2022年UnitOutofstep课文翻译综合教程三.docx

名师归纳总结 精品学习资料 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Unit 3 Out of Step Bill Bryson 1 After living in England for 20 years, my wife and I decided to move back to the United States. We wanted to live in a town small enough that we could walk to the business district, and settled on Hanover, N.H., a typical New England town pleasant, sedate and compact. It has a broad central green surrounded by the venerable buildings of Dartmouth College, an old-fashioned Main Street and leafy residential neighborhoods. 2It is, in short, an agreeable, easy place to go about ones business on foot, and yet as far as I can tell, virtually no one does. 3 Nearly every day, I walk to the post office or library or bookstore, and sometimes, if I am feeling particularly debonair, I stop at Rosey Jekes Caf é for a cappuccino. Occasionally, in the evenings, my wife and I stroll up to the Nugget Theatre for a movie or to Murphys on the Green for a beer, I wouldnt dream of going to any of these places by car. People have gotten used to my eccentric behavior, but in the early days acquaintances would often pull up to the curb and ask if I wanted a ride. 4“I going your way, ” they would insist when I politely declined. “Really, it no bother.”5“Honestly, I enjoy walking.”6“Well, if you re sure, ” they would say and depart reluctantly, even guiltily, as if leaving the scene of an accident without giving their name. 7 In the United States we have become so habituated to using the car for everything that it doesnt occur to us to unfurl our legs and see what those lower limbs can do. We have reached an age where college students expect to drive between classes, where parents will drive three blocks to pick up their children from a friends house, where the letter carrier takes his van up and down every driveway on a street. 8We will go through the most extraordinary contortions to save ourselves from walking. Sometimes its almost ludicrous. The other day I was waiting to bring home one of my children from a piano lesson when a car stopped outside a post office, and a man about my age popped out and dashed inside. He was in the post office for about three or four minutes, and then came out, got in the car and drove exactly 16 feet I had nothing better to do, so I paced it off to the general storefit. I6 next door. 9And the thing is, this man looked really m sure he jogs extravagant distances and plays squash and does all kinds of healthful things, but I am just as sure that he drives to 细心整理归纳 精选学习资料 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 第 1 页,共 4 页 - - - - - - - - - 名师归纳总结 精品学习资料 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -each of these undertakings. 10 An acquaintance of ours was complaining the other day about the difficulty of finding a place to park outside the local gymnasium. She goes there several times a week to walk on a treadmill. The gymnasium is, at most, a six-minute walk from her front door. 11 I asked her why she didnt walk to the gym and do six minutes less on the treadmill.12 She looked at me as if I were tragically simple- minded and said, “But I have a program for the treadmill. It records my distance and speed and calorie burn rate, and I can adjust it for degree of difficulty.”deficient nature is in this 13I confess it had not occurred to me how thoughtlessly regard. 14According to a concerned and faintly horrified 1997 editorial in the Boston Globe , the t find a United States spent less than one percent of its transportation budget on facilities for pedestrians. Actually, Im surprised i t was that much. Go to almost any suburb developed in the last 30 years, and you will not find a sidewalk anywhere. Often you wonsingle pedestrian crossing. 15 I had this brought home to me one summer when we were driving across Maine and stopped for coffee in one of those endless zones of shopping malls, motels, gas stations and fast-food places. I noticed there was a bookstore across the street, so I decided to skip coffee and head over. 16 Although the bookshop was no more than 70 or 80 feet away, I discovered that there was no way to cross on foot without dodging over six lanes of swiftly moving traffic. In the end, I had to get in our car and drive across. 17 At the time, it seemed ridiculous and exasperating, but afterward I realized that I was possibly the only person ever to have entertained the notion of negotiating that intersection on foot. 18The fact is, we not only dont walk anywhere anymore in this country, we wont walk anywhere, and woe to anyone who tries to make us, as the city of Laconia, N.H., discovered. In the early 1970s, Laconia spent millions on a comprehensive urban renewal project, which included building a pedestrian mall to make shopping more pleasant. Esthetically it was a triumph urban planners came from all over to coo and take photos-but commercially it was a disaster. Forced to walk one whole block from a parking garage, shoppers abandoned downtown Laconia for suburban malls. 19 In 1994 Laconia dug up its pretty paving blocks, took away the tubs of geraniums and decorative trees, and brought back the cars. Now people can park right in front of the stores again, and downtown Laconia thrives anew. 细心整理归纳 精选学习资料 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 第 2 页,共 4 页 - - - - - - - - - 名师归纳总结 精品学习资料 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -20And if that isnt sad. I dont know what is.不合拍1在英格兰住了比尔 ·布里森-个可以步行到20 年之后,我和妻子打算搬回美国；由于想住在二商业区的小城镇,所以我们打算定居在新罕布什尔州的汉诺威,一个典型的新英格兰城镇,令人开心、 安静而紧凑； 城镇中心有一大块宽敞的绿地,一条老式的主干道和绿树成荫的住宅区；四周是达特茅斯学院那庄重的建筑、2总之,这是一个怡人、舒服的地方,适合步行去上班；不过据我所知,实际上没有什么人这样做；3我几乎每天都步行去邮局、图书馆或书店,有时,假如心情极好,我会在罗斯杰克斯咖啡店喝上一杯卡布奇诺咖啡；有时,我会和妻子在晚上闲逛到纳吉特剧院看上一场电影,或是到格林街的莫菲店喝杯啤酒；我做梦都没想过开车去这些地方；人们对我的奇怪行为已经习以为常,但是开头的时候,熟人们会将车停在路边,问我是否要搭车；4“我和你同路, ”他们坚持道, “真的,一点也不麻烦；5“ 说实话,我喜爱步行；”而我婉言谢绝；6“ 哦,那随你吧,”他们这么说着然后不愿意地离开了,甚至带着点负罪感,就似乎离开了事故现场却没有留下姓名；7在美国,我们已经习惯于事事用车,时时开车,我们都没想过舒展双腿,看看自己的下肢究竟能做些什么；我们已经进入了这样一个时代,高校生期望课间开车去上课,父母会开车去三个街区外的伴侣家接孩子,邮递员在街上开车在每一条私人车道上进进出出；8为了不走路,我们愿意忍耐最可怕的身体扭曲；有时甚至到了愚蠢可笑的地步；一天,我正在等着接上钢琴课的孩子回家,这时一辆汽车停在了邮局I"1 口,车门砰地一声打开了, 一位男士和我年龄相仿,他走下车冲进邮局；只在邮局里呆了三四分钟,他就出了邮局,钻进汽车,开了 16 英尺 我也没什么事可干,正好用步伐量了量 到隔壁的百货商店；9情形是这样的,这个人看上去身体健康；我信任他会长跑、会打壁球,参加其他各种有益于健康的运动,但是我也信任他会开车前往这些运动场所；10某日我们的一位熟人埋怨本地健身会所外很难找到停车的地方,她一周有几次会去那里在走步机上锤炼身体；从这个健身会所走路到她家前门最多 6 分钟；11我问她为什么不步行到健身房,这样在走步机上少走 6 分钟就行了；12她看着我,似乎我是个可怜的傻瓜似的,然后说,“但是步行机上有我的锤炼程序；它记录我锤炼的距离、时间和卡路里的消耗量,我仍可以利用它调整锤炼的难易程度；”13我承认,过去我从来没有意识到我对这个问题是多么地思虑不周；141997 年波士顿环球报刊载的一篇有点骇人听闻的相关社论说,美国在专为行人细心整理归纳 精选学习资料 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 第 3 页,共 4 页 - - - - - - - - - 名师归纳总结 精品学习资料 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -做出的交通设施预算不到全部交通预算的百分之一；事实上, 让我惊奇的是预算数目仍挺高的；到几乎全部近 30 年来进展形成的市郊走走看看,你会发觉那里没有一条人行道,许多时候连人行横道都找不到；15发觉这个问题是在某个夏天,我开车经过缅因州,在一个购物中心、汽车旅社、快餐店林立的地方我想停车喝杯咖啡；看到街对面有家书店,我打算不喝咖啡直接去书店；16尽管书店仅在七八十英尺之遥,我却发觉没有任何方法可以步行过街,除非你能在汽车急驰的六个车道上左闪右避；最终,我不得不回到车里开车过公路；17那时,我觉得荒唐至极并且气急败坏；但是,事后我想到,自己可能是惟一一个想到要步行穿过那个十字路口的人；18事实在于,在这个国家我们不但现在不会步行前往任何地方,将来也不会步行前往任何地方； 而且正如在新罕布什尔州的拉哥尼亚市所发生的事情那样,谁要让我们走路谁就会倒霉；在 20 世纪 70 岁月早期,拉哥尼亚市耗资数百万进行全面的市区重建方案,其中包括一个让购物更加开心的步行购物广场；在美学上这是一次胜利之举众多城市规划者从各地赶来,相互交换看法并拍照留念但是从商业上讲,这是一个庞大的失败；由于从停车场不得不步行整整一个街区,购物者们舍弃了拉哥尼亚的中心城区而转向市郊购物；19 1994 年拉哥尼亚刨掉了美丽的路面,移走了一盆盆的天竺葵和用来美化环境的树木,带回了一辆辆汽车；现在人们又可以直接在商场门口停车了,拉哥尼亚的市中心地区又复原了往昔的富强；20 假如那不是悲伤的话,我都不知道什么是悲伤了；细心整理归纳 精选学习资料 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 第 4 页,共 4 页 - - - - - - - - -