
But what is the sense in forever speculating what might have happened had such and such a moment turned out differently? One could presumably drive oneself to destruction in this way.
In any case, while it is all very well to talk of 'turning points', one can surely only recognise such moments in retrospect. Naturally, when one looks back to such instances today, they may indeed take the appearance of being crucial, precious moments in one's life; but of course, at the time, this was not the impression one had.
Rather, it was as though one had available a never-ending number of days, months, years in which to sort out the vagaries of one's relationship with Miss Kenton; an infinite number of further opportunities in which to remedy the effect of this or that misunderstanding. There was surely nothing to indicate at the time that such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable.
speculate : 推測する
presumably : おそらく、思うに
destruction : 破滅状態
in retrospect : 今から思えば
indeed : 実に、本当に
sort out : 解決する
vagaries : 予測のつかない変化
remedy : 解決する
render : OをCにする、変える
irredeemable : 取り返しのつかない
単語を調べても、邦訳を読んでも、何度読み返してもよく分からない英語がある。これは、The remains of the day.から。TOEIC 700〜と書いていあるが、文学作品だからだろうか、かつてなく頭に入らなかった。書き出すとなんだか少しマシになった気がする。別にこういった英語がスラスラ出てきてほしいとは思わないが、senseとか、appearanceとか、oneとか、in whichとか、その他副詞全般の使い方に恐ろしいギャップを感じる。
Posted at 2015/12/27 22:33:43 | |
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