Appreciation of [American] George Selden Thompson - The Adventures of Cricket (excerpts)

An Appreciation of the Foreign Fairy Tale "[American] George Selden Thompson - The Curious Incident of the Cricket (excerpts)

[American] George Selden Thompson

XIV. Orpheus

Chester didn't have to wait long. In a few minutes, Tucker the Rat jumped into the newsstand, onto a stool, and onto a shelf. Harry followed, running over as he usually did, quietly and easily.

Mouse Tucker, now that he had become the manager of a famous concert player, was serious and dignified in his own every move. "Good evening, Chester," he said, "and pardon me if I make a comment to you. However, I don't think you played 'Hail to the Star-Spangled Banner' at the right speed to-night. You know, you can't get sloppy just because you've had success. All right, let's get practicing."

Chester climbed out of the matchbox. "Can't I even say hello to Harry?" He asked.

"Say hello!" Tucker the mouse said, "Hello, Harry - hello, Chester. Well, hello's done, so let's get practicing."

Chester looked at Harry and shook his head, and the cat smiled and winked.

Tucker turned the knob on the radio. Chester breathlessly interlaced his wings together and prepared to play. The radio was broadcasting an Irish quickstep. Cricket was about to immediately play the first frenetic melody of the piece when he suddenly dropped his wings and said, "I don't want to play tonight."

"What's wrong?" Tucker asked him.

"I don't want to play." Chester said.

"You don't want to play!" Mouse yelled, "That's like the sun saying, 'I don't want to shine.'"

"Well, sometimes it's cloudy," said the cricket, "can't I just take a break?"

"Well, well, well--" said Tucker the Mouse, looking very wretched.

"Let him have a day off," said Harry the Cat, "What's the matter with you, Chester? Honor is beginning to get you down, isn't it?"

"I think I'm suffering from 'September nostalgia,'" sighed Chester, "Fall is coming. It's so beautiful in Connecticut. The leaves all change color, the days are clear and bright, a light smoke of burning leaves rises on the horizon, and the pumpkins begin to ripen."

"We could go to Central Park." Tucker said, "The leaves change color there, too."

"That's different," Chester said, "and I'd like to see the piles of corn standing up in the fields." He paused, looking uneasy, "I wasn't going to tell you yet, but it's good that you know, I'm going to - I'm going to retire."

"Retire!" Tucker the Mouse shrilled.

"Yes, retirement," Chester said softly, "I love New York, and I love that so many people listen to me play, but I love Connecticut more, and I'm going home." said.

"I'm sorry, Tucker, but I've made up my mind." Chester said.

"What about Mario?" Mouse said.

"He wants me to be happy," Chester replied, "and he has said that if I were to be unfortunate, he would prefer it if I didn't come to New York at all."

"But there are all those people!" Tucker said, waving his forelegs, "What about all those suffering thousands of people to whom your playing brings joy?"

"My playing brings joy to a lot of people in Connecticut too heh." Chester said.

"Who?" Tucker the Mouse asked contemptuously.

"Oh, groundhogs ah, pheasants ah, ducks ah, rabbits ah, all those people who live in meadows or brooks ah. Once a bullfrog told me that his favorite thing to listen to, besides the rattle of rain falling in the pond where he lived, was my music. Another time, a fox was chasing a rabbit by the stump where I live. When I played, they all stopped to listen."

"What happened?" Tucker asked.

"The rabbit fled toward his hole," Chester said, "and the fox was about to go after the rabbit again when I started playing the fox's favorite song, and he stopped to listen. Now, I can't play a song like that for anyone at the underground station."

"And I'm not so convinced." Tucker the mouse said. He turned his head back to the cat and said, "Harry, talk to him! Persuade him to stay!"

"That's right, Harry," Chester said, "What's your opinion?"

Harry the cat sat motionless for a moment. His whiskers kept twitching, a signal that he was thinking hard.

"My opinion," he said at last, "is that it is Chester's own life, and he can do with it what he will. What good is it to be famous if honor can only make one unhappy? Some people retire when their careers are at their peak. But, to be honest, I have to add that I'd be a million times sadder to see him leave here."

Tucker the mouse scratched his left ear - always a good sign. There was something in what Harry the cat had just said about "at the peak of his career" that sparked the mouse's imagination. "It would be a great honor, I think," he said, "to have just reached the top, and yet to give it all up; what a high gesture!" The thought took possession of his little ratty heart. "I understand it perfectly now. The pinnacle of success-that's the same thing as the pinnacle of a career, isn't it?"

"It's the same thing." Cat Harry said, grinning up at Chester.

"At the pinnacle of his success, he suddenly disappears!" Tucker said as he ran around the shelves, "The papers will go nuts! Where is he? Where did he go? Nobody knows. All he left behind were good memories. How touching! How lovely!" He crackled.

"The only thing that worries me," Chester said, "is what happens to the newsstand when I'm gone?"

"Don't worry," said Harry the Cat, "this newsstand has already been touched by the golden fingers of fate! They're probably going to open it up as a national park for miles."

"Do you really think so?" Chester said.

"Well, even if they don't," Harry replied, "I'm pretty sure the Bellini's are going to do very well, and they're famous now."

"So, when do you plan to do your last show?" Tucker asked.

Chester thought for a moment. "It's Thursday," he said, "how about tomorrow night?"

"Friday is the best day to retire," Mouse said, "and if I ever retire from collecting rags, that day will be Friday."

Chester the Cricket let out a long sigh. "Oh, I feel a little better," he said, "if you want me to learn a new tune and prepare to play it tomorrow, learn it now."

"Why bother with that?" Harry the Cat said, "Tonight's the last full night you'll spend in New York, so you might as well play through the pain."

"Come to the drain!" Tucker the mouse said, "We're having a party to celebrate your retirement. I've got plenty to eat. There are no matches there to start a fire."

So the three friends bounced and flew all the way to Tucker's house and had a farewell feast. All three ate very heartily.

The next day, at five minutes past six, Chester's last public performance in New York was to begin. It was Friday night, the busiest time of the day, and in addition to commuters returning home from work, the station was crowded with men and women who had left the city for the weekend to catch a train to Grand Central Terminal. But they all stopped to listen to Chester. So many people were gathered around the newsstand that the police had to rope off the walkway to and from the train.

The Cricket ended the most wonderful concert he had ever starred in. To thank the crowd for asking him to reprise his performance one last time, he's going to play the sextet from the opera Mumble Lucy. The sextet was written to be played by six people, and even though Cricket is very skillful, he can only play one of them. Therefore, he chose to play the sub-mediocre piece because that's where most of the main theme is.

Little did they know that Chester was playing this sextet as a tribute to the entire Bellini family. The sextet, which was Dad's most beloved piece of music, was also loved by Mario and Mom. Chester wanted them to always remember that he had played it. He had just played the first note when Papa Bellini let out a pleasant sigh, leaned back on his stool, and closed his eyes. Mom leaned against the side wall of the newsstand, one hand propped up on her head. A smile filled her face as she heard the familiar melody, not realizing it herself at all. Mario leaned over toward the cricket cage, mesmerized by the sight of Chester moving his wings as he played. He was especially proud because Chester was his baby and everyone was listening to his baby play music.

At the exit of the drain, Tucker and Harry sat side by side. Only the two of them realize that this is Chester's farewell performance. It brought out serious feelings and a faint sadness in them, but the music was so beautiful they couldn't help but be happy again.

"It's the sextet from the opera Mumble Lucy yet." Tucker the Mouse announced. Over the past week, he had become an expert on music.

"It's a pity there aren't five other crickets like Chester," whispered Harry the Cat, "or we could play the whole sextet."

Then they, too, fell silent. No one shook a hair or a whisker the whole time Chester played, and there was silence.

The sound of Chester playing filled the station. Like a stone dropped into still water sending ripple after ripple, the circle of silence spread outward from this newsstand. As people listened, the expressions on their faces changed. Heavy hearted eyes become gentle and calm, the tongue no longer nagging, filled with the city's noise ears also in the cricket's beautiful music to get a rest.

People at other newsstands heard Chester play and stopped selling their newspapers and magazines. Mickey, the lunch counter clerk, hears the music and stops making Coca-Cola. The three girls arrive in front of Lovett's Candy Store. Passengers coming up from the Underground Railroad on the next level stop and don't move when they ask the police for directions. No one dared to break the silence that enveloped the entire station.

Above the top of the cricket cage, through the grating on the sidewalk, the sound of the music played by the crickets reached the street. A pedestrian on Broadway stopped to listen. Then another stopped to listen. A minute later, a small crowd had gathered, all eyes fixed on the grille.

"What is it?"

"Has there been an accident?"

"What happened?"

Whispered whispers passed through the crowd. However, as soon as it quieted down, everyone could hear the music Chester was playing.

People who couldn't stand on the sidewalk stood in the street. The police had to cut off traffic so as not to run people over. So the people in the stopped cars also heard Chester play. You might think that the faint chirping of the crickets wouldn't travel so far, but when everything was quiet, the refreshing sound of the music could be heard for miles.

Traffic came to a standstill. Buses, cars, men and women on foot, everything stopped. And the strangest thing of all: no one had a problem with it. For once, in the heart of New York's busiest neighborhood, everyone was content. Not moving forward, almost stopping to breathe. For the few minutes that the song lingered, Times Square was as quiet as a meadow at dusk. The sun streamed in and shone on the people. The breeze blew over them as if over deep, thick grass.

(Translated by Yang Jiangzhu)

"The greatest teacher in the world, 'nature' itself, has taught him. Nature has given him wings that rub against each other, and the knack of making such wonderful sounds." This "he" is the talented musician Cricket. The long American fairy tale "The Adventures of Cricket" gave him a name, "Chester".

Chester lived in the Connecticut countryside in the United States, because of greed climbed into the picnic food basket, which was taken by the travelers on the train, brought into the United States of America's metropolis of New York, brought to the city center of the underground train station in Thames Times Square. The clamor of the city's vehicles and the hum of people's conversations made Cricket, who not long ago had lived in a world of seclusion and idleness under a willow tree, so unaccustomed to it that his head felt like it was going to explode. He is later adopted by Mario, the poor boy who tends the newsstand, and that night becomes close and good friends with Tucker the mouse and Harry the cat, who live in an abandoned drainpipe. The three animals get along and quite literally make some jokes and create some trouble. Once, Chester eats half of a two-dollar bill in his sleep as if it were a leaf. For poor Mario's parents, this hard-earned money is hard to come by, and as a result Chester is confined. At night Mouse and Cat come to visit Cricket, who is locked in a cage. After a long discussion, Tucker the mouse resolved to take the pain and put all the coins he had saved up over the years to compensate for the loss. Tucker and Harry work all night to move the coins from the drain where the mouse lives to the cricket's cage. Soon they are in big trouble again: the three animal friends are celebrating Chester's two-week visit to New York City at a party, after eating and drinking, the cricket begins his wonderful wonderful performance, the mouse can not help but jump on the table to dance with the cricket's music. But in the midst of the spinning the mouse accidentally knocked a match to the floor. The match catches fire on the floor and burns the newspaper, causing a fire that severely damages the newsstand and threatens to bankrupt Mario's parents. Chester brought the newsstand back to life with his genius playing: first he consoled Mario's mother and her relatives with the Italian songs she loved, and then with a variety of music - operas, symphonies, concertos, hymns, and piano pieces, including Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" and Strauss's "The Blue Danube" - he overwhelmed all the people who came to the Times. The performance overwhelmed all who came to Times Square. Chester became famous in New York City, the newsstand was booming, Mario's parents avoided bankruptcy, and life improved. However, in the fall, Cricket misses the freedom of the countryside, and with the help of Tucker and Harry, he boards a train back to Connecticut. Tucker and Harry plan to go to the country later, too, to reunite with their best friend.

The fairy tale adopts a dual-track structure, namely, the virtual realm of fantasy and realistic reality at the same time, the lyric anthropomorphic fairy tale "characters" and real people's thoughts and feelings, the two are intertwined, but do not make a direct verbal communication. The plot of the two parts of the respective forward development, but also reflect each other, readers read in order, will feel that the work is both fantasy fairy tale, but also like a realistic novel. However, the center of gravity of the fairy tale is to portray the gentle and kind character of Chester and to celebrate the sincere friendship among the three animal friends. The whole fairy tale is easy to read, quite a lot of fun, and the mood created is warm, beautiful and fresh. The chapter of "Orpheus" (Orpheus: a famous singer in Greek mythology), which is selected for reading in this book, writes about Chester's uncontrollable nostalgia for his home, and the deep nostalgia is rendered very touching by the author. He misses the groundhogs, pheasants, ducks, rabbits and all those who live in the meadows and by the streams in the countryside. He says, "Once a bullfrog told me that his favorite thing to listen to, besides the rattle of rain falling in the pond where he lived, was my music. Another time a fox was chasing a rabbit by the stump where I live. When I played, they all stopped to listen." This delicate and tender description assures us that Chester is saying goodbye to his best friends Tucker and Harry to go back to the country without any pretense at all. The fairy tale writes about the soft and wonderful, refreshing cricket playing, basically do not use positive description, but a lot of use of side of the background: "People listening to listen, the expression on their faces changed. Heavy-hearted eyes became gentle and calm, tongues no longer chattered, and ears filled with the noise of the city rested in the wonderful music of the crickets." The salesmen stopped doing business, the pedestrians stopped walking, the traffic was cut off, but the men and women, "no one had a problem with it," and "everyone was content," and "did not move forward, almost stopped breathing. For the few minutes that the song lingered, Times Square was as quiet as a meadow at dusk. The sun streamed in and shone on the people. The breeze blew over them as if over deep, dense grass." Such a description *** is heartfelt and pushes the mesmerizing appeal of nature and music to the limit. In the hustle and bustle of downtown New York, in Times Square, far from nature and very materialistic cosmopolitan, the cricket's celestial music is "clear water out of hibiscus", which is like a fairy song floating from the sky, and its significance has far exceeded the musical enjoyment provided by the celestial music to the people itself. For the people who are annoyed by the affairs of the day, the cricket's performance can bring them into a quiet, peaceful and wonderful realm, and can smooth out the stripes and wrinkles of their hearts. In the fairy tale, the author expresses what many people in the metropolis long for: the simplicity and tranquility of nature. This is the reason why the cricket insisted on returning to the countryside: "Thinking back to the meadows of his hometown, if the sunshine is pleasant, or if he touches a round of bright full moon, or if he wants to talk to his friend, the lark, with music, he will naturally play music, because deep down in his heart, he has this requirement. " Cricket returned to the countryside, returned to the oasis of art, upholding freedom, sincerity as the premise of art, for the reality of the concept of fame and fortune, values is no less than a kind of reversal. 1961 the United States will be the annual Newbery Award to the "Cricket Adventure", in fact, is also the author of the value of the reversal of the recognition.

(Wei Wei)