名人认知系列 文人骚客 2：Magic Mother: J. K. Rowling 魔法妈妈：J.K.罗琳

Magic Mother: J. K. Rowling

魔法妈妈：J.K.罗琳

Joanne Kathleen Rowling entered the world in Chipping Sudbury General Hospital in England, a fitting¹ beginning for someone who would later enjoy making up strange names for people, places and games played on flying broomsticks. Her younger sister was born just under two years later.

乔安?凯瑟琳?罗琳出生在英格兰的一家综合医院 里，这对一个后来喜欢给别人起奇怪名字，喜欢坐着扫 帚到处孔跑的小姑娘来说，是个合适的开始;；她的妹 妹两年后来到这个世上。

Rowling remembers that she always wanted to write and that the first story she actually wrote down, when she was five or six, was a story about a rabbit called Rabbit. Many of her favorite memories center around reading — hearing stories read aloud by her father when she had the measles², enjoying the fantastic adventure stories, reveling in the magical world and her favorite story of all, The Little White Horse.

罗琳记得她从小就喜欢写作，5、6岁时就已经写了 一篇跟兔子有关的故事。小时候美好的记忆似乎总是围 绕阅读的——得麻疹时听爸爸大声讲故事，读那些奇异 的冒险故事，沉浸在奇妙的故事世界里。她最喜欢的故 事是《小白马》。

At University Rowling took her degree in French and spent one year studying in Paris. After college she moved to London to work for Amnesty International as a researcher and bilingual secretary. The best thing about working in an office, she has said, was typing up stories on the computer when no one was watching. During this time, on a particularly long train ride from Manchester to London in the summer of 1990, the idea came to her of a boy who is a wizard. He attends a school for wizardry — she could see him very plainly in her mind. By the time the train pulled into King’s Cross Station four hours later, many of the characters and the early stages of the plot were fully³ formed in her head. The story took further shape as she continued working on it in pubs⁴ and cafes over her lunch hours.

大学里，罗琳主修法语，并在巴黎留学一年。毕业 后，她搬去伦敦，在国际特救组织担任调查员和双语秘 书。罗琳回忆说，那段时间最有趣的事情就是趁办公室 没人的时候在电脑上打小说。1990年夏天，罗琳坐在由 曼彻斯特出发前往伦敦的火车上，哈利?波特闯入了她 的生命。她可以在脑海里清晰地勾画他的模样，看到他 进入魔法学校。4小时后，当火车驶入国王十字车站时， 大部分人物和故事的前期框架已经在她的脑海里完全形 成了。当她午餐时间坐在咖啡馆里继续构思时，故事的 结构变得更加清晰。

In 1992 Rowling left off working in offices and moved to Portugal to teach English as a Second Language. In spite⁵ of her students making jokes about her name (this time they called her “Rolling Stone”)，she enjoyed teaching⁶. She worked afternoons and evenings, leaving mornings free for writing. After her marriage to a Portuguese⁷ TV journalist ended in divorce⁸, Rowling returned to Britain with her infant⁹ daughter and a suitcase full of Harry¹⁰ Potter notes and chapters. She settled in Edinburgh to be near her sister and set out to finish the book before looking for a teaching job.Wheeling her daughter’s carriage around the city to escape their tiny, cold apartment, she would duck into coffee shops to write when the baby fell asleep. In this way she finished the book and started sending it to publishers. It was rejected several times before she found an London agent, chosen because she liked his name — Christopher Little, who sold the manuscript¹¹ to Bloomsbury Children’s Books.

1992年，罗琳结束了白领生涯，前往葡萄牙做英语 教师，这是她的第二语言。尽管学生们常拿她的名字开 玩笑，叫她滚石（英语中Rowling与rolling同音），她 仍然非常喜欢教书。她下午和晚上去学校工作，而上午 的自由时间用来写作。不久，她与一名葡萄牙的电视台 记者结婚，但这段婚姻最终以离婚告终。离婚后，罗琳带着女儿和满满一箱子哈利?波特的笔记与手稿回到了 英国。为了能住得离妹妹近些，罗琳在爱丁堡定居下 来，准备在找到新工作前完成这部小说。她常常用手推 车推着女儿四处闲逛，只是为了逃离又小又冷的公寓。 她常常会躲到咖啡馆里，趁女儿睡着时写作。就这样， 罗琳在咖啡馆里完成了哈利?波特的创作，开始寻找出 版商。但她的稿件被几次退回，直到她找到了一个伦敦 的经纪人。罗琳之所以会找到他，仅仅是因为喜欢他可 爱的名字一克里斯多夫?里特，他把手稿卖给了布鲁 姆斯伯里儿童书籍出版商。

Rowling was working as a French teacher when she heard that her book about the boy wizard had been accepted for publication¹². Harry Potter and the Philosopher¹³ s Stone was published in June 1997 and achieved almost instant success. With the publication of the American edition, retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer，s Stone, in 1998, Rowling’s books continued to make publishing history. Harry Potter climbed to the top of all the bestseller lists for children’s and adult books. Indeed, the story of the boy wizard, his Cinder¹⁴ lad childhood, and his adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft¹⁵ and Wizardry caught the imagination of readers of all ages. In Britain a separate edition of the first book appeared with a more “adult” dust jacket so that grown-ups reading it on trains and subways would not have to hide their copy behind a newspaper.

当罗琳得知这本关于小巫师的小说被出版商接受 时，她正在一所学校教法语。1997年6月，《哈利?波 特与哲学家的石头》一出版，就大获成功。1998年，随 着美国版本的出现，这本书被重新命名为《哈利?波特与 魔法石》，罗琳的书继续创造着出版界的历史。《哈利?波 特》登上了儿童与成人书籍最佳销售榜的首位。确实，. 这个小巫师的故事，他灰姑娘一样的童年，和他在霍格 华兹魔法学校的历险引发了各个年龄段读者丰富的想象 力。在英国，出版商出版了一种更成人化封面的版本， 使得大人们在火车或者地铁里阅读此书时而不用把书藏 在报纸后面。

What is the secret of Rowling’s success? Many people think that the stories sell well because they are full of exciting action and they appeal to readers of all ages. But in an interview, Rowling said, “The books are really about the power of the imagination. Deep down, everyone wants to be like Harry. Readers can identify with his courage to face danger and overcome problems.” And it was not Harry Potter who rescued Rowling, but exactly herself.

罗琳成功的秘诀是什么？许多人认为《哈利?波特》 的畅销归功于引人入胜的情节，而且老少皆宜。但在一 次采访中，罗琳说：“这些故事讲的是想象的力量。其实 在每个人心底，大家都想成为哈利。他直面危险、克服 困难的勇气，令读者产生了共鸣。”可以说成就罗琳的 不是《哈利?波特》，而是罗琳自己。
 

1 fitting   

n.[pl.]设备，家具，配件，试穿；adj.适合的

参考例句：

• I'm going to a fitting tomorrow.明天我要去试穿新衣。
• The President's address was a fitting end to a bitter campaign.总统的讲话为一场激烈的竞选运动适时画上了句号。

2 measles   

n.麻疹，风疹，包虫病，痧子

参考例句：

• The doctor is quite definite about Tom having measles.医生十分肯定汤姆得了麻疹。
• The doctor told her to watch out for symptoms of measles.医生叫她注意麻疹出现的症状。

3 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

4 pubs   

酒店，酒馆( pub的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I don't like pubs.They're noisy, smelly, and what's more, expensive. 我不喜欢酒吧。那里又吵，气味又难闻，更重要的是，花费太多。
• We did/went the rounds of all the pubs in town. 我们逐一光顾了城里所有的酒店。

5 spite   

n.（用于短语）虽然，不顾，尽管

参考例句：

• He has modern ideas in spite of his great age.尽管他年事很高，但思想观念却很入时。
• In spite of his anger,his remarks were restrained.他尽管生气，说的话还是有节制的。

6 teaching   

n.教学，执教，任教，讲授；(复数)教诲

参考例句：

• We all agree in adopting the new teaching method. 我们一致同意采取新的教学方法。
• He created a new system of teaching foreign languages.他创造了一种新的外语教学体系。

7 Portuguese   

n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语

参考例句：

• They styled their house in the Portuguese manner.他们仿照葡萄牙的风格设计自己的房子。
• Her family is Portuguese in origin.她的家族是葡萄牙血统。

8 divorce   

n.离婚；分离；vi.离婚；vt.离婚；脱离

参考例句：

• Did he divorce his wife or did she divorce him?是他要和妻子离婚，还是妻子要和他离婚？
• None of us like the divorce of word and deed.我们都不喜欢言行不一。

9 infant   

n.婴儿，幼儿；adj.婴儿的；幼稚的，初期的

参考例句：

• Tourism was then still in its infant stage.旅游业当时还处在初创阶段。
• I also need an infant's food for my baby.我要买些婴儿食品给我的孩子。

10 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

11 manuscript   

n.手稿，原稿，底稿，手写本

参考例句：

• The adaptation of the play for radio manuscript was easy.把剧本改编成广播稿很容易。
• The lost manuscript was found in a repository in France.丢失的手稿在法国的一个存放处被找到了。

12 publication   

n.出版，发行；出版；公布，发表

参考例句：

• They don't think this article is suitable for publication.他们认为这篇文章不宜发表。
• The government has delayed publication of the trade figures.政府已将贸易统计数字延后公布。

13 philosopher   

n.哲学家，哲人

参考例句：

• The philosopher has his ideas built on the rock of reason.那位哲学家把思想稳固地建立于理性之上。
• What a philosopher seeks after is truth.一个哲学家所追求的是真理。

14 cinder   

n.余烬，矿渣

参考例句：

• The new technology for the preparation of superfine ferric oxide from pyrite cinder is studied.研究了用硫铁矿烧渣为原料，制取超细氧化铁红的新工艺。
• The cinder contains useful iron,down from producing sulphuric acid by contact process.接触法制硫酸的矿渣中含有铁矿。

15 witchcraft   

n.魔法，巫术

参考例句：

• The woman practising witchcraft claimed that she could conjure up the spirits of the dead.那个女巫说她能用魔法召唤亡灵。
• All these things that you call witchcraft are capable of a natural explanation.被你们统统叫做巫术的那些东西都可以得到合情合理的解释。