Stardust --C8（01）

Which Treats of Castles in the Air, and Other Matters

Words and Expressions

1.it took me little enough time to steal the ship's boat and get on your trail. And now I must revenge your sad carcass...

little enough time

• little 在这里为否定 没有足够的时间

get on your trail

• 在这里是赶上你的足迹的意思
• 与on your trail是不同的
  on your trail 有人生轨迹之意

revenge

• revenge这个词本身做及物动词时，本身含有"为……复仇"的意思，所以这里revenge your carcass (dead body)是为你复仇

2.real and insubstantial at once

real和insubstantial一组反义词

at once

• 在这里是simultaneously之意，syn: at one time

3.Tristran sat at the top of the spire of cloud and wondered why none of the heroes of the penny dreadfuls he used to read so avidly were ever hungry.

penny dreadful

• cheap popular serial literature produced during the 19th century in the United Kingdom
• penny dreadful=penny horrible/awful/blood

avid adj.
avidly adv. = in avid manner
可用在形容对学习、对读书的极大热情

4.blood began to ooze...

ooze 这个词注意其搭配

• ooze charm/confidence/sex appeal
• courage ooze away
• secret ooze out

5.you've squandered most of the youth already

squander: spend thoughtlessly/extravagantly

• squander youth/life/opportunities/time/effors
  比waste高级太多的一个词

6.sort out
in need of assistance/attention

Summary

Septimus finds his brother Primus has already died. He makes no effort to hide his exhilaration, because he holds the view that he would be the eighty-second Lord of the Stormhold. He intends to take revenge for his brother's murder because his plan for Primus’s death has been destroyed by the witch, not because of the blood-law.

The witch-queen puts a spell on the dead unicorn’s blood and summons her two sisters. She reports to them about what has happened and she decides to wait for the star at Diggory's Dyke, for it’s the place which must be passed by those who go to Wall.

Tristran and the star sit at the cloud, and Tristran persuades the star to restart their relationship. Besides, Tristran feels that his life has been refreshed. Then he stands up on the cloud and calls for help, fortunately, a small ship responds. They clamber over the ship under the help from the Captain and his crews.

感悟

（今天没做sentences这部分，是因为好多句子都很喜欢也非常有感悟。所以就放在这部分写了。）

这一部分简直太燃了。

经历了这么多之后，我们的主人公已经不再是那个毛头小伙子了，当年在月下向Victoria许诺说自己愿意为了她走遍天下，去冒险去彰显其男人气概。但是在经历了生死之后，坐在云端的他饿了，然后开始想为什么他读的小说里那些英雄都不会饿。
Adventures are all very well in their place, he thought, but there’s a
lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain.
这时他已明白，真正值得回味的是那些家常的事、是看似平淡的生活。他和星星女孩得救后在Perdita上度过的那段日子成为了他人生中最幸福的一段时间：Tristran often found himself looking back on his time on the Perdita, during the rest of his journey through Faerie, as one of the happiest periods of his life.

其次是，这本奇幻小说开始彰显其哲学意味了，在天空中，俯身看着脚下的世界，Looking out over the world from above, he could never remember feeling so alive as he did at that moment. There was a shyness to the sky and a newness to the world that he had never seen or felt or realized before. Tristran开始学会置身事外去看自己的问题，He understood that he was, in some way, above his problems, just as he was above the world. 我们总会有很多问题、很多烦恼，但是当我们能够站得高一点去考虑这些问题，我想我们会像Tristran一样，会觉得生命被F5了。

另外，Tristran告诉星星女孩她可以重回天空，但是星星女孩说没有星星堕落后会能再回去的，Tristran说
“You could be the first,” he told her. “You have to believe. Otherwise it will never happen.”
让我想到了《模仿游戏》里的一句台词：sometimes it's the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine. 虽然意思不是完全相同，但是怎么讲，都表达了一个意思：人活在世，总归是要有点信仰的。

这一部分交代了一个重要的线索，那就是星星女如果走进了Wall，就会变成岩石（a rock），如果Tristran知道了这个事实，他还会带她进去么？