Out on a Limbの著者、Shirley Mackaine、はアカデミー主演賞を取った程の女優なのできっと美人だと思いますが、美人に対する私の偏見を見事に打ち砕いてくれました。私の偏見、美人はこんな事を考えないだろう、言わないだろうと思っていましたが、さにあらず。
I gazed at his body in the warm water. VitaBath suds bubbled around the outline of his skin. I watched how his penis floated. I wondered what that felt like, yet in some way I felt I knew.
ついでに次の個所も女性なら普通の事でしょうが、男の私としては、そうなのですかと勉強になった気がします。（勉強と言うのは変ですが、他の言葉が出てこない）
I left my underwear in the suitcase, wondering how I would ever wash it anyway, and I thanked God (or somebody) that I had just finished my period and wouldn't have to contend with that.
Out on a Limbの前半はほとんどが英国の政治家、Gerry、との不倫の密会の話でしたが、その話は後半でそっけなく次の一文で終わりました。
The relationship with Gerry cooled, and ended. With my new perspectives, it did indeed feel like something from another life...
July 19のThe Japan Times Onlineの次に示す記事タイトルにある単語の意味がわかりません。
History, hexes feature in criminal potpourri
"hex" の「１６進法」とか「六角の」の意味は知っていますが、ここではその意味では通じません。
新聞記事の場合は記事の内容を読むと分かる場合が大半なので記事を読みます。記事は結構長いのですが、"hex" が次の様に出て来ました。
"The problem was that a photo of a woman’s face was superimposed on the doll’s head,” a police source explained. “Several nails had been driven into the doll’s head and body. The suspect said he had performed the hex ‘to make himself feel better’ after having been rejected by the woman.”
...
Hex kits that include a straw doll, nails and instructions for use have been sold as a novelty item for quite some time. They are even peddled via Amazon Japan.
どうやら"hex" はここでは「のろい」の意味の様です。辞書で確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A magic spell; a curse: a death hex: They throw curses and hexes around without a second thought.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: an evil spell, bringing bad luck and trouble: Someone's put a hex on my computer this morning - it keeps crashing.
例によってVocabulary.comの詳しい説明も下に引用します。
A hex is a magic spell or charm that's meant to cause harm. A witch in a story, for example, might put a hex on a prince that turns him into a chicken.
If you believe in magic, you might either fear hexes or aspire to learn how to put them on your enemies -- to hex them. In the Pennsylvania Dutch tradition, "hex signs," forms of stars, flowers, and circles, are commonly painted on barns. Though tourists often interpret these as having superstitious meanings, they're really just folk art symbols. The Middle High German root of hex is Hexe, or "witch."
配達先を自宅近くのコンビニを指定できるので、オンライン通販で最近はアマゾンを利用することが多いのですが、Hexキットがアマゾンでも販売されているとは驚きです。
Reader's Digest 6月号のJust Snap It For the Recordと題された記事からの抜粋です。
Need help with your DIY project?
Take a pic of the problem to avoid "a thingy for the whatsit" explanations at the store.
"a thingy for the whatsit" は多分「あれ」の事を言っているのだと思いますが、まず、 "thingy" を辞書で引きます。
・Macmillan Dictionary: used for referring to something when you do not know or cannot remember the name of it: Hand me one of those red thingies over there.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: sometimes used if you can't remember someone's or something's name: Ask thingy over there, he'll know.
そうすると "whatsit" も同じような意味でしょう。
・Cambridge English Dictionary: any object or person whose name you have temporarily forgotten or do not know: Where's the whatsit that you change channels with?
・Collins Dictionary: a thing the name of which is unknown, temporarily forgotten, or deliberately overlooked: Also comes to Lewis Department store and calls my brother Sniffer a useless whatsit for pulling his beard off.
Out on a Limbの著者、Shirley Mackaine、はアカデミー主演賞を取った女優で、娘の名前はサチとありました。
They reminded me of the cherry trees my former husband Steve and I had had in his house in Japan before our divorce.
...
We remained friends as we raised our daughter Sachi, who spent the first seven years of her life with me in America, the next six in an international school in Japan, and her remaining school years in Switzerland and England. She learned to speak and read and write fluent Japanese (which meant she could read most any Oriental language) and she began to think and perceive like an Oriental, which was sometimes amusing because Sachi is a freckle-faced blonde with the map of Ireland written on her face and the loping arms and legs of a Westerner, which she somehow manages to orchestrate as though she's wearing a restrictive kimono and obi when she walks and sits.
旦那が日本人かと思いましたが、そうではありませんでした。
日本語ができるだけで他のアジアの言葉も読めると思うなんて著者は単純な人だと思いました。
もう何十年も竹馬なんて見た事がありませんが、英語で竹馬を "stilt" と言うのはいつ覚えたのか忘れた程昔から知っています。今読んでいる "OUT ON A LIMB" に "stilted conversation" と言う表現が次のように出て来ました。
I talked with Gerry from exotic parts of the world but it was difficult to discuss my growing interest in spiritual metaphysics on long distance lines, or indeed in any way at all. I wished that we could meet, but my schedule never fitted into his availability, and vice versa. With each stilted conversation I was aware of how deeply grounded in his politics he was, and also that my attitude toward his reluctance to express my interest in my concern for expanded consciousness was one of growing impatience.
竹馬に乗っているような会話、つまりぎこちない会話なのでしょうか？辞書で確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: (Of a manner of talking or writing) stiff and self-conscious or unnatural: we made stilted conversation
・Collins Dictionary: 1.(of speech, writing, etc) formal, pompous, or bombastic 2.not flowing continuously or naturally ⇒ stilted conversation
・Vocabulary.com: The adjective stilted describes something—usually a style of writing or speaking—that is unnaturally formal.
Imagine someone walking awkwardly on a pair of stilts and you have a good impression of the word stilted — wooden and stiff. Stilt is found in the mid-15th century, referring to walking on wooden stilts across marshy ground. A hundred years later, the word stilted came to refer to the posts holding up a building. It wasn't until 1820 that the word was used as we use it now, to describe writing or speaking that does not flow smoothly.
堅苦しいギコチなさなのですね。これは簡単に覚えられそうです。
How to Make a Rat Laugh
According to psychologist Steve Wilson, director of National Humor Month (April in the US), it contains 265 jokes, including this zinger: "A man goes to the barber. The barber asks how he would like his hair cut. The man replies, 'Silently.'"
(Excerpt from Reader's Digest April, 2015)
Note: Meaning of zinger
・Vocabulary.com: A zinger is a sharp, funny remark that takes the listener by surprise. A zinger isn’t just a snappy comeback or insult, it’s a clever play on words.
Dorothy Parker, an American writer (1893-1967), is queen of the zingers. Some favorites: “The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue” and “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.” Zingers tend to be funny, and they're often quick, sharp, and even a little mean. Friends often trade zingers as they playfully make fun of each other. Zingers are also called quips or one-liners.
Out on a Limb by Shirley Mackaineは半分が彼女の不倫の話、半分は死後の世界や霊媒、ＵＦＯなどについてですが、たまにまともなことが書かれています。
To me, democratic idealism seemed to be no longer possible because people who were part of the democratic way of life were apparently more concerned with serving their own interests and were therefore abusing their basic philosophy of the well-being of the majority. Not many people were addressing themselves to international ethics. "Political thinking" in the world seemed to be based on the dual fields of power politics and material economics, with solutions expressed in terms of graphs, charts, polls, and industrial programs that ignored the individual human being.
He closed his eyes. I moved the tape recorder closer to him. Slowly he began to breathe deeply. I waited. He sat still for about three minutes and breathed even more deeply. Then very gently his head toppled forward onto his chest and a catch spluttered slightly in his throat.
上の引用個所に出てきた "catch" が引っ掛ります。辞書で意味を確認します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: An unevenness in a person’s voice caused by emotion: there was a catch in Anne’s voice
・Macmillan Dictionary: [countable] mainly literary a sudden pause in what someone is saying as a result of a strong emotion: "I love you so much,” he said with a catch in his voice.
どうも引っ掛かったはずだ。
Shirley MackaineのOUT ON A LIMBを読んでいます。
タイトルとなった "out on a limb" がやっとでてきました。不倫相手の英国の政治家Gerryとの密会での別れ際の場面です。
As he retrieved his glasses from me he said, "When is your birthday?"
"April twenty-fourth," I said.
He nodded as if to say it was another date in the future he could look forward to. Then he said, "What do you think we have together?"
I sighed and ran my fingers over the hair in his eyes.
"I know," he said, "to get to the fruit on a tree, you have to go out on a limb".
He looked into my eyes and walked away.
霊媒(trance channeling)に興味を持つようになったShirley Mackaineは霊媒師のKevinに会いますが、霊媒師も "out on a limb" と言う表現を口にします。。
"Because it is considered to be a ludicrous waste of time. Superstition and the like. Serious people who admit to such investigations are sometimes made to feel ridiculous. But as a friend of yours said recently, "To get to the fruit on the tree one must go out on a limb." I was silent--floored. He had used the same analogy as Gerry. I had been most careful never to even mention Gerry to anyone, much less what he said.
Praying to a deity called God was investing faith in an invisible reality: when a baseball player made the sign of the cross before stepping up to the plate, he was invoking a higher invisible reality; when a basketball player crossed himself before attempting a tie-breaking foul shot, no one in the bleachers laughed at him; there were supposed to be no atheists in foxholes, and the moving spectacle of loved ones praying to an invisible God in a hospital emergency room was all too familiar.
上の引用個所に出てきた "foxholes" はここではキツネの穴ではないですね。辞書を見ます。
・ Oxford English Dictionary:
A hole in the ground used by troops as a shelter against enemy fire or as a firing point.
A place of refuge or concealment.
・Collins Dictionary: (military) a small pit dug during an action to provide individual shelter against hostile fire: Gareth checked the luminous face of his watch and eased himself above the rim of their foxhole.
戦争の話ではないので "foxholes" は比喩として使っているのでしょう。
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