★★第1篇★★
Feb 16th 2006
From The Economist print edition
Travelling with baggage
（1）Few modern
travel writers excite more hostility and awe than Sir ★Wilfred
Thesiger[1], who died in 2003. Despising the “drab uniformity of the
modern world”, Sir Wilfred ★slogged across [2] Africa and Asia,
especially Arabia, on animals and on foot, immersing himself in tribal
societies. He delighted in killing—lions in Sudan in the years before
the second world war, Germans and Italians during it. He disliked “soft”
living and “★intrusive[3]” women and revered murderous savages, to whom
he gave guns. He thought educating the working classes a waste of good
servants. He kicked his dog. His journeys were more notable as feats of
★masochistic[4] endurance than as exploration. Yet his first two books,
“Arabian Sands”, about his crossing of the Empty Quarter, and “The Marsh
Arabs”, about southern Iraq, have a ★terse[5] brilliance about them. As
records of ancient cultures on the ★cusp[6] of ★oblivion[7], they are
unrivalled.
现代游记作家鲜有人能比2003去世的Wilfred Thesiger爵士更令人敬畏。由于厌烦现代世界单调的统一，Wilfred爵士通过兽力或步行，长途跋涉穿越亚非大陆，特别是阿拉伯半岛，使自己沉浸在部落社会中。在德国人和意大利人参加的第二次世界大战之前的几年里，他住在苏丹，热衷于捕猎狮子。他不喜欢“温和”的生活和“不安分”的女人；他敬重残暴的原始人并向他们提供武器。他认为，让工人阶级接受教育无异于浪费优秀的奴仆。他踹自己的狗。他的旅途之所以出名，与其说是探险不如说是他“受虐待”的表现。但是他的前两本书简明的介绍了他的光辉的旅程。一本书是讲述他横穿阿拉伯南部沙漠“空白之地”的《Arabian Sands》，另一本是讲述伊拉克南部的《The Marsh Arabs》。就像湮没历史深处的那些古代文化的记录，这两本著作同样无可匹敌。
Sir Wilfred's critics invariably sing
the same chorus. They accuse him of hypocrisy, noting that his part-time
primitive lifestyle required a private income and good connections to
obtain travel permits. They argue that he ★deluded[8] himself about the
motives of his adored tribal companions. In Kenya, where he lived for
two decades towards the end of his life, his Samburu “sons” are
calculated to have ★fleeced him of[9] at least $1m. （2）Homosexuality,
latent or otherwise, explains him, they conclude, pointing to the
photographs he took of beautiful youths.
Wilfred爵士的批判者们常常发表陈词滥调。他们指着他虚伪，无非是：他的半原始生活需要私人赞助，并且需要搞好人际关系以至于维持旅行许可。他们说，他旅行动机是仰慕部落社会的同伴是自欺欺人。他晚年曾在肯尼亚生活近20年，他在Samburu认领的几个“儿子”骗了他至少1百万美元。他们指出Wilfred拍摄的一些漂亮年轻人的图片可以断定他是个同性恋，无论明显不明显。
This may all be true,
but it does not diminish his achievements. （3）Moreover, he admits as
much himself in his autobiography and elsewhere. In 1938, before his
main travels, for example, Sir Wilfred wrote of his efforts to adopt
foreign ways: “（4）I don't delude myself that I succeed but I get my
interest and pleasure trying.”
他们也许是对的，但是这没有影响到Wilfred的成就。并且，在他的自传和别的地方他没做任何辩解。比如：在1938年，在进行重要旅行前他写道：成功与否，我不想欺骗自己，但是趣味和快乐终究来之不易。
In this authorised biography, Alexander Maitland adds a
little colour to the picture, but no important details. He describes
the beatings and sexual abuse the explorer suffered at his first
boarding school. Quoting from Sir Wilfred's letters, he traces the
★craggy[10] traveller's devotion to his dead father, his mother and
three brothers. At times, Sir Wilfred sounds more forgiving, especially
of friends, and more playful than his reputation has suggested.（5）As for
his sexuality, Mr Maitland refers ★coyly [11] to occasional
“★furtive[12] embraces and ★voyeuristic[13] encounters”, presumably with
men. Wearisome as this topic has become, Mr Maitland achieves nothing
by skirting it; and his allusion to Sir Wilfred's “almost-too precious”
relationship with his mother is annoyingly vague.
There may be a reason why Mr Maitland struggles for critical
★distance[14] He writes that he and Sir Wilfred were long-standing
friends, but he fails to mention that he collaborated with the explorer
on four of his books and later inherited his London flat. If Mr Maitland
found it so difficult to view his late friend and benefactor
objectively, then perhaps he should not have tried. An earlier biography
by Michael Asher, who ★scoured[15] the deserts to track down Sir
Wilfred's former fellow travellers, was better; （6）Mr Maitland seems to
have interviewed almost nobody black or brown.
His book is, however,
（7）a useful companion to the explorer's autobiography, “The Life of My
Choice”. Hopefully, it will also refer readers back to Sir Wilfred's two
great books, and to sentences as lovely as this: “Memories of that
first visit to the Marshes have never left me: （8）firelight on a
half-turned face, the crying of geese, duck ★flighting[16] in to feed, a
boy's voice singing somewhere in the dark, canoes moving in procession
down a waterway, the setting sun seen crimson through the smoke of
burning reed-beds, narrow waterways that wound still deeper into the
Marshes.”
★★★NOTES注释★★★
[1]Wilfred
Thesiger：威福瑞•塞西格，毕业于牛津大学，既是一名冒险家，也是一名出色的军人。出生于非洲，大学毕业后他回到了家乡。一
生中到过世界上许多人们难以想象的，荒凉的地方，特别是非洲东部地区和中东地区。他的自传《四分之一空间》，《阿拉伯沙地》，影响了一代代旅行作家。
[2]slog：v.艰难行进，长途跋涉；拼命苦干
如：slog across the swamp;沉重缓慢地走过沼泽地
slogged through both volumes. 缓慢吃力地读完了那两卷
slogged away at
Latin.苦读拉丁文
[3]intrusive：adj.打扰的，插入的
[4]masochistic：adj.性受虐狂的，受虐狂的
[5]terse：adj.简洁的，简明的（brief and
to the point）
[6]cusp：n.尖顶，尖端，尖角
[7]oblivion：n.遗忘，
忘却；湮没，埋没
如：to be buried in oblivion被人遗忘
The city has long
since passed into oblivion.该市早已湮没。
[8]delude：v.欺骗，蒙蔽
（into）=deceive
如：fraudulent ads that delude consumers into sending
in money.欺骗顾客花钱的虚假广告
[9]fleece：vt. （常与of连用）骗取，诈取（金钱）；（原意是指剪羊毛，薅羊毛）
如：They fleeced us of
$100 at that hotel.那家旅馆敲了我们一百美元。
[10]craggy：adj.陡峭的，崎岖不平的
[11]coyly：adj.羞怯地；害羞地
[12]furtive: adj.偷偷的；秘密的
如：The man's furtive manner gave rise to the suspicion of the theft among
the policemen."那个男人鬼鬼祟祟的样子,引起警察怀疑盗窃案是他作的案。"
[13]voyeuristic：adj.喜好窥阴的
[14]distance：n.分歧，不和，不同意：
如：The candidates could not be at a greater distance on this
issue.在这个问题上，候选人之间分歧很大。
[15]scour：vt. 搜索;仔细或彻底的查看：
如：The
detective scoured the scene of the crime for clues.那个侦探在犯罪现场仔细搜索线索
[16]flight：vi.成群飞行；迁徙
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