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[语言求助] material tales

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    发表于 2018-10-15 12:23:14 | 只看该作者 回帖奖励 |倒序浏览 |阅读模式
    本帖最后由 enti 于 2018-10-15 15:24 编辑

    A startlingly large number of our objects bear on them the marks of later events. Sometimes this is merely the damage that comes with time, like the broken headdress on the Huastec goddess, or from clumsy excavation or forceful removal. But frequently, later interventions were designed deliberately to change meaning or to reflect the pride or pleasures of new ownership. The object becomes a document not just of the world for which it was made, but of the later periods which altered it. The Jomon pot (Chapter 10), for example, speaks of the precocious Japanese achievement in ceramics and the origins of stews and soups many thousands of years ago, but its gilded inside tells of a later, aestheticizing Japan, conscious now of its own particular traditions, revisiting and honouring its long history: the object has become a commentary on itself. The African wooden slit drum (Chapter 94) is an even more remarkable example of an object’s many lives. Made in the shape of a calf for a ruler probably in the northern Congo, it was re-branded as an Islamic object in Khartoum, and then, captured by Lord Kitchener, carved with Queen Victoria’s crown and sent to Windsor – a wooden narrative of conquests and empires. I do not think any text could combine so many histories of Africa and Europe, nor make them so powerfully immediate. This is a history only a thing can tell.

    Two objects in the book are disconcertingly material tales of changed allegiances and of structures that failed, showing two different faces to two very different worlds.
    From the front, Hoa Hakananai’a (Chapter 70) proclaims with unshakable confidence the potency of ancestors who, properly venerated, will keep Easter Island safe. On his back, however, is sculpted the failure of that very cult and its later, anxious replacement by other rituals as the Easter Island ecosystem broke down and the birds essential to life on the island moved away. The religious history of a community, lived out over centuries, is all legible in this one statue. The Russian Revolutionary plate (Chapter 96), by contrast, shows changes that were very much the consequence of human choice – and political calculation. The use of imperial porcelain to carry Bolshevik imagery has a beguiling irony about it; but that is rapidly overtaken by admiration for the unsentimental commercial brilliance which guessed correctly that capitalist collectors in the West would pay more for a plate if it combined the hammer and sickle of the Revolution with the imperial monogram of the Tsar. The plate shows the first steps in the complex historic compromise between the Soviets and the liberal democracies which would continue for the next seventy years.

    material 作为形容词, 这里是哪个释义啊? 虽然我倾向于是(physical)有形的, 存在的(根据上文划线部分), 但是 (relevant)相关的 貌似也能解释啊 --- (虽然有个especially a law case, 但也不代表不能用吧)?

    有感于slowdive同学的回帖,中文注释是我个人对vocabulary.com的释义分组的理解 (因为我也不怎么看的懂英文释义,纯属瞎猜, 窘)

    • noun : the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object
                    //有物理存在意义的(然后由此有两个形容词释义)
    -- 1, having material or physical form or substance
    -- 2, derived from or composed of matter

    • noun:information (data or ideas or observations) that can be used or reworked into a finished form
         //有实质内容的, 有料的 (由物理意义引申到抽象数据, 然后又由此有两个形容词释义)
    -- 3, having substance or capable of being treated as fact; not imaginary
    -- 4, directly relevant to a matter especially a law case

    •         //跟衣食住行有关了, 物质生产, 财富
    -- 5, concerned with or affecting physical as distinct from intellectual or psychological well-being
    -- 6, concerned with worldly rather than spiritual interests









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    发表于 2018-10-15 15:37:15 | 只看该作者
    enti 发表于 2018-10-15 14:54
    你这又是第三种解释了, 我的妈呀, 要疯了!!!!

    但是通常来讲wordly是财产, 名利之类的吧. 物质生活, mate ...

    可能前面我考虑太复杂了,现在突然顿悟了 这里的Two objects不就是 tales in material(physical)form么?因为tale是摸不着的无形的,而objects是有形的东西,所以说two objects 是 有形的故事。
    这里的意思就是having physical form
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     楼主| 发表于 2018-10-15 12:28:01 | 只看该作者
    本书的中译本

    在我们选择的物品中,有数量惊人的一部分都携有后期事件留下的印记。有时是在漫长的时光中遭受的破坏,如瓦斯特克女神破损的头饰,也可能是不小心的挖掘和强制移动带来的损伤,但更常见的是后期有意识的干预,或是为了改变它的含义,或是为了表现新主人的自豪与愉快。这样的物品不仅记录了制造它的那个世界,也记录了之后改变它的那些世界。譬如日本陶罐(第10节),它表现了日本早期在陶艺上取得的成就,也表明炖煮已有数千年的历史,而它内壁的镀金则反映出后期美学主义的日本已经认识到本国独特的文化传统,重温并赞颂着自己悠久的历史:物品本身成为对自己的注解。此外,非洲豁鼓(第94节)尤其能表现物品所经历的命运波折。它最初为小牛造型,很可能是为一个居住在刚果北部的统治者而造。随后,它在喀土穆被改造成一件伊斯兰物品。之后又成了基钦纳伯爵的战利品,被刻上维多利亚女王皇冠的图案送至温莎——这是对帝国征服故事的一件木制记录。我不认为有任何文字能将这一段段非洲及欧洲的历史融合起来,或是表现得如此直接有力。这是只有物品才能讲述的历史。

    本书中还有两件物品以令人不安的方式展示了两个截然不同的世界在面对社会崩溃、组织坍塌时的不同面貌。从正面看,复活节岛的巨石像何瓦·何卡纳奈阿(第70节)以坚定的自信呈现了祖先的威力:只要后人善加供奉,他们便能保佑复活节岛的平安。但在他背后却雕刻着这一信仰的失败:随着复活节岛的生态系统被破坏,对岛民生活至关重要的鸟类进行了迁徙,焦急的人们用新的信仰代替了祖先崇拜。该社群绵延数世纪的宗教史在这尊巨石像上得到了清晰体现。俄国革命瓷盘(第96节)则与之相反,它更多地表现了人类选择和政治博弈的结果。用帝国时期的瓷盘来承载布尔什维克的图画本身带有一种欺骗性的讽刺意味,但很快,冷静的商业智慧便战胜了它。制作者准确地揣测到西方资本主义的收藏家愿意花大价钱收藏一个同时带有革命者的镰刀斧头和沙皇时期帝国徽章的瓷盘。瓷盘表现了苏联与自由民主国家之间绵延七十年的复杂的历史妥协的第一步。

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    发表于 2018-10-15 14:25:22 | 只看该作者
    6, concerned with worldly rather than spiritual interests 应该是这个 可以从两方面推导 1. disconcertingly (disturbingly) 后面按逻辑应该跟一个比较负面的词。2. 从后文看这两件物品都有势利表现。
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    2018-11-21 09:39
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     楼主| 发表于 2018-10-15 14:54:33 | 只看该作者
    本帖最后由 enti 于 2018-10-15 14:56 编辑

    你这又是第三种解释了, 我的妈呀, 要疯了!!!!

    但是通常来讲wordly是财产, 名利之类的吧. 物质生活, material/wordly goods。 你看它给的例句都是 “material possessions”, “material wealth”, “material comforts”
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     楼主| 发表于 2018-10-15 17:38:52 | 只看该作者
    谢谢 slowdive
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    发表于 2018-10-16 07:37:48 | 只看该作者

    np. glad my answer is of assistance to you
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    发表于 2018-10-16 09:25:36 | 只看该作者
    本帖最后由 在职研究生 于 2018-10-16 09:27 编辑

    material 作形容词基本上就两个语意。
    1.与物质有关(如the material world, material objects, material needs)
    2.形容有价值,很重要,所谓“干货”(如material information, material facts, material data)

    文章中那个语境很容易判断出是第二个意思。
    注意是 disconcertingly material tales of
    这个副词disconcertingly 是关键,他修饰了形容词material,意思就只能形容为 “这个故事material到让人感到不安”,所以只能是第二个词义才能解释通,而与物质无关了。
    物质性没法disconcerting.
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     楼主| 发表于 2018-10-16 11:26:42 | 只看该作者
    好有道理, 可是为什么不能是 "实物"的意思呢?
    disconcertingly  --- in a way that makes somebody feel anxious, confused or embarrassed
    “这种实物的例证让人感觉尴尬”  
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    发表于 2018-10-16 12:41:08 | 只看该作者
    Could “disconcertingly material” be rephrased into " containing information or matter that is disconcerting (unsettling)"? If that's the case, then “disconcertingly material” is quite understandable in context.