第三篇                 A Tale of Scottish Rural Life

Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song (1932)was voted "the best Scottish novel of all time" by Scotland's reading public in 2005. Once considered shocking for its frank description of aspects of the lives of Scotland's poor rural farmers, it has been adapted for stage, film, TV and radio in recent decades.

The novel is set on the fictional estate of Kinraddie, in the farming country of the Scottish northwest in the years up to and beyond World War I. At its heart is the story of Chris, who is both part of the community and a little outside it.

Grassic Gibbon gives us the most detailed and intimate account of the life of his heroine. We watch her grow through a childhood dominated by her cruel but hard-working father; experience tragedy (her mother's suicide and murder of her twin children); and learn about her feelings as she grows into woman. We see her marry, lose her husband，then marry again. Chris has seemed so convincing a figure to some female readers that they cannot believe that she is the creation of aman.

But it would be misleading to suggest that this book is just about Chris. It is truly a novel of a place and its people. Its opening section tells of Kinraddie's long history, in a language that imitates the place's changing patterns of speech and writing.

The story itself is amazingly full of characters and incidents. It is told from Chris' point of view but also from that of the gossiping community, a community where everybody knows everybody else's business and nothing is ever forgotten.

Sunset Song has a social theme too. It is concerned with what Grassic Gibbon perceives as the destruction of traditional Scottish rural life first by modernization and then by World WarⅠ. Gibbon tried hard to show how certain characters resist the war. Despite this, the war takes the young men away, a number of them to their deaths. In particular, it takes away Chris' husband, Ewan Tavendale. The war finally kills Ewan, but not in the way his widow is told. In fact, the Germans aren't responsible for his death, but his own side. He is shot because he is said to have run away from a battle.

If the novel is about the end of one way of life it also looks ahead. It is a "Sunset Song" but is concerned too with the new Kinraddie, indeed of the new European world. Grassic Gibbon went on to publish two other novels about the place that continue its story.

41  What is Sunset Song mainly about?

A The First World War.

B The beauty of the sunset.

C The new European world.

D The lives of rural Scottish farmers.

42  Which statement is NOT true of Chris?

A She is the heroine of Sunset Song.

B She had a miserable childhood.

C She is the creation of a man.

D She married only once.

43  What is the opening section of the novel mainly concerned with?

A The climate of Kinraddie.

B The history of Kinraddie. C The geography of Kinraddie.

D The language spoken in Kinraddie.

44  Who are responsible for Evan's death, according to Chris?

A The Germans.

B The French army.

C The British troops.

D The Russian soldiers.

45  The word sunset occurring in the title of the novel most probably means________

A the end of the heroine's life.

B the end of one's life.

C the end of traditional life.

D the end of the day.

參考答案：

41 D 關(guān)于這部小說的主要內(nèi)容文章一開始就講得很清楚，即它是對蘇格蘭貧苦農(nóng)民生活方方面面直白的描述（frank description of all aspects of the lives of Scotland?s poor ruyal famers ）

42 D 文章第三段對小說的主人公Chris作了介紹，對比一下這段的內(nèi)容和四個選項(xiàng)便可得出D是正確答案，因?yàn)樵谶@一段里說到We see he marry, lose her husband, then marry again.可見她有過兩次婚姻。

43 B 根據(jù)第四段第三句話Its opening section tells of Kinraddie's long history, in a language that imitates the place's changing patterns of speech and writing.這部小說的開頭部分介紹了Kinraddie這個地方的歷史，作者所用的語言則模仿了該地口頭和書面語言的變化模式。

44 C 文章倒數(shù)第二段講到了Chris的丈夫Ewan的死因。他死于第一次世界大戰(zhàn)。但他并非死于德國人之手，而是死于自己人之手（the Germans aren't responsible for his death, but his own side）。他被擊斃，據(jù)說他試圖逃脫一場戰(zhàn)斗。

45 C Sunset字面意思是“落日”。但作為小說的標(biāo)題他并非只是落日的意思。文章最后一段的第一句話說“如果該小說講的是一種生活方式的結(jié)束，那么它也預(yù)示了未來”。隨意這里的Sunset隱喻了一種傳統(tǒng)生活方式的結(jié)束。

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（責(zé)任編輯：vstara）

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