From Life on the Mississippi

Mark Twain

这里摘录的是马克·吐温Life on the Mississippi 的前两段。在Life on the Mississippi里，马克·吐温回忆了他在密西西比河上做水手的生活。整篇文章的记叙顺序很有特色：作者随着船在河流里一路航行所见的情景回忆当时的生活, 描写就像照相机，随时抓取新出现的景物，这些景物又激发着作者的联想。我们摘录的两段是文章的开始部分，作者描述了河流上涨怎样为他“呈现了一个新的世界”（brought a new world）。在接下去的部分里，作者又记述了一次一棵倒下的树横在河中阻碍航道以后发生的事；更花了大量篇幅描写了一个叫做Mr. X的领航员的故事，有兴趣的读者可以找来马克·吐温的这篇散文细细欣赏全篇。读者可以试着找到马克·吐温的“照相机”在哪里从一个景转像另一个景，他运用了哪些过渡方式向读者表明景物的转换。这种观察很有利于我们自己的阅读和写作水平提高。William Faulkner说得好“Read everything, trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it.” 马克·吐温的散文就是经典的东西，我们应该看他是怎么写的。
在阅读以下摘录的两段时，请特别留意作者是如何描写和叙述那些景物的。

As I have said, the big rise brought a new world under my vision. By the time the river was over its banks we had forsaken our old paths and were hourly climbing over bars that had stood ten feet out of water before; we were shaving stumpy shores, like that at the food of Madrid Bend, which I had always seen avoided before; we were clattering through chutes like that of 82, where the opening at the foot was an unbroken wall of timber till our nose was almost at the very spot. Some of these chutes were utter solitudes. The dense, untouched forest overhung both banks of the crooked little crack, and one could believe that human creatures had never intruded there before. The swinging grapevines, the grassy nooks and vistas glimpsed as we swept by, the flowering creepers waving their read blossoms from the tops of dead trunks, and all the spendthrift richness of the forest foliage, were wasted and thrown away there. The chute were lovely places to steer in; they were deep, except at the head; the current was gentle; under the “points” the water was absolutely dead, and the invisible banks so bluff that where the tender willow thickets projected you could bury your boat's broadside in them as you tore along, and then you seemed fairly to fly.

Behind other islands we found wretched little farms, and wretched little log cabins; there were crazy rail fences sticking a foot or two above the water, with one or two jeans-clad, chills-racked, yellow-faced male miserables roosting on the top rail, elbows on knees, jaws in hands, grinding tobaccos and discharging the result at floating chips through crevices left by lost teeth; while the rest of the family and the few farm riding at her moorings close at hand. In this flatboat the family would have to cook and eat and sleep for a lesser or greater number of days (or possibly weeks), until the river should fall two or three feet and let them get back to their log cabins and their chills again—chills being a merciful provision of an all-wise Providence to enable them to take exercise with out exertion. And this sort of watery camping out was a thing which these people were rather liable to be treated to a couple of times a year: by the December rise out of the Ohio, and the June rise out of the Mississippi. And yet these were kindly dispensations, for they at least enabled the poor things to rise from the dead now and then, and look upon life when a steamboat went by. They appreciated the blessing, too, for they spread their mouths and eyes open and made the most of these occasions. Now what could these banished creatures find to do to keep from dying of the blues during the low-water seasons!

思考题：
作者很注重细节，你认为他在哪些细节上花了很多笔墨？为什么？
作者在第二段中的“take exercise without exertion”指的是什么？
在第二段里，作者用了“wretched”这个带有贬义的词，定了这一段的基调。这段里还有哪些词同样带有消极的含义（negative in meaning）？

自己写：、
你能模仿马克·吐温和他的幽默笔调来写写你自己的新鲜经历吗？比如大学生活的第一天，第一次和对象的父母见面等等。你甚至可以借用马克·吐温的话“The first hour working in the diner brought a new world under my vision.”。首先充分的描写，然后加上一小段逸事，能表现人物特色的对话等。