No Signposts in the Sea
Background Information
1. About the author
Victoria Mary Sackville- West (12-1962) was an English poet and novelist, a member of the Bloomsbury group【布鲁姆伯利(英国伦敦中北部的居住区, 因在20世纪初期与知识界的人物, 包括弗吉尼亚·沃尔夫、E.M.福斯特及约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯的关系而闻名于世)】, an informal group of literary and artistic friends, a close friend of Virginia Woolf.
Her poems include The Land (1926), Solitude (1938), The Garden (1946), All Passion Spent (1931). Her poetry is traditional in form, reminiscent（怀旧的，
使人想起的） of the work of the English nature poets of the age of romanticism.
A prolific（多产的） writer, Victoria Sackville-West is the author of 15 novels, as well as biographies and travel books.
2. About the novel No Signposts in the Sea
This novel is writen in the form of a journal kept by a man called Edmund Carr, 50, an influential political columnist and bachelor. He learns that he has a
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limited time to live--- a few days or weeks, a month or two at most. How shall he spend them? In this quandary（dilemma）, he learns that a widow who he has lately met at random（unplanned/unexpected） social occasions has booked passage on a cruise(漫游) to the Far East. Her qualities, her intelligence and warmth stiffened（strengthened） by a deep reserve（矜持coolness of manner or emotional retraint）, have struck him as uncommon; he decided to be abroad. His contact with Laura, the widow, gives Carr an unfamiliar peace and a profound change in perspective ( particular evaluation of sth. , especially from one person’s point of view). Power, prestige(威望、威信), practicality（state of being practical）--- the former watchwords of his career--- lose their ring （echo）. Illusion, which he had adhered（追随）, and the natural world, uninvaded by civilization, begin to seem transcendent（超然的、超验的independent of the world or beyond the limits of experience）. And a third-some Colonel arouses his all-too-human ignominy(羞辱、屈辱disgrace，dishonor) of jealousy, despair, meanness（自私,吝啬） and outbursts（感情迸发） of disappointment against his “rival”.
Characters
•Laura Edmund Carr The Colonel
Laura
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•the grace of her gestures •slender fingers
•always in grey and white by day
•In the evening she wears soft rich colours, …always of the most supple
flowing texture
elegant, beautiful, intelligent
Narrator : Edmund Carr
•…and said I had better take to writing fashion articles instead of political
leaders.
an influential political colomnist
•I observe with amusement how totally the concerns of the world, which once
absorbed me to the exclusion of all else except an occasional relaxation with poetry or music, have lost interest for me even to the extent of a bored distaste.
A profound change of the narrator
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“I lived politics, I breathed politics, I dreamed politics.”
•Doubtless some instinct impels me gluttonously to cram these the last weeks
of my life with the gentler things I never had time for, …
I am going to die.
Gentler things
What is the possible relationship between Carr and Laura?
•I can observe her without her knowing, and this gives me pleasure,… •I have never had much of an eye for noticing the clothes of women, but I get
the impression that Laura is always in grey and white by day,…
•I ventured to say something of the kind to her,…
The Colonel
•the tall colonel
“a man of the people”
“of lowly birth and inelegant physique”
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•a nice chap
•not too offensively an Empire-builder, rather charmingly deferential •by no means stupid or ill-informed; a little opinionated perhaps, and just
about as far to the Right as anybody could go
Questions for further discussion
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If one has been informed that one’s days in the world are numbered,
what do you think one may choose to do as the best option?
•. . . Only the deaf appreciate hearing, only the blind realize the manifold
blessings that lie in sight. …But those who have never suffered impairment of sight or hearing seldom make the fullest use of these blessed faculties. Their eyes and ears take in all sights and sound hazily, without concentration, and with little appreciation. It is the same old story of not being grateful for what we are conscious of health until we are ill.
New Words
•...a Chinese woman improbably called Mm Merveille...
improbably: unlikely
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•Doubtless some instinct impels me gluttonously to cram these...
glutton: a person who eats too much food and drink
gluttonous: indulging in sth excessively.
greedy greed
ravenous ravenousness
rapacious rapacity
voracious voracity
covetous covetousness
avaricious avarice
•…releasing some suppressed inclination which in fact was always latent.
latent: potential e.g. latent energy; latent ability
•Or maybe Laura’s unwitting influence has called it out.
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unwitting: unaware, unconscious, unintentional, unknowing, oblivious
•gluttonous:
glutton: a glutton of books
a glutton for work
•gluttonous: Indulging in something, such as an activity；voracious.
Being avid （of）
•cupidity：
Excessive desire, especially for wealth; covetousness or avarice；
Immoderate desire for wealth.
Cf: Voracious/ gluttonous/ rapacious/ ravenous:
•(The central meaning shared by these adjectives is “having or •marked by boundless greed”)
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•a voracious reader. 如饥似渴的读者
•a voracious observer of the political scene;对政治事件的饥渴观察者； •a gluttonous appetite; 贪吃的大胃口； •rapacious demands; 贪婪的需要； •ravenous for power. 对权利的贪欲
•Unwitting: Not knowing; unaware; Not intended; unintentional:
Cf: Latent/ dormant/ quiescent
•(These adjectives mean present or in existence but not active or manifest.)
•What is latent is present but not visible or apparent.
•latent energy; 潜在的能量； latent ability. 潜在的能力。
•His critical remark immediately awakened all her latent hostility.
•他的批评立刻引起了她潜在的敌意。
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•Dormant evokes the idea of sleep; the term applies to what is inactive or in
suspended animation.
(ormant含有睡眠的意思；这个词含有处于不活跃状态或暂停状态)
•a dormant volcano. 休眠火山。
•Her enormous talents were dormant. 她非凡的天才被暂时埋没了。
(Persons or things are quiescent when they cease to be active;
sometimes—but not always—the term suggests temporary inactivity.
当不再活跃的时候人或事情使处于 quiescent状态；有时——但不是经常——这个词含有暂时性不活跃的意思)
•“How for nine years you could be patient and quiescent under any
treatment . . . I can never comprehend.” Charlotte Bronte.
•“这九年来你是如何面对各种遭遇保持耐心和缄默的……我永远也不可能知道”（夏洛
特·勃朗特）。
•For a time, he [the whale] lay quiescent. (Herman Melville).
•“过了一会儿，他 躺在那里不动了”（赫尔曼·麦尔维尔）
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Summary of Characters
Edmund Carr: an influential political columnist and bachelor who had devoted all of his time to the career, having little time to entertain himself before he decided to take the voyage abroad
Laura: a widow and an acquaintance of Edmund Carr’s,
who could be considered as the incarnation of Vita Mary
Sackville-West. Her qualities, her intelligence and warmth
stiffened by a deep reserve, have struck him as uncommon;
he decides to be abroad with her.
Colonel: an Empire builder, who tended to appear quite knowledgeable which was the result of his frequent travels worldwide, who often tried to put right what Edmund Carr was commenting on the natural surroundings, say, the seas, the mountains, to name just a few.
Summary of the Story
Edmund Carr is at sea in more ways than one. An eminent
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journalist and self-made man, he has recently discovered that he
has only a short time to live. Leaving his job on a Fleet Street
paper, he takes a passage on a cruise ship where he knows that
Laura, a beautiful and intelligent widow whom he secretly
admires,will be a fellow passenger. Exhilarated by the distant
vista of exotic islands never to be visited and his conversations
with Laura, Edmund finds himself rethinking all his values. A
voyage on many levels, those long purposeless days at sea find
Edumnd relinquishing the past as he discovers the joys and the
pain of a love he is simultaneously determined to conceal.
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