在阅读速度20几万字/天的时候，《荆棘鸟》我读了一个月。不是她艰涩，而是舍不得，舍不得那么快就翻到最后一页，是害怕－－害怕读完之后，很长一段时间的失落。
读中文系是挺惭愧的一件事，高中不爱读“世界名著”，换言之，就是中文非其母语的作家写出来的文字，虽然让我读的也不是他的母语文字，但就这么翻译过来翻译过去的一折腾，我觉得就丢掉了语言最美丽的那部分。遂名正言顺般地将“外国小说名著”束之高阁。
翻开《荆棘鸟》，扉页上的那段文字打破了我－－只有汉字是最富韵律的文字－－的观念！虽然我看见的依然是方块字，虽然它出于一个译著水平极高的作家，但学过语言的人都明白，翻译是锦上添花，不是无中生有，没有原文如此的精彩，一定不会出现我们看到的万语千言。
同样表达对译者最深切的崇敬！书是作家的孩子，对于原著是，对于译著依然是。曾胡是我欣赏的翻译家之一，对于英文的把握，对于两种不同语言文化背景的了解，对于中文的熟稔，使得《荆棘鸟》有如鲲鹏展翅。
在此收录译者对作品的留言，字里行间可见功夫！
荆棘鸟 译余剩语
吁噫嘻伤哉！此书译成付梓，竟几历十载，诚始料所未及耳。白驹过隙，韶光易逝，斯验矣；此其可伤者一。杀青之初，即投诸某社，答曰：“可”，谓不余欺！然则一延再宕，终至泥牛入海，其间幽深曲折，言之鼻酸，余雅不欲披陈沥数；此其可伤者二。有此二伤，夫复何言！所幸者，赖李君文合鼎力赞襄，遂使五十万言汗浆之劳，得酬世人，此余所以铭于五内者也，第樗栎之文，非敢拟于杨意韩荆之赏，惟余心感焉。
盖译事之难首推信，不信则愈雅愈荒唐。余观夫迩来译作，强作解人者易可胜数。子曰：“不如为不知”，然不知者惟以弥缝译文为能事，窈窕之章，阅之悦焉，而我囗诸原作，竟满纸荒唐言！此时下舌人之大病耳。余弄兹道有年矣，胼胝而作，虽匪敢自誉信笔，然临事而惧，拳拳此心，宁有稍懈。质之同道中人，冀其勉哉。
陈亦君者，余老友也。畴昔携手，囗译哈代氏之《远离尘嚣》等作品五部，而此书之前十万言，亦经其斧削，谨此注明。人生睽离，有跬步霄壤者，有天涯比邻者；今陈君远之香港，谋面几稀，然忆昔清夜奋笔，共耕译田，砥砺琢磨，衣带同宽，此得非天涯比邻之谊耶？遥望南天，不胜感怀。夜寒料峭，星汉阑干，不能自己，是以为记。
The Thorn Birds, is a very well written story about a family living in a poorer section of New Zealand whose livelihood is shearing sheep. The money for the family depends almost solely on the sheep. In the family, there is Padraic Cleary (Paddy), the father of the clan. He is a likable man who commands respect from his children and from those who know him. His wife, Fiona Cleary (Fee), is a woman with a past who loves her children, respects her husband but is living in a world that she did not want, but accepted it as her only possible way of life. Then there are Fee and Paddy's children, Frank, Meghann (Meggie), Hughie, Jack, Stuart (Stu), Bob, and the twins, Jims and Patsy, but the story revolves almost entirely around their only girl, Meggie. When Meggie was about 10 years old, Paddy's older sister, Mary Carson, beckoned Paddy to come work for her on her very large, very wealthy ranch in New South Wales, Australia, Drogheda. The family fell in love with Drogheda, even though they had to put up with drought, fire, and a climate that they were not used to. The boys in the family lived for Drogheda, and were the main work force of the ranch, herding sheep and cattle from one paddock to another, and working very hard during the most profitable time of the year, the shearing season, and the most hectic, the lambing season. Paddy was an immigrant from Ireland to New Zealand and was a devout Catholic, along with most Australians. Upon arriving to Drogheda, the Cleary family met Father Ralph, a friend of Mary Carson, a constant visitor to Drogheda, and the local priest of the closest town to Drogheda, Gillabon. The rest of the story rotates around the relationship between Father Ralph who later became Bishop Ralph and finally, Cardinal Ralph, and Meggie. The Cleary family lived through one of the worst droughts in Australia, and the terrible fire that followed, destroying most of Drogheda's outer pastures and killing Paddy, and Stuart in the process. They also had to deal with the problem of rabbits. The rabbits were foreigners to Australia, and once introduced, reproduced out of control due to the fact that there were no natural predators in Australia to kill them. The rabbits, along with the kangaroos, were devouring most of Drogheda's grazing land. Through it all though, Drogheda remained a constant source of pleasure and money for the Cleary family. Meggie had two children, Justine and Dane. Both very different in personality, and in looks. Meggie marries a shearer turned stockman fo Drogheda, Luke O'Neill, and from their marriage, Justine was born. Dane was from another man, but, the father, nor Dane or Justine knew who it was, only Fee and Meggie knew that secret. The author of Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough, is a highly talented writer. Throughout the novel, she describes the scenery with much detail. She should be an expert on the topic, since New South Wales, Australia is her home. The detail and description of the people and the places, which she goes deeply into, makes the reader feel as if she is actually experiencing the same things as the characters. She goes explains throughly as to how Drogheda is managed and how it looks. Mrs. McCullough definitely knows what she's talking about and her writing shows it. For work with the sheep never, never ended; as one job finished it became time for another. They were mustered and graded, moved from one paddock to another, bred and unbred, shorn and crutched, dipped and drenched, slaughtered and shipped off to be sold. Drogheda carried about a thousand head of prime beef cattle as well as its sheep, but sheep were far more profitable, so in good times Drogheda carried about one sheep for every two acres of its land, or about 125,000 altogether. Being merinos, they were never sold for meat; at the end of a merino's wool-producing years it was shipped off to become skins, lanolin, tallow and glue, useful only to the tanneries and the knackeries. Mrs. McCullough's purpose for writing The Thorn Birds is not entirely clear. She could have written the book to tell about the ways of the Australian people like the outback stockmen. She could have intended to explain what life in Australia is really like, the climate, the animals, etc. Another alternative is that she could have written this novel to talk about the Catholic Church and how man's desires are no match for an institution like the Church, or try to describe how the Church really works. All of these topics are present in her story and her points for each came across strongly and clearly. The reader learns that Father Ralph becomes a Bishop due to the fact that he helped bring to in large sum of money into the Church, and that Luke, a stockman at heart not just as a profession, lives for his work. He is constantly on the move to find work, never really wanting to settle down yet holding that image of a cozy home in his head as an excuse to work harder. None of these points are lost to the reader. McCullough seems to bring up the same topics, but never she never actually repeats herself, she just offers a new side to the topic for the reader to think about. This, thought the boys exultantly, was life. Not one of them yearned for New Zealand; when the flies clustered like syrup in the corners of their eyes, up their noses, in their mouths and ears, they learned the Australian trick and hung corks bobbing from the end of strings al around the brims of their hats. To prevent crawlies from getting up inside the legs of their baggy trousers they tied strips of kangaroo hide called bowyangs below their knees, giggling at the silly-sounding name, but awed by the necessity. Luke looked at the deadly thing he gripped, which was not at all like a West Indian machete. It widened into a large triangle instead of tapering to a point, and had a wicked hook like a rooster's spur at one of the two blade ends....Then, shrugging, he started work....Bend, hack, straighten, clutch the unwieldy topheavy bunch securely, slide its length through the hands, whack off the leaves, drop it in a tidy heap, go to the next cluster of stems, bend, hack, straighten, hack, add it to the heaps...The cane (sugar cane) was alive with vermin: rats, bandicoots, cockroaches, toads, spiders, snakes, wasps, flies and bees....For that reason the cutters burned the cane first, preferring the filth of working charred crops to the depredations of green, living cane. Even so they were stung, bitten and cut....It took him the predicted week to harden, and attain the eight-ton-a-day minimum... These two quotes not only show the detail that Mrs. McCullough put into in her novel, but it tells the readers what types of lives the people of Australia live. From the stockmen on the desert-like Outback in New South Wales, to the cane cutters in the tropical forest of Queensland, Mrs. McCullough tries to inform her readers about the real Australia and the real people who live there. The Thorn Birds, published in 1977 by Harper & Row is a book that I have already recommended to my friends and family. The idea of the book is like that of Gone With The Wind. It revolves around a very strong woman who is after a man that she can not have but wants very strongly, and yet, at the same time, is trying to survive in her world. In Gone With The Wind the heroine is Scarlett O'Hara living in the Southern United States during the Civil War, for The Thorn Birds, it is Meggie Clearly living in New Zealand and Australia around the time of the Second World War. Both women settle for less then what they want, and both women end up getting their man, but lose him due to their surroundings and who they are. In both novels, the women have a strong link to their homes, Tara, and Drogheda. The land is who they are, and they both return to their lands to find peace and happiness. The writing in both novels is different, and the women too, are different, but the underlying ideas in both are the same.
Word Count: 1413
你想写哪方面的内容？
这部作品主要是说梅吉和主教的爱情啊.人与自然环境入笔,不是很好写吧.
不过从农场的变化中可以写啊
有这部电影,建议你找出来看看
书我看过很久了.记不太清楚了,对农场的描述
☆ 论文的选题 撰写毕业论文，首先是选择课题
。选题是完成毕业论文撰写成败的关键。因为，选择
题是完成毕业论文撰写的第一步，它实际上就是确定
“写什么”的问题，亦即确定科学研究的方向。 要坚
持选择有科学价值和现实意义的课题。 [详细内容]
☆ 论文的格式 （一）论文标题。 （二）作者姓
名。 （三）内容摘要。一般为中文摘要，如有英文
要求则要附上英文摘要。摘要应该以研究目的、研究
方法、研究结果和结论，围绕主题展开，明确介绍重
点。一般用200-300字高度概括全篇论文的精华。 （
四）关键词。又称主题词，从论文中选出用以表示全
文主题内容信息的单词或术语。一般以3-8个词以显著
的字体另起一行，排在摘要的左下方。 （五）正文
：1、绪论；2、本论；3、结论。采纳吧
