《天蓝色的彼岸》中英文读后感
认真读一本书
学生的图书角这本天蓝色的书吸引了我的注意力，The Great Blue Yonder. The Great Blue Yonder? What is blue yonder? What is yonder? 带着好奇，我翻开了这本书。正如意料，“the side " and "the other side",活人的世界和死人的世界,是的，这是一本关于死亡的书。死亡，多么沉重的话题，在这本书里却似乎又没那么沉重和悲痛——文中的主人公Harry，一个小学生，以第一人称I的视角，讲述了他死后的经历。一个小学生，一个稚嫩单纯可爱而又调皮捣蛋的小学生，一个满脑子还是怎样不惹妈妈生气、满脑子作业该怎么办的小学生，在他和姐姐吵完架，骑着自行车出门而被一辆货车（lorry）撞死后他眼中的死亡又是怎样的呢？
他会让你笑着去解读死亡
0
1
As far as I can see, being dead is mostly paperwork.
Arthur says that the best way to do it is to die in bed with your boots on. But I can’t quite see what you’d be doing in bed with your boots on-unless you were too ill to take them off. But even then, you’d think that someone would take them off for you. And all I know is that if I’d ever gone to bed with my boots on, my mum would have had fifty fits. Sixty fits, maybe. Probably even a hundred fits.
So anyway. There I am, dead. One moment I’ve got my whole life ahead of me, next minute, I’ve got my whole death ahead of me. And how long was that going to go on? I mean, what was I supposed to do to fill the time? A bit of colouring-in? Or try and get up a game of football? Or what？
他让你不由得停下来思考人生
02
Harry在“the other side（另一边）” 遇见了小伙伴Arthur——He was from another time. He wasn’t dressed in modern clothes, but in old-fashioned ones. He looked like one of those boys out of those stories like Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and all that.他是一个衣服肮脏，满是补丁还戴着一顶帽子的已经死了或许150年的小男孩。He’d died of some kind of fever.He said children his age were always dying of fevers back in the olden times, just like him.
他们两人都不肯去到the blue yonder，都不肯安息。因为他们都有着unfinished business。
Harry 在被撞死前跟姐姐大吵了一架。So, just before slammed the door, I said, I hate you! Absolutely hate you! And I hate this house and this whole family and I never want to come back or to see any of you ever again. And she said, so don’t then. And I said, you’ll be sorry. You’ll be sorry one day when I’m dead. And she said, no I won’t be, I’ll be glad. So get lost, don’t call me Eggy. And I slammed the door then, and I went off on my bike.
And got killed.
And now here I am, dead as mutton, as dead as a doornail. And the last terrible, awful words I said to my sister were, “You'll be sorry one day when I'm dead.”And the last terrible,awful words she said to me were, “No I won't be,I'll be glad.”
And I want to see her again so much.To say I'm sorry and that I didn't mean it. And so that she can say she's sorry too and that she didn't mean it either. Because I know she didn't, any more than I did. It was just one of those stupid things you say, and I know she must be feeling awful about it now,every bit as bad as me.
……
…Because to tell the truth,I had something in mind. You see, I had a scheme.There was something I was planning on, something I needed to do before I could ever be at peace with myself, before I would ever be able to make the journey to whatever lay beyond the Great Blue Yonder.
It was that unfinished business again, that thing I'd said to my sister Eggy, the terrible thing I'd said about her being sorry when I was dead, and then going off and dying, before we'd had a chance to patch things up.
I had to make my peace with Eggy before I could ever really say goodbye to the world and to move on. And if I didn't, I'd just end up like Arthur, moping around the Other Lands, searching for someone he could never find, haunting his old haunts, moving among the living like the shadow of a shadow, like the ghost of a ghost.
Arthur 的unfinished business是凭着一粒纽扣寻找着自己从未见过面的妈妈。He said a lot of mothers died while having babies back in those days.
Harry想要为自己生前说的气话向姐姐道歉，并向姐姐表明他原谅她在吵架时说的气话…somehow to make my peace with her, to somehow forgive her and be forgiven。
他们两就这样游荡着，并偷偷的来到了人间。
Arthur 凭着鬼魂的意愿力帮助一个老人中得了大奖。Harry迫不及待地想带着Arthur去到他生前的学校。只是Arthur并不愿太跟着去，并一路支支吾吾欲言又止。
“Harry,” he said, “don't expect too much, will you?”
“What?” I stopped and looked up at him. “Don't expect too much-of other people. Life goes on, Harry. People are only human. So just don't expect too much. That's all. I went back myself once, you see, to have a look around, shortly after I got the fevers. I went and had a look round all my own haunts and stomping grounds, just to see how everyone might be getting on without me, how they'd be missing me and...” he trailed off, and stared ahead, as if looking far back into the past.
“And wbat,Arthur?” I said. “And what,exactly?” He looked down at me again and gave a faint smile.
“Just don't expect too much, Harry,” he said. “And then you won’t be disappointed.”
这是Arthur给Harry的建议，何尝又不是给你我的建议呢？
Don’t expect too much, and then you won’t be disappointed.
不期望，就不会失望。
但是小鬼魂Harry怎么可能不会有期待呢？他活着时存在感多么强啊！
当他看到校园里一片生机，往日的同学们身着校服拿着午餐盒背着书包穿梭于街道时，他失望了，或者说是愤怒了！
A ghostly lump came to my ghostly throat. I felt angry and sad and bitter and tearful all at once. For the first time since I'd been dead I wanted to shout and scream and rage and yell out, “It's not right! It's not fair! I want my life back! I was only a kid, I shouldn't have had to die. It's all that stupid lorry's fault. It wasn't even as if I was to blame. It's not as if I even deserved it! It's so unfair!”
然而，即使是小学生，Harry也能想明白：“谁又值得这一切呢？！谁又值得这一切这样糟糕的事发生呢？！”事情就是发生了Things just happen。
But then I thought, well, who does deserve it? Who does deserve to have bad things happen to them? Nobody really. And I suppose that things just happen whether you deserve them or not.
当他看到自己最好的小伙伴和最大的仇敌一起踢足球时，他失望了。And all I could do was to stand there,unable to believe it, my best mate and my sworn enemy, playing football together,and seeming to be enjoying it all. And me, barely cold in my grave. It didn't seem right, somehow. It didn't seem right at all.
好在实际情况也没有那么的disappointing。Harry了解了同学们对他的怀念，知道自己生前的“宿敌”并不是那么的充满敌意和令人讨厌。
最后他向学校以及同学老师说“Goodbye”,一切都释然了。
回家
03
Harry最终回到了家。
看到爸爸妈妈悲伤的样子，看到姐姐难受后悔的样子，看到自己的房间一切都还是原来的样子，Harry甚至想过就以鬼魂的形式待在家里。
幸好，Harry凭借着鬼魂的意志力，在姐姐Eggy的房间用铅笔在A4纸上和姐姐进行了一场简短却艰辛的交流，最终写下了一直萦绕在心中的话：Forgive me, Eggy, For what I said. I love you too, Eg-
是时候离开了。
To go,and never to come back.
But I felt at peace at last. Sad and sorry,but at peace. I'd made it up with Eggy, and that made me feel as if a great weight had gone from me. And I remembered something that our headmaster, Mr Hallent, had said once, during one of his boring assemblies,when he'd read this bit out from the Bible about “Never let the sun go down on your wrath”, meaning that you should never go to sleep still angry and enemies with someone,especially someone you loved. Because one of you might not wake up in the morning. And then where would you be? Well, I'll tell you.You'd be stuck with a whole big plateful of unfinished business, just like me.
Never let the sun go down on your wrath.永远不要在愤怒中等待日落。
永远不要带着对某个人的愤怒和恨意去睡觉，尤其是你所爱的那些人。
Harry乘着彩虹离开了。
天蓝色的彼岸
04
小伙伴Arthur也最终找到了自己的妈妈。他们都了却了心愿，终于可以一同去到蓝色的彼岸了。
彼岸又是什么呢？或许可以通过Arthur妈妈的解释得知一二吧。
“It was like becoming part of life again. It’s sort of like a leaf, a leaf in a forest. You know, the way it falls from a tree. It becomes part of the soil again, part of life, and new trees grow, with new leaves… You will come back,but not as you are. It’s more that, well – it’s the way leaves return to the ground – you’ll be everything and everyone. Just the way that everyone and everything was once part of you.”
见识了死亡，更加理解生命的珍贵。
随著小Harry一同品味“死”后经历，或许能启发我们如何去更好地去面对“生”吧！