пятница, 7 октября 2011 г.

I've learned plenty of new words

I guess I should write here a word, a translation and the example of the phrase I could create using new vocabulary? Okay.
1. Typhus - сыпной тиф.
In the Past, plenty of people died of typhus, as there was no cure.
2. Pastiche - мешанина, всякая всячина, ерунда. The word of French origin. (By the way, as the main character lived some period of time in Paris, there are plenty of French words in the text. I suppose It's an interesting author's idea.)
Oh, such a pastiche! A can't bear it!
3. To wiggle - покачивать
Stop wiggling your foot!
4. Coltish - жеребячий
Oh, you're rather fat and you waist is too big. The type of your body can be called as coltish.
5. To waylay - подстерегать, устраивать засаду
A ruffian waylaid her in the street.

Some words about the plot

I'd love to tell a few words about the plot. The story begins in 1910 and that is when the main character Humbert Humbert was born. It's preceeded by the words "Lolita, my sin, my soul". Actually, the book is written as a diary of the main character. He begins his story from his childhood and from the first disappointment and experience that he's had. His beloved, his Annabel, died of typhus. I guess this very event in question made him be a tortured soul, but also a moster. That terrible occasion absolutely ruined his state of mind.
After some years, Humbert Humbert became a professor of literature. Also, he lived in Paris for some period of time, there he got married to a woman Valerie, but one day she betrayed him and made an act of unfaithfulness with a Russian officer. But our hero was not very disappointed - he didn't love his wife at all and she was just like a red herring for different people, so that nobode could guess his real inward nature.
Then he moved to New England. 1947. He decided to rent a small room, and occasionally he rents a room in a Haze's house. Charlotte Haze, the mistress of the house, was a widow in her middle thirties, she had a shiny forehead, plucked eyebrows and quite simple but not unattractive features that may be defined as a weak solution of Marlene Dietrich. She wore her hair in a brown-bronze bun, the landlady's eyes were wide-set and sea-green. She was rather polite with her guest, also it's possible to say that she used polished words.
Then, the Humbert's knees were like reflections of knees in rippling water, and his lips were like sand, and - he saw Lo. He became totally insane. That was the girl he has been searching for during his life after Annabel's death. She was 12 years old, she wore rolled-up jeans and was unreally pure and simple. Her chestnut hair was shining with the sunlight.
During a few tedious months Humbert Humbert was bored. He was writing his diary where he described his feelings and thoughts.