By Nirmal Gbosb

　　Driving to a friend's house on a recent evening, I was awe-struck by the sight of the full moon rising just above Manila rooftops, huge and swollen, yellow through the dust and smoke of the city. I stopped to watch it for a few moments, reflecting on what a pity it was that most city dwellers ?myself included ?usually miss sights like this because we spend most of our lives indoors.

　　My friend had also seen it. He grew up living in a forest in Europe, and the moon meant a lot to him then. It had touched many aspects of his life, including those concerning his ordinary daily life. For example, when he had to make sure that he had his torch with him when he was outside in the evening, or when the moon was due to rise late or was at its newest ?a bright, distant sliver of white like a chink of light below a door in the sky.

　　I know the feeling. Last December I took my seven-year-old daughter to the mountainous jungle of northern India with some friends. We stayed in a forest rest-house with no electricity or running hot water. Our group had campfires outside every night, and indoors when it was too cold outside. The moon grew to its fullest during our trip. At Binsar, 7, 500 feet up in the Kumaon hills, I can remember going out at 10pm and seeing the great Nanda Devil mountain like a ghost on the horizon, gleaming white in the moonlight and flanked by Trishul, the mountain considered holy by Hindus. Between me and the high mountains lay three or four valleys. Not a light shone in them and not a sound could be heard. It was one of the quietest places I have ever known, a bottomless well of silence. And above me was the full moon.

　　On the same trip, further down by the plains, we stayed in village style clay huts at the edge of a wheat field, with a cold river tumbling over rocks a few yards away. Late at night, underneath the full moon, everything seemed bathed in a quiet supernatural light, and we could see the stones in the river, and watch the deer and antelope crossing, almost half a kilometre away.

　　I also remember sitting on the beach at San Antonio in Zambales, one night in the Philippines about two years ago, watching the South China Sea hiss against the sand. The full moon rose and hung over the sea like a huge lantern in the sky. I felt as if I could walk up and touch it.

　　Last summer, on another trip, I met the caretaker of a rest-house at Chitkul, 11, 000 feet above the plains at the top end of the Sangla Valley in the Indian Himalayas, two days?walk from China誷 Tibet. We sat in the sun looking at the scattering of stone-tiled roofs, and the stony valley climbing away between the mountains towards China誷 Tibet, leaving behind the small, struggling vegetable patches planted by the farmers and herders of this, the last village before the border. We were a thousand feet above the tree-line; every winter the place is covered with several feet of snow.

　　The caretaker was a local, an old man with the craggy face and thin beard typical of the high plateaus. He didn誸 have a watch or calendar 裯obody in that village of less than 200 people had one. I asked him how he knew which month it was. He turned and pointed to the row of snow peaks towering above us across the valley. 襑hen the morning sun falls first on that peak it is January,?he said. 襑hen it falls first on that second peak it is February, and on the third it is March and so on.?The cycles of the sun and moon are simple but gigantic forces which have shaped human lives since the beginning. Wise men and women studied them not as scientists, but as mystics; ancient communities worshipped them. Today so many of us miss this experience because we are inside cars or houses all the time. We have lost our sense of wonder at the elements ?our lives are full of forces that are so new and barely understood that we are confused shadows of what we should be.

　　Today our lives are defined by glass, concrete, metal, plastic and fibre-glass. We eat and breathe things our bodies were not designed to process. We have televisions, Xerox machines, cell phones, pagers, electricity, heaters and ovens and air-conditioners, cars, computers and remote controls. Energy flies around us. White noise and pollution is in the air. Radio waves and strange harsh lights are constantly drumming into our minds and bodies.

　　Struggling through traffic that evening in Manila at the end of a tiring day, most of it spent indoors, I saw the moon and remembered these things. And I thought: before long, I would like to live in a small cottage in the Himalayas. There I will grow vegetables and read books and walk in the mountains ?and perhaps write, but not in anger. I may grow old there, and wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled and measure out my life in coffee spoons. But I will be able to walk outside on a cold silent night and touch the moon.

　　月色动人

　　北京外国语大学 周炜 讲评

　　“月色动人”(Touched by the Moon)是一篇文笔清新、含义深刻的散文。原文刊登于1997年第9期的《亚洲杂志》(Asia Magazine)，后被选入杨立民教授主编的《现代大学英语》第一册。

　　古今中外，凡是写景的文章，大多是两种情况，一是就景写景，二是借景抒情。本文当属后一种。借景抒情的作者需要在景和情之间找到契合点，这样，文章才会浑然天成，读来让人回味无穷。这篇散文结构严谨，层次清晰。前五段主要是描写月色，中间两段过渡到描写自然，在这里月亮成为自然的象征。最后三段，作者重新审视人与自然的关系，感叹现代人疏远了自然，而这种疏远恰恰是现代人经常感到迷茫的根源之一。最后作者发出了回归自然的呼声。下面我们分析一下作者是如何写景抒情的。

　　我们先看题目“Touched by the Moon”。touch在此处意为influence emotionally，如His story touched thousands of people's heart.(他的故事触动了成千上万人的心灵。) 这个题目简洁明了，点出了文章的主旨，指美丽的月色触动了作者的心灵，引起了他的深思。

　　第一、二段描述了作者在月夜驾车时惊叹于圆月高挂天际的景色。作者用了huge 和 swollen两个形容词来描写月亮，用awe-struck这个词来表达自己的感受。awe-struck在Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary中的解释是filled with feelings of admiration or respect, 常用来修饰名词，如an awe-struck tourist；an awe-struck expression。这个词不仅描绘了月亮的美丽，也表达了作者对月亮所代表的自然美的敬畏之情。尽管作者是透过城市上空的烟尘看到的这轮明月，他依然为之惊叹。这一段中，有一个动词词组reflect on，意思是“深思，沉思，反省”，如We need time to reflect on our past.(我们需要时间来反省过去。)作者是一个善于思考和联想的人，他想到久居都市的人们大部分时间蜗居室内，失去了欣赏如此美景的机会。作者在此处埋下了一个伏笔，他的这种感慨将在文章的后半部分得到抒发。

　　与作者同行的朋友也深有感触。他生长于林区，因此月亮对他既具有审美的价值，也具有实用的价值。月亮的阴晴圆缺决定了他的生活起居。作者在此处对新月的描写极为细腻动人，sliver是“细长的、带尖角的裂片”，而chink的意思是“裂缝”，两个词合在一起在此处指一钩新月遥挂天际，像门缝底下透过的一线光。另外，这里又出现了 touch这个词，在此处的意思是 have an effect on sb. or sth.(影响到……)，如The rapid changes in the outside world have barely touched them.(外面世界的飞速变化几乎没有影响到他们的生活。)

　　第三、四段中，作者借描写月色来描写月亮。他描写了两处月色，均是他在印度北部旅行时的亲身经历。作者用动词grow to its fullest和gleam white来形容月亮和月色的美丽。这里提到的Trishul是印度教徒心目中的圣山。在月光下，群山泛着银光，山峦间的峡谷寂静无声，像是a bottomless well of silence(寂静的深渊)。在一片寂静的衬托下，万物显得神圣。在此景象下，人们的心境自然也沉静下来。在同一次旅行中，作者又一次为月色所动。在第四段里，作者使用了丰富的动词来描写月光下的景物，如tumble over rocks指“河水在岩石上汩汩流过”，使读者如闻其声。bathe in的意思是“沐浴，笼罩”，文中everything seemed bathed in a quiet supernatural light 指“一切都沐浴在静谧的、超自然的月光中”。清凉的河水汩汩流过岩石，河水清澈见底，鹿和羚羊在不远处涉水而过。这两段描写一静一动，动静相宜，描写了月色之美，整个意境颇有诗意。

　　第五段描写的则是海边的月亮。作者使用了比喻的手法，描写了在菲律宾海边赏月的经历。作者听着海水冲刷海滩发出的嘶嘶声，看到海上升起一轮明月，像一个巨大的灯笼悬挂在天上。touch 第三次出现在文中，此处的意思是put your hand on sth. (触摸某物), 指此刻作者感到月亮仿佛伸手可及。作者对月色的描绘从山间到海上，亦动亦静，月色象征着大自然中的和谐之美，净化了人的灵魂。

　　接下来的两段中，作者写了在另一次旅行中的所见所闻。在位于喜马拉雅山麓的一个小山村里，房屋以石铺顶，稀稀落落地分散在布满石头的峡谷中，生活在此的村民们过着与自然和谐无争的生活。他们日出而作，日落而息，既不需要钟表，也不需要日历，现代化的用品在这里变成了不必要的奢侈品。第六段中有两个较长的句子，但结构并不复杂。第一句是一个简单句，带两个附加的短语，11,000 feet above the plains at the top end of the Sangla Valley in the Indian Himalayas和two days' walk from China's Tibet，进一步说明Chitkul的位置。第二句是并列句, climbing away between the mountains towards China's Tibet 作 the stony valley的定语；leaving behind引导的现在分词短语作状语。作者由写景联想到人与自然的关系，使文章自然地过渡到下面的议论部分。

　　第八、九段里，作者对比了过去和现在的人与自然的关系。这里有一个动词shape，意思是“塑造，形成”。日月的运行从古至今塑造了人类的生活，和人类的生活息息相关。这种关系使古代的部落崇拜自然。而今天的人们整日不是蜷缩在轿车里，就是躲在房间里，失去了接触自然的机会，也失去了对自然的敬畏。the elements在此处指“自然界的万物或大自然本身”。现代生活中充斥着巨大的、新的力量，而人类自身则感到迷茫。...we are confused shadows of what we should be. 这一句对理解文章的主旨至关重要。作者从历史的角度重新审视了人与自然的关系，指出人类的生活已不依赖于自然，而是被玻璃、水泥、钢铁等重新定义。现代人在远离自然、未找到新的支点前常会感到困惑，成为人类自己困惑的影子。作者在第九段里列举了一系列现代发明，如电视、复印机、汽车等。人类在享受这些现代发明所带来的好处的同时也深受其害。drum的意思是hit a surface regularly and make a sound like drum(冬冬地敲)，drum into的意思是keep coming into，这里可以理解为无线电波和怪异的强光如鼓槌般敲击着我们的神经和身体，几乎把我们击垮。结尾的三个简单句简洁、有力，批评了现代文明的弊端。作者在此并无全盘否定现代文明之意，读者应结合上一段，才能较好地把握文章的含义。

　　最后作者的思绪又回到了文章的开头，使文章在结构上显得完整、紧凑。作者驾车行驶在交通拥堵的路上，疲惫不堪，看到难得一见的月色，回想起了这一切，由此发出无限的感慨。这一段中，作者用了西方现代派文学大师艾略特(T.S. Eliot)的一段诗，原句来自艾略特的长诗The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock：

　　For I have known them all already, known them all

　　Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

　　I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

　　...

　　I grow old... I grow old...

　　I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

　　作者把这两句诗合二为一，转化为“I may grow old there, and wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled and measure out my life in coffee spoons”。原诗表现了一种厌倦的情绪，经作者转化后，表现了一种渴望回归自然、寻找闲适生活的愿望。作者渴望隐居深山，独坐农舍，在寒冷的静夜，踱步户外，随时看到伸手可及的月亮。最后touch the moon三个字，巧妙地呼应了文章的标题。touch可以说是一语双关，既指在高原地带常可以看到月色，也指作者可以用自己的心灵去触摸月亮，触摸自然。最后一段的意境同陶渊明的“采菊东篱下，悠然见南山”似有异曲同工之处。

　　这篇散文并没有特别复杂的语言现象，语言清新、朴素，结构严谨，前后呼应，含义发人深省，尤其是文章的最后三个字，巧妙点题，可谓神来之笔。无论是从篇章结构上还是从语言的角度都值得英语学习者借鉴。