is gay。B魁地奇是羅琳在于男友爭吵的時(shí)候想到的。D是艾瑪·沃森的話。

[2] 答案a. There might be another epilogue, there might be another Mrs Potter.

解釋：注意選項(xiàng)中對(duì)這兩個(gè)事件的可能性的不同的分級(jí)。would be是語氣較為肯定的，當(dāng)然次于will be，而might be則不那么肯定了。總結(jié)自然是在最后一段。

[3] 答案b. HP series have mass number of loyal readers.

解釋：當(dāng)年那些從第一本《哈利波特》讀起，想象著在壁櫥里蜷縮著的哈利的孩子們，是與他差不多同齡的。也是與他一起長大的，因此"if Potter got you as a child, you are Pottered for life".

[4] 答案c. More than half of marriages fail in modern times.

解釋：雖然作者帶有戲謔口吻，但這確實(shí)是能夠讓那群忠實(shí)讀者們理解和產(chǎn)生共鳴的基礎(chǔ)。注意A對(duì)應(yīng)的是哈利結(jié)婚而非再婚。