听播客学英语 139 多丽丝·莱辛

 　　Today we go on a journey. It starts in Sweden over 100 years ago; and then moves to London; and finally moves to future worlds and other planets.

　　But we start in Sweden. Alfred Nobel spent his life finding ways to blow things up. He was born in 1833 in Stockholm. As a young man he became very interested in nitro-glycerine, a highly explosive chemical. He saw straight away how useful nitro-glycerine could be – in mines, for example, to blast¹ tunnels through the rock; or in civil engineering, to clear the path for new roads and railways; or in war, so that people could blow each other up more efficiently². But nitro-glycerine is very unstable³. If you handle it wrongly, it will explode. Alfred Nobel spent several years looking for a way of making nitro-glycerine more stable. His experiments caused a number of serious explosions, including one in which his brother and several other people were killed. But eventually, he was successful. He called his new explosive “dynamite⁴”, and we still use dynamite and similar explosives today.

　　And after that, Alfred Nobel became a very rich man, because of course there was and still is a very big market in the world for blowing things up. He was also a very cultured and well-educated man. He spoke⁵ several languages fluently and had a deep interest in literature and poetry.

　　Alfred Nobel died in 1896. He left a large amount of money to establish five prizes. These would be awarded every year to people who had done outstanding things in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and the promotion⁶ of peace in the world. (Later, a sixth prize was added, for economics). These prizes have been awarded every year since 1901.

　　Now let us jump forward 106 years. Yesterday, an 87-year old woman went out to do some shopping. She arrived back at her home in north London in a taxi. She was surprised to find a crowd of newspaper reporters and TV camera crews waiting outside her house. At first, she thought they were filming something for a soap opera. But the reporters told her that she had just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The woman is Doris Lessing, who has been an important novelist for well over 50 years. She was born in Iran, where her father worked for a bank. The family later moved to Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. She moved to London in 1949 and published her first novel in the same year. As a young woman she joined the Communist Party and strongly opposed white rule in southern Africa. (She was banned from entering South Africa for nearly 40 years because of her opposition⁷ to apartheid).

　　But her novels are not simply political novels. They are very personal; that is, they explore what people feel and experience. Sometimes you will see Doris Lessing described as a feminist⁸; but she has always said that it is too simple to describe her in this way. Some of her later novels are science fiction – that is, they are set in imaginary worlds, distant planets, or worlds of the future. Many people do not like her science fiction novels. They say that they are unreadable. They argue that it is much more interesting to write about the real world than about imaginary worlds. But Doris Lessing’s supporters say that her science fiction novels are just a new way of writing about what people are like inside.

　　You may not have read any of Doris Lessing’s books, but I guess that many of my listeners have read science fiction. What do you think? Is science fiction a new way of writing about what people are like, what they feel, what they experience? Or is it what we call “escapism”, that is a way of running away from the real world to hide in worlds that we have invented?

1 blast   

v.炸毁，摧毁；n.爆炸，爆破，一阵，汽笛声

参考例句：

• A huge bomb blast rocked central London last night.昨晚一次剧烈的炸弹爆炸震动了伦敦市中心。
• Not until last week was the project in full blast.工程直到上星期才全部开工。

2 efficiently   

adv.高效率地，有能力地

参考例句：

• The worker oils the machine to operate it more efficiently.工人给机器上油以使机器运转更有效。
• Local authorities have to learn to allocate resources efficiently.地方政府必须学会有效地分配资源。

3 unstable   

adj.不稳定的，易变的

参考例句：

• This bookcase is too unstable to hold so many books.这书橱很不结实，装不了这么多书。
• The patient's condition was unstable.那患者的病情不稳定。

4 dynamite   

n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破)

参考例句：

• The workmen detonated the dynamite.工人们把炸药引爆了。
• The philosopher was still political dynamite.那位哲学家仍旧是政治上的爆炸性人物。

5 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

6 promotion   

n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传

参考例句：

• The teacher conferred with the principal about Dick's promotion.教师与校长商谈了迪克的升级问题。
• The clerk was given a promotion and an increase in salary.那个职员升了级，加了薪。

7 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

8 feminist   

adj.主张男女平等的，女权主义的

参考例句：

• She followed the feminist movement.她支持女权运动。
• From then on,feminist studies on literature boomed.从那时起，男女平等受教育的现象开始迅速兴起。