荆棘

They are the twigs of the burning bush, aflame with God.

出埃及记》，神化身为燃烧的荆棘，向摩西启示他的使命--译注）。

A YOUNG migrant worker with a glass eye makes the hazardous journey, much of it on foot, from a mountain village in southern Yemen to the Red Sea port of Jeddah.

一名四处打工谋生的年轻人戴着一只人造玻璃眼踏上了荆棘丛生的旅途，从也门南部的小山村一直旅行到红海港的吉达（沙特阿拉伯西部港市——译者注），且其间多为徒步旅行。

"Savonarola," says Castelar, would, under different circumstances, undoubtedly have been a good husband, a tender father; a man unknown to history, utterly powerless to print upon the sands of time and upon the human soul the deep trace which he has left; but misfortune came to visit him, to crush his heart, and to impart that marked melancholy which characterises a soul in grief; and the grief that circled his brows with a crown of thorns was also that which wreathed them with the splendour of immortality.

卡斯特勒说，在不同的环境下，萨沃纳洛拉无疑问地会是一个好丈夫，一个慈爱的父亲；在历史上藉藉无名，绝对没有力量在时间的散沙上、以及人们的心灵间打印出他所留下的深深痕迹；但是厄运来造访他，碾碎他的爱心，把那标志出悲伤人的明显忧郁交给他，而那种围绕着他眉宇、看来像一圈荆棘的悲伤，却转而成为他那迸发不朽光辉的花冠。

Just as the salvation is not gorgeous paradise but God is with the victims in Rouault's paintings, the salvation in Jianjun Shi'a paintings is not romantic utopia but small thorns reminding us of bitter experience.

如同卢奥作品中的拯救不是华丽的天堂而是上帝与受难者一道受难一样，石建军作品中的拯救不是浪漫的乌托邦而是唤起我们刺痛经验的渺小的荆棘。

Unlike Rouault, Jianjun Shi was born in a remote rural area of Hunan during the Cultural Revolution, a period that all religions were considered to be superstition which should be thoroughly discarded. He doesn't have the same life experience and religious experience as Rouault has, but he has natural intuition of land and life, no wonder he takes the barren land and stubborn thorns as bitterness and salvation.

石建军不同，他出生在湖南的一个偏远农村，出生在一切宗教都被视为要彻底破除的迷信的文革之中，他没有卢奥的都市生活经验和宗教体验，但他有农民对大地和生命的天然的直观能力，由此，他用荒芜的原野和倔强的荆棘来隐喻受难和得救就似乎是顺理成章的事情了。

Whether it's glimpsing 19th-century Russia inAnna Karenina, or witnessing endless family drama on the Australian outback inThe Thorn Birds, or imagining time travel inOutlander, each of these fabulous books has something special.

无 论是一瞥《安娜·卡列尼娜》里19世纪的俄国，还是目睹《荆棘鸟》中澳大利亚内陆上演的无穷无尽的家庭戏剧，又或者是想象《局外人》里的时间旅行，这里的每一本绝佳之作都有其独有的风味。

The split between the two groups can hardly be papered over.

这两个团体间的分歧难以掩饰。

This approach not only encourages a greater number of responses, but minimizes the likelihood of stale groupthink.

这种做法不仅鼓励了更多的反应，而且减少跟风的可能性。