When US musician Bob Dylan was announced as the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for literature last month, many people took to social media to suggest that Leonard Cohen was the only other living songwriter who deserved(值得)the honor.
Sadly, on Nov 7, the deep-voiced Canadian artist died at the age of 82.
Many tributes(称赞)were written for Cohen, who had just released his 14th album, You Want It Darker, on Oct 21st. “Leonard Cohen is as important today as he was in the 1960s,” Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on in a statement. “ His ability to describe human emotion made him one of the most influential and lasting musicians ever.”
Cohen’s most famous song, Hallenlujah, in which he compared physical love to a need for spiritual connection, has been recorded hundreds of times by different musician since it was first released in 1984.
And Cohen’s song Bird on a Wire(1969) could be considered a perfect epitaph(墓志铭)that he wrote for himself. As the song’s first line goes, “Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in midnight choir(合唱团), I have tired in my way to be free.”
“Cohen writes words that explain what it means to be human. I’ve read poetry that has as much beauty as Cohen’s work, but in the world of music, Cohen is a rarity,” US singer Jennifer Warnes told Austin American-Statesman newspaper. ‘He describes things that go on inside a heart and what it feels like to be here.”
Along with his spirituality, Cohen’s dry, deep voice also helped his popularity. In 2006 he spoke with the NPR radio station about how he got his interesting voice—apparently it was “500 tons of whiskey and a million cigarettes.”
But he never forgot to work on the instruments that made up his songs, even though he was most famous for his lyrics (歌词)and voice.
“There is no difference between a poem and a song,” Cohen said in 1969 interview with the New York Times newspaper. “Some were songs first and some were poems first and some were written at the same time. All of my writing has guitars behind it, even the novels.”
“When people talk about Cohen, they fail to mention the melodies(旋律), which to me, along with his lyrics, are his greatest genius,” Bob Dylan told the New York magazine.” They give a lift to every one of his songs. As far a I know, no one comes close to this in modern music.”
1. What do Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan have in common?| A．They have both written beautiful lyrics. |
| B．They have both achieved outstanding things in literature |
| C．They both came from the same country |
| D．They were both considered the possible winners of Nobel Prize in literature. |
| A．his voice | B．his melodies |
| C．his lyrics | D．his influence |
| A．Hallenlujah is the most performed song in the world |
| B．Bird on a Wire was written to describe Cohen’s personality |
| C．Bob Dylan took inspiration from Cohen’s work |
| D．Cohen said his unhealthy habits contributed to his unique voice. |
| A．Humorous and optimistic | B．Sensitive(敏感的)and moody |
| C．Insightful(深刻的)and talented | D．Expressive and rebellious(叛逆的) |
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【推荐1】Today the Nobel Prize in Literature awarded journalist Svetlana Alexievich approximately $970,000 in recognition of a lifetime of excellence. The 67-year-old author of Voices From Chernobyl and War's Unwomanly Face was praised by the Swedish Academy “for her polyphonic(复调式的) writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.”
Prizes like the Nobel inspire much expectations before the announcement. People give their best guesses as to who will win, look back on past winners, and even place bets as if spectators at a Derby(赛马会).
Literary prizes reward artistic brilliance. They help writers earn a decent living. But is the public’s fascination with prize-winning authors healthy? Our impulse seems to increasingly contribute to a culture of turning authors into celebrities, where readers follow the author instead of the book.
A story should stand on its own, as a considered, complete book, without biographical information from author. It’s an idea perhaps best conveyed in Roland Barthes’s 1968 essay The Death of the Author. “The image of literature to be found in contemporary culture is arbitrarily centered on the author, his person, his history, his tastes, his passions.”
Nearly 50 years later, a few still agree. “I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors,” New York Times bestselling author Elena Ferrante once wrote. “If books have something to say, they will sooner or later find readers; if not, they won’t,”she continued. “True miracles are the ones whose makers will never be known.”
①But the rules for submission for the Man Booker International Prize, for example, strongly encourage authors to “make themselves available for publicity”. And the foundation behind the National Book Award requires finalists to participate in their “website-related publicity”.
② In 2007, a reporter who showed up uninvited at Doris Lessing’s house was the first to inform her that she had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Today the Twitterati came knocking on Alexievich’s digital door hour before the award was even official. To be considered for a prize is to be a public figure.
③ Harry Potter series author J. K. Rowling, with over 5.6 million Twitter followers, has actively addressed readers through public appearances and social media, revealing much more than we could have imagined when we closed the final Harry Potter book. We now know the house Harry's children will be sorted into, that Dumbledore is gay,“Voldemort” is actually pronounced with a silent “t”, and a whole host of the other minor and major details about the backstory of the characters.
The magical world Rowling created in her books—a relatively tight mystery with well-laid clues that led to a satisfying conclusion, which had to prove their merits to the reader based on an internal logic—is being unraveled by her own hand.
④ Of course, public attention also has very important benefits for authors. For three months after receiving the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in fiction, Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad sold about triple its print sales from before the prize, Publishers Weekly reports. On Oct. 5, 2010, in the first FT/Oppenheimer Funds Emerging Voices Awards, as Nigerian-born Chigozie Obioma accepted the prize for fiction with an easy smile, his excitement was appreciable. Given the cash prize of $40,000 for each winner, it’s hard to downplay the importance of such an honor. Such awards bring necessary visibility and funding to writers facing a literary landscape dominated by white men.
But our culture of celebrity is often too wrapped up in the way we read: How might the meaning of a work change if the author really didn’t grow up in a poor neighborhood, or if he or she was abused in childhood? Readers studied the author’s life as if it were the key to interpreting his or her novels.
Behind our fascination is the question that drives all such questions: What did the author intend? By all means, let us praise brilliant work and in doing so trust that the author has already told us enough, and that the story he or she meant to tell ended with the final page.
1. What can we learn from the passage?| A．People wait for the Nobel Prize announcement calmly and patiently. |
| B．Roland Barthes thinks it necessary to read literature centered on authors. |
| C．Elena Ferrante holds that books should be read independently of authors' life. |
| D．The Man Booker International Prize discourages authors from publicity. |
| A．Underlined. | B．Unfolded. | C．Updated. | D．United. |
| A．It reveals more details about the characters in the book. |
| B．It dramatically increases the sales of the book. |
| C．It brings in necessary funding to authors. |
| D．It brings about changes in dominance in literary landscape. |
| A．① | B．② | C．③ | D．④ |
| A．Approval. | B．Critical. | C．Indifferent. | D．Neutral. |
| A．To be awarded a prize is to be a public figure. |
| B．Public fascination with authors brings benefits. |
| C．Turning authors into celebrities is a bad culture. |
| D．There are big challenges for prize-winning authors. |
【推荐2】China’s admiration of outstanding scholars has turned the well-preserved childhood home of Tu Youyou, the Chinese pharmacologist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, into a popular tourist destination.
Since it was announced that 84-year-old Tu had become the first Chinese citizen to win this international prize, her former home in the old town of Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, has attracted visitors, especially parents and their children — even though it is not open to the public.
The house, where Tu lived until she went to university in Beijing, covers an area of 2, 200 square meters and is priced at 150 million yuan( $23.6 million).It is part of a complex of 37 traditional buildings, including several city and district-level cultural relic preservation sites that have been transformed into a high-end art, and commercial zone.
“There are continually parents taking their children, from babies in strollers to college students, to take photos in front of Tu’s former home. Security guards have been ordered to go on patrol around the clock, ”said Mr. Zhao, a salesperson from Ningbo Real Estate Inc Co.
Shanghai resident Xu Lingfei, who was on a trip to Ningbo, took her 9-year-old son to walk around the complex on Wednesday. “Chinese people believe in exams and awards and have a strong preference for high performers. Taking children to visit the former dwelling places of celebrities is a way to inspire them to study harder,” Xu said.
Something similar happened after Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2012. Tourists started visiting Mo’s former home in rural Gaomi, Shandong Province, in an endless stream starting the day after he won the prize. Some even pulled the radishes planted in front of the house and carried away some bricks.
1. Tu Youyou’s former house is now popular mainly because ________．| A．Tu won the Nobel Prize | B．it has some cultural relics |
| C．it covers a large area | D．it is a great art and commercial zone |
| A．She admired Tu very much. | B．She planned to buy the house. |
| C．She intended to take photos there. | D．She wanted her son to be inspired. |
| A．Shanghai. | B．Gaomi. | C．Ningbo. | D．Beijing. |
| A．Tu Youyou’s former home is for sale. |
| B．More Chinese have won the Nobel Prize. |
| C．Nobel winner’s home becomes instant attraction. |
| D．Children benefit from visiting Nobel winner’s home. |
【推荐3】Johannes Gutenberg-The pioneer of the printing press
Johannes Gutenberg was chosen to be the most important figure of the past millennium by the media. You may not be familiar with him.
He was born into a wealthy family in the city of Mainz, Germany. His early training was in goldsmithing. In 1428， he moved to Strasbourg and lived there for almost 20 years.
Gutenberg used his skills in metalwork for the mass production of books.
The discovery of the modern printing press changed the way information was delivered
| A．In fact, this invention was responsible for educating the masses worldwide |
| B．Before the spread of his idea, literature was primarily handwritten |
| C．Gutenberg made the world a much richer place |
| D．It was in Strasburg that he probably met his first experiments with moveable type |
| E．Gutenberg s idea was one of the greatest of all human being |
| F．But he has certainly influenced your life in some ways |
| G．By 1450. Gutenberg was back in Mainz at work on printing press. |
