描写一个孤零零的地点

描写一个孤零零的地点

描写一个孤零零的地点

蜜雪每日读写-- 小说精读写作系列：

描写一个孤零零的地点

...a small grey clapboard shack that looked as if it might have sheltered an Okie family from the winds of the Dust Bowl back in the 1930s and that, sitting alone and forlorn across from the gas station and the general store,flies its American flag at the junction  of the two roads that mark the commercial center of this mountainside town.

句子大致翻译：

这是个灰色的小板屋，就像远在三十年代为某个俄克拉荷马州家庭挡过沙尘暴似的------它孤独凄凉地蜷缩在加油站和百货店地对面。

这句话读完就一个印象：如下图

阅读句子说明:

这是一个很长很复杂的句子，典型的英语长句，而且特别难懂。名词的后面修饰部分先是一个定语从句，后面and又再并列了另一个句子（初步观察只是一个很长的动名词句子，因为谓语动词是flies)，这种句子翻译出来一般都容易晦涩----中文不习惯看到如此长得过分的句子。

the Dust Bowl

词汇引用背景介绍：

上世纪30年代,沙尘暴席卷俄克拉荷马州

黑色风暴事件（Dust Bowl），或称肮脏的三零年代（Dirty Thirties）是1930-1936年（个别地区持续至1940年）期间发生在北美的一系列沙尘暴侵袭事件。

The Dust Bowl, also known as “the Dirty Thirties,” started in 1930 and lasted for about a decade, but its long-term economic impacts on the region lingered much longer. Severe drought hit the Midwest and Southern Great Plains in 1930. Massive dust storms began in 1931.

描写一个地方的风尘

looked as if it might have sheltered an Okie family from the winds of the Dust Bowl back in the 1930s

就像远在三十年代为某个俄克拉荷马州家庭挡过沙尘暴似的

shelter...from 为...挡过

树给房子挡住了风。

Trees shelter the house from the wind. 

shelter用于写作：

lead a sheltered life 过着被庇护的生活

她对女儿保护过度了。

She sheltered her daughter too much (= protected her too much from unpleasant or difficult experiences) .

描写一个地方的凄凉

...sitting alone and forlorn across from the gas station and the general store

它孤独凄凉地蜷缩在加油站和百货店地对面

sit alone and forlorn across from...

用了一个sit，却表达出了那种蜷缩。

forlorn:形容人：孤独伶仃。形容地方：荒芜凄凉

空无一人的房屋很快就显得凄凉。 

Empty houses quickly take on a forlorn look. 

形容希望：不太可能实现的愿望

她几乎毫无指望地等待他有一天会回到她的身边。

She waited in the forlorn hope that he would one day come back to her.