熟悉四級閱讀理解題型的同學應(yīng)該都了解，英語四級考試的閱讀理解材料大多選自《時代》《衛(wèi)報》《今日美國》等外刊。要想閱讀理解這部分拿到高分，必須在平常多閱讀，掌握新詞匯，鍛煉閱讀速度。
為此小編每日精選了《衛(wèi)報》《時代》等外刊上的文章供大家進行閱讀練習。
本篇閱讀材料“當代小說：都市女性文學之死?”選自《經(jīng)濟學人》(原文標題：Contemporary fiction The death of chick lit? 2012.3.6)。如果大家覺得比較簡單，就當作泛讀材料了解了解，認識幾個新單詞或新表達方式也不錯。如果大家覺得這些材料理解上有難度，不妨當做挑戰(zhàn)自己的拔高訓練，希望大家都有進步^^
IT was fun at the start, like every romance. But ten years on, the bloom is off the “chick lit” rose. This sparkly slice of women’s fiction has more or less officially expired. Reports abound from either side of the Atlantic: publishers rebuff new titles; supermarkets barely stock them; authors can no longer make it pay. Sophie Kinsella, the reigning queen of light amusing urban romance, must feel a little like Mark Twain. She ain’t dead yet: her newest novel, "I’ve Got Your Number", is a current top seller on British fiction charts.
chick lit 都市女性文學。“Chick”除有“雞仔”的意思外，口語中還有“妞兒”的意思，是英美俚語中對年輕女郎的統(tǒng)稱。“Lit”是“literature”的英文縮寫，是“文學”的意思。所謂chick lit實際上定義是“女性作家寫給女性讀者看的作品”，類似于中國近幾年比較流行的女性言情小說。
expire v. 期滿;終止;死亡
abound v. 充滿;富于;大量存在
rebuff vt. 斷然拒絕 n. 斷然拒絕;回絕;漠不關(guān)心
reigning adj. 占統(tǒng)治地位的;起支配作用的;在位的
A decade after "Bridget Jones’s Diary" and "Confessions of a Shopaholic" unleashed atsunami of stiletto heels, chick lit isn’t as much dead as transformed. The genre has grown up and moved on. If anything should be laid to rest, many women in publishing argue, it’s the dubious and denigrating label that has hung on it like an albatross from the start.
lay to rest 消除;埋葬
albatross 沉重負擔
“The term assumes the subjects covered are light, but actually that’s not necessarily true. They can be meaty and gritty,” says Janey Fraser, a British writer whose new novel "The Playgroup" involves relationships across generations. Even Ms Kinsella’s original Shopaholic heroine now has a baby, notes her editor, Linda Evans at Transworld Books. The “chick lit” box never really did justice to the full spectrum of women’s experience that many of these novels address—and is no longer relevant to the work being published now.
Shopaholic n. 購物狂 adj. 購物狂的
“It’s moving on from young women having trouble with their boyfriends and their hair. I can’t imagine publishing anything like that in 2012,” says Ms Evans. “But the good ones were never just about that; they were always about money and property, too, like 'Pride and Prejudice'.”
The original appeal of these books, mostly featuring feisty, single young professional women, has not changed much either. They’re entertaining and often wickedly funny. “Every once in a while I just like to read a frothy story I don’t have to think about too much,” says Andee-Louise Gilchrist, a London reader. “It’s like choosing Cadbury’s over Godiva; all are an indulgence and each has its merits.” For their part, two American writers, stung by the obituaries, have defended their turf by launching a website, “Chick Lit Is Not Dead.”
indulgence n. 嗜好;放縱;縱容;沉溺
Nonetheless, British sales of women’s commercial fiction did slump by 20% from 2010 to 2011, according to the Bookseller. For some authors, the drop was as much as half. But book sales in all genres are down, while e-book sales are still not tracked. Some think it possible that chick lit, like its steamier cousin, romance, is more readily consumed on e-readers, without the tell-all wrapper.
slump v. 下降
It’s tempting, too, to blame vampires for putting a stake in chick-lit’s heart. The real reason, though, was overkill. Bookselling is a faddish business, and the market was quickly saturated—as the “Skandicrime” genre is saturated now. “Thousands if not millions of women worldwide decided they could pick up a pen and write another Bridget Jones, and publishers started printing them in droves,” says literary agent Teresa Chris. Publishers, for their part, blame retailers, with their blinkered repetition of winning formulas, and especially, those treacly, girly covers. Many writers were shoehorned into that marketing box, even if their novels dealt with more serious issues. Polly Courtney, for example, dropped publisher HarperCollins last year for packaging her novels in what she called “condescending and fluffy” covers.
faddish adj. 風行的;流行一時的
saturate vt. 浸透，使?jié)裢?使飽和，使充滿
in droves 成群結(jié)隊地
blinkered adj. 思路狹隘的;心胸狹隘的
Many readers are indeed turned off by the implicit marketing message. “It’s sort of like, admit it ladies, it’s all a ruse, this professional thing. The prince and the ring are really out there,” says one. That underlying sexism in packaging still grates, especially since the success of David Nicholls’ "One Day", a young urban romance that would doubtless have sported swirls had its author been a woman.
implicit adj. 盲從的;含蓄的;暗示的
Still, hope springs eternal, as these tales instruct. The ageing cohort that once devoured "Prada" and "Shopaholic" will soon want a different kind of novel that reflects the complexities of modern women’s lives. “They may well have stilettos on the cover,” Ms Fraser says. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if they also had trainers. Women live in a very big church.”
The subject is enduring, and broad. Think Cathy and Heathcliff, Austen’s "Emma", the 1930s gem "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day". Alongside chick lit emerged hilarious takes on balancing career and motherhood such as Maeve Haran’s "Having It All" and Allison Pearson’s "I Don’t Know How She Does It". The current popularity of tragic tales of Tudor queens and other histories, and the emergence of family thrillers like Emma Donohue’s "Room" and Rosamund Lupton’s "Sister" suggest that the late, lamentedchick lit is merely one pink-hued incarnation of a still-vital phenomenon of stories that convey the female experience.
Question time:
1. Please translate the underlined words into Chinese.
2. How many factors does the author stated that lead to the dilemma of chick lit in the passages?
