2017年catti高级口译阅读练习（1）

　　【逝去的影像　Visions of a vanishing world】

　　The death of J. D. Salinger last Wednesday understandably brought a great deal of what Holden Caulfield called "that David Copperfield kind of crap" about the author: "where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me." Salinger himself was a great story: the brilliant young artist who writes a classic and then disappears into the woods of New Hampshire for decades. No more David Copperfield kind of crap for him.

　　Another literary death last week received less attention, but the life and work of Louis Auchincloss speak as much to us as Salinger’s. A lawyer and prolific author, Auchincloss, born in 1917, grew up in houses in Manhattan, on Long Island, and in Bar Harbor, Maine. The family traveled from house to house with its chauffeur (singular) and its servants (very much plural). He studied at Groton and Yale and the University of Virginia law school. He was a wonderful storyteller, but he was the shrewdest of observers and listeners, too. He seemed to know everybody’s secrets, or at least the secrets of everybody who lived on the Upper East Side. Tall and forbidding—or forbidding until he cracked a joke, or found something amusing, at which point he would break into a smile of epic proportions—Auchincloss wrote of a vanishing milieu of Eastern privilege: of prep schools and discreet lawyers and quiet clubs where the chairs were comfortable and the martinis cold.

　　Salinger will endure much longer and will be read more widely than Auchincloss, who will be viewed in death in much the same way he was in life: as an interesting novelist of manners. As Auchincloss himself noted in interviews, he was not remotely as accomplished as Edith Wharton, in whose wake he worked, but he was nevertheless an artist to be taken seriously as a chronicler of a certain sphere of life at a certain time. Not a bad fate, that: it is, in fact, the most virtually any writer could hope for, and which only a tiny number achieve. Auchincloss is to New York in the 20th century what Trollope is to English clerical life in the 19th: a writer who must be read to understand the ethos of a lost world, but whose essential subject matter—the heart and its discontents—transcends time and place.

　　What is most interesting about Auchincloss, is not the elegance of the lives he chronicled but the complexities, the unfulfilled ambitions, the restless hearts of his characters. In Auchincloss’s novels (and in The Catcher in the Rye), little is what it seems to be. The exterior appears solid and secure. But the interior is a constantly roiling emotional battlefield. Glib analysis was insufficient to the problems of the heart Auchincloss was surveying. His 1974 memoir, A Writer’s Capital,should be required reading for anyone interested in the craft. It is a book that manages to be honest and personal without being self-indulgent. He writes of his mother’s anxiety about breaking the conventions of her caste, a reluctance dictated by fear.

　　"Fear of what?" Auchincloss recalled. "It is hard to describe. Fear of a grading system in which one started with a handicap. Fear of not coming up to some kind of scratch. Fear of being measured in the balance and found wanting."

　　Like many of his works, Auchincloss’s Rector is in part about the tragic nature of lives that at first glance appear immune to tragedy. Who can feel sorry for a headmaster who laments that his school produces more stockbrokers than priests or public servants? Auchincloss’s answer is that his readers should care, for the specialized disappointments and frustrations of the well established are particular expressions of the universal truth that life is never precisely what we want it to be, no matter how many houses one has.

　　词句笔记：

　　forbidding：形容人神情严肃的，不苟言笑的

　　crack a joke：讲笑话，开玩笑

　　ethos：社会思潮，普遍信仰

　　in the wake of：紧紧跟随

　　例句：In the wake of the removal of this forest for cultivation is a desolate, bare, and rocky eroded land.

　　开垦土地而砍伐森林所留下的迹象是一片荒芜,裸露和岩石被侵蚀的土地。

　　be immune to：不受……影响的

　　例句： the tragic nature of lives that at first glance appear immune to tragedy

　　第一眼看上去似乎与悲剧绝缘的真正悲剧性的生活

　　【华尔街的奢侈新风气　Wall Street bonuses】

　　Most Americans have expressed outrage over the magnitude of Wall Street bonuses, given the way the banks benefitted from federal bail-out money and turned profits with the help of government-backed low-interest loans. But the same bonuses are also providing hope to a variety of New Yorkers, from luxury retailers to waiters. Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and J.P. Morgan Chase are handing out bonuses that match or exceed pre-recession levels. All of this is enough to make many Manhattanites optimistic that some of the cash will trickle down through the city’s economy. Like the rest of the country, New York has suffered from foundering retail sales and the less-than-robust housing market. "It’s not only that these people spend money on products. They also spend on services: maids, chefs, catering, and dog walkers," says Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute, a New York research firm.

　　The rest of the country may not be able to relate to what’s considered a bargain among New York’s financial community, but there are "deals" to be had throughout the tristate area. Yachts in all sizes and price ranges have returned to the market, many of them in foreclosure, says David Pugsley, vice president and general manager of Brewer Yacht Sales. Sales of luxury jewelry and watches fell by 40 percent last year, Pedraza says, leaving buyers room to negotiate prices. When banks such as Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns failed, many wealthy New Yorkers sold their second homes on Long Island and in surrounding areas. "When you’re nervous about your job, the last thing you want to do is tie yourself into a second or third mortgage," says Pamela Liebman, president and CEO of The Corcoran Group. "People are now taking advantage of the value in those properties."

　　Even with the mantra of deals, deals, deals, many Wall Street types may not spend their bonus money as lavishly in 2010. It’s true that this year’s bonuses are expected to match or exceed pre-recession levels, but financial planners say their clients are being more prudent this time around. Often, bankers may need to replenish their cash cushion, beef up disability insurance, or map out a new budget that takes into account the amount of money they will receive in restricted stock in lieu of bonus cash.

　　One hour north of New York City, in the seaside bedroom community of Westport, Conn., this attitude of spending and investing conservatively has already taken hold. There, Wells-Fargo Advisers senior vice president Howard Matson has been busy meeting with Wall Street clients as he’s done for the past 26 years. But this year he’s not dwelling on big-ticket toys. The large expenditures this year? Setting aside money for private schools and college funds. "In past years, where I would see the majority of a bonus allocated to a new- or vacation-home purchase," Matson says, "now clients may allocate one fourth of a bonus to a high-end purchase."

　　One quarter of a typical Wall Street bonus still translates into hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it’s that heady amount that makes New York’s luxury retailers so ecstatic. At this point, with all of the big banks having repaid their bailout money, the government has little oversight or recourse over the way they award bonuses. Regulators and politicians have succeeded in publicly shaming the banks into doling out more compensation in company stock rather than cash, but that still leaves bankers arguably well off. If a banker receives a $3 million bonus this year, Olsen says, he or she may receive $2.85 million of that in company stock. "Nobody’s crying for the bankers," Olsen says. "But it doesn’t go a long way after you pay your private-school tuition."

　　This slice of the bonus pie is what New York real estate agents, art dealers, luxury travel agents, boat brokers, and car dealers will be fighting over this winter and spring. Whoever succeeds in extracting that money will have to do so with discretion. Bankers know well enough not to flaunt their bonuses, given the public anger toward the financial sector and the country’s persistently high unemployment rate. "The show-me piece of jewelry and show-me car has gone very out of style," Olsen says. "It isn’t that the money isn’t there. It’s just that flashiness is pooh-poohed." Flashiness or understatedness—the style of the wealthy can always shift. New York’s luxury market and the folks who live off it don’t care, as long as Wall Street’s in a buying mood.

　　词句笔记：

　　trickle：流淌，细流缓缓流动，慢慢移动

　　some of the cash will trickle down through the city’s economy：一些资金会缓慢进入这个城市的经济体制中去

　　relate to sth.:理解

　　replenish：补充

　　replenish their cash cushion：增加收入

　　beef up：加强

　　big-ticket：昂贵的

　　high-end：高端的

　　high-end purchase：奢侈消费

　　One quarter of a typical Wall Street bonus still translates into hundreds of thousands of dollars：

　　典型的华尔街奖金的四分之一仍然以十几万的现金形式发放。

　　flaunt：vt. 炫耀

　　show-me：需要证明的

　　show-me piece of jewelry：让人怀疑真伪的珠宝