【英语语言学习】童年回忆录

 MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

How do you write a memoir¹ if you don't trust your memory? That's a question at the heart of Mark Slouka's new memoir "Nobody's Son." It covers his childhood in Pennsylvania, also the lives of his Czech parents who lived through World War II, the Soviet² regime that followed and their immigration to America. As Slouka chronicles the last 60 years, he circles back on himself. He tells a story and then a chapter or two later it emerges that events maybe weren't quite as he had described. Mark Slouka is with us now. Thanks so much for being here.

MARK SLOUKA: Thanks for having me.

KELLY: Walk us back to those early years because this book is - it's about a lot of things, but it's mostly about your mom and the relationship that you had with her and how that changed. And you do write in your early years about how close you were. You describe it as a church of two.

SLOUKA: Yeah. You know, we're like two halves of the same cell or something. We were just really close. The thing is that she was carrying with her too much it seems to me. You know, my parents had sort of witnessed the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930s. They barely survived the communist coups³ in late 1940s. They cleaned toilets and shoveled⁴ coal in Sydney, Australia, and cut sugar cane⁵ in Queensland and eventually made their way to to the United States, dragging with them this history, all these ghosts. And at some point, it was time to look at them and say, OK, what is it I'm looking at here? Who am I if these are my memories?

KELLY: You tell the story in a way that the reader is figuring along almost with you that all was not right with your mother. When did it first dawn on you that your mom was not well?

SLOUKA: You know, my mother was abused as a child, which is something I didn't even really get until I began to write this book. Her father was a Nazi⁶ sympathizer. That's not easy. Her father also sexually abused her. That's horrendous⁷ at any time but particularly so at a time when you didn't feel that you could tell anyone about this. So she carried that particular nightmare with her. And then you throw in, you know, a 30-year addiction⁸ to pills. It all - eventually it sort of degenerated⁹ into, you know, not a good place, these sort of pill-induced stupors¹⁰, these epic¹¹ four and five-day rages. It was not good. It was not pretty. But one of the things that I had to do was reconcile the memories I had of this really beautiful childhood. I mean, she was a wonderful storyteller. She had a wonderful sense of humor. And eventually I had to pull away. I mean, she would have drowned me along with herself.

KELLY: The other story that runs through this book - there's the love story between you and your mother. There's also a love story between your mother and her lover who was not her father.

SLOUKA: No.

KELLY: Who was he?

SLOUKA: She met this man. He was a former Green Beret. He was, I think, a year younger than her. They had this extraordinary love affair. The force of it was really kind of indisputable.

KELLY: Why do you say that?

SLOUKA: I think it's a very rare thing. But every now and then, there are two people who are just meant to be together. In my mother's case, it was as though everything sort of wrong in her life had one answer, and all of those answers were embodied¹² in one man. He stayed behind in Czechoslovakia, and life went on. The generations passed. Suddenly it's 1968 and it's 1972. And my mother's able to return back to her home, except she's not 21 anymore. She's 50, and life will do this now and then. Just for the fun of it, it'll throw you an extraordinary coincidence. Purely¹³ by coincidence, they met again.

KELLY: They were at a traffic junction¹⁴, and your mom stopped the car.

SLOUKA: Yeah, yeah, she was with her - I heard it from her friend who's the most unimaginative (laughter) person I ever met my life. She could no more embellish¹⁵ the story than I could sing opera.

KELLY: (Laughter) OK.

SLOUKA: She just - she just didn't have it. And she told me this story. They were sitting in a car, this busy intersection¹⁶ in Czechoslovakia. And suddenly my mother, who's a very timid driver, stops in the middle of this intersection and turns the car off. Thirty feet away, there's a man in a white, you know, sedan, and he's gotten out of the car and these two people are looking at each other. And it was - it was this man. And the extraordinary thing is that their love affair resumed precisely¹⁷ where it had left off. I encouraged her to marry him. It would have been a kindness to my father. It would have been a kindness to her. It would have been - maybe it would have been an answer. It didn't happen. It came close.

KELLY: That's an extraordinarily¹⁸ generous thing to say. Did it take you a while to get to that point?

SLOUKA: No, no, it was immediate¹⁹. I could see it in her. Listen, I still loved her. You know, we were - you know, we were fighting for survival, each in our own way. And for me, survival necessitated²⁰ moving away from her, abandoning her frankly²¹. But I could still see what made her happy, what made her whole. I think...

KELLY: And when you think of your mom now, is it a happy picture that comes to mind?

SLOUKA: It's not a happy picture. It's a complete picture. It feels - it feels legitimate²² to me now. You know, in a sense, when you've been - when you've been hurt, it's easier to remember the bad stuff. And it was bad. It was - it was really bad. But what those defensive²³ memories do is that they block out all the good, and I needed to find that balance. This is - this was a coming to terms with the life I've known, the people I've known, and try to come to a place from which I can then move forward.

KELLY: Mark Slouka talking about his new memoir, "Nobody's Son," and he spoke²⁴ to us there from member station WSHU in Connecticut. Mark, thanks a lot.

SLOUKA: It's been my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

1 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

2 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

3 coups   

n.意外而成功的行动( coup的名词复数 )；政变；努力办到难办的事

参考例句：

• China has seen many political coups within the ruling class. 中国统治阶级内部发生过很多政变。 来自互联网
• Thailand has had eighteen coups or coup attendance since nineteen thirty-two. 泰国1932年以来有18次政变或参加政变。 来自互联网

4 shoveled   

vt.铲，铲出（shovel的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The hungry man greedily shoveled the food into his mouth. 那个饥饿的人贪婪地、大口大口地吃。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• They shoveled a path through the snow. 他们在雪中铲出一条小路。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

5 cane   

n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的

参考例句：

• This sugar cane is quite a sweet and juicy.这甘蔗既甜又多汁。
• English schoolmasters used to cane the boys as a punishment.英国小学老师过去常用教鞭打男学生作为惩罚。

6 Nazi   

n.纳粹分子，adj.纳粹党的，纳粹的

参考例句：

• They declare the Nazi regime overthrown and sue for peace.他们宣布纳粹政权已被推翻，并出面求和。
• Nazi closes those war criminals inside their concentration camp.纳粹把那些战犯关在他们的集中营里。

7 horrendous   

adj.可怕的，令人惊惧的

参考例句：

• He described it as the most horrendous experience of his life.他形容这是自己一生中最可怕的经历。
• The mining industry in China has a horrendous safety record.中国的煤矿工业具有令人不安的安全记录。

8 addiction   

n.上瘾入迷，嗜好

参考例句：

• He stole money from his parents to feed his addiction.他从父母那儿偷钱以满足自己的嗜好。
• Areas of drug dealing are hellholes of addiction,poverty and murder.贩卖毒品的地区往往是吸毒上瘾、贫困和发生谋杀的地方。

9 degenerated   

衰退，堕落，退化( degenerate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The march degenerated into a riot. 示威游行变成了暴动。
• The wide paved road degenerated into a narrow bumpy track. 铺好的宽阔道路渐渐变窄，成了一条崎岖不平的小径。

10 stupors   

n.目光呆滞( stupor的名词复数 )；恍惚；昏迷；惊愕

参考例句：

• Stupors, however, do not last for ever, and Farmer Oak recovered from his. 然而，麻木是不会无止境地延续下去的，农夫奥克已从麻木中醒来。 来自辞典例句

11 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

12 embodied   

v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含

参考例句：

• a politician who embodied the hopes of black youth 代表黑人青年希望的政治家
• The heroic deeds of him embodied the glorious tradition of the troops. 他的英雄事迹体现了军队的光荣传统。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

14 junction   

n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站

参考例句：

• There's a bridge at the junction of the two rivers.两河的汇合处有座桥。
• You must give way when you come to this junction.你到了这个路口必须让路。

15 embellish   

v.装饰，布置；给…添加细节，润饰

参考例句：

• I asked him not to embellish the truth with ideas of his own.我要他不对事实添油加醋。
• Can you embellish your refusal just a little bit?你可以对你的婉拒之辞略加修饰吗？

16 intersection   

n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集

参考例句：

• There is a stop sign at an intersection.在交叉路口处有停车标志。
• Bridges are used to avoid the intersection of a railway and a highway.桥用来避免铁路和公路直接交叉。

17 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

18 extraordinarily   

adv.格外地；极端地

参考例句：

• She is an extraordinarily beautiful girl.她是个美丽非凡的姑娘。
• The sea was extraordinarily calm that morning.那天清晨，大海出奇地宁静。

19 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

20 necessitated   

使…成为必要，需要( necessitate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Recent financial scandals have necessitated changes in parliamentary procedures. 最近的金融丑闻使得议会程序必须改革。
• No man is necessitated to do wrong. 没有人是被迫去作错事的。

21 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

22 legitimate   

adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法

参考例句：

• Sickness is a legitimate reason for asking for leave.生病是请假的一个正当的理由。
• That's a perfectly legitimate fear.怀有这种恐惧完全在情理之中。

23 defensive   

adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的

参考例句：

• Their questions about the money put her on the defensive.他们问到钱的问题，使她警觉起来。
• The Government hastily organized defensive measures against the raids.政府急忙布置了防卫措施抵御空袭。

24 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。