精读4 paraphrase unit6

paraphrase

… time didn’t mean much to anybody, except maybe to those who were dying.

The villagers didn’t think time was important until perhaps when they were dying.

The only timepiece we had need of then was the sun.

Paraphrase: The sun was the only clock or watch we needed at that time.

It wasn’t that we had no system for……the important events in our lives. Paraphrase: This does not mean that we had no way of knowing what year, or season, or day, or hour it was and of remembering when such important events as births, weddings, deaths, disasters happened.

But ours was a natural or, rather, a divine-calendar, because it was framed by acts of God: earthquakes and droughts and floods and locusts and pestilences.

… We used natural disasters to keep track of time and of the important events in our lives. This was a natural calendar, a divine calendar, for sunrise and sunset, the change of seasons, and earthquakes and droughts and floods and locusts and pestilences were all works of God.

And that’s the way it was in our little village for as far back as anybody could remember. And that’s how we kept track of the importa nt events in our little village for as long as the oldest people could remember.

Simple as our calendar was, it worked just fine for us.

Paraphrase: Although our calendar was simple, this way of keeeping track of time and of the important events in our lives served our purpose well enough.

You couldn’t be more accurate than that, now, could you ?

Paraphra se : That’s the more accurate answer I could get.

And that’s the way it was… for as far back as anybody could remember. Paraphrase: And that’s how we kept track of the important events in our little village for as long as even the oldest people could remember

… because men who would not lie even to save… into Magdaluna’s calendar. Paraphrase: …because men who would not lie for any reason or purpose, not even to save their souls told and retold that story until it was included into Magdal una’s calendar.

until it was incorporated into Magdaluna’s calendar.

Paraphrase: until the event became one of the things by which we kept track of the important events in our lives.

And sometimes the arguments escalated ……knockdown-dragout fights…Paraphrase: And sometimes the arguments became so fierce that they developed into

long and violent fights.

… call each other names that made my ears tingle.

Paraphrase: …the words they used when they were quarreling were such that we little boys felt un comfortable….

…and Magdaluna was not going to get anywhere until it had one.

Paraphrase : … and Magdaluna wouldn’t achieve any success without a telephone.

A few men--- like the retired Turkish-army drill sergeant,…bought to the village. Paraphrase : A few men---like the retired Turkish-army drill sergeant, and the vineyard keeper--- tried hard to persuade Abu Raja to give up the idea of having a telephone installed in the village.

… the shout went out that …

Paraphrase: … the sound of someone shouting informed people that…

Her house was an island of comfort,……exhausted from having so little to do. Paraphrase：Her house was a place where the village men could find comfort , just as an oasis is for weary travelers in the desert. The men sought pleasure because life in this mountain village was monotonous and boring.

There was always something in it for me: a ten or even a twenty–five-piaster piece. Paraphrase : I always got paid for the errands I ran for the men: from ten to twenty-five-piasters.

B ut as the days went by…… to wait by the telephone.

Paraphrase : But as the days went by, the men gradually deserted Im Kaleem’s house, and they begin to gather together at Abu Raja’s store to wait by the telephone.

At Abu Raja’s dikkan, the calls did ……then two, then bunches.

Paraphrase : Finally news came over the telephone from relatives or friends that there were jobs open to the villagers, people began to leave the village, first one by one, then in small numbers, then in large groups.

Magdaluna became a skeleton of ite former self,……a place to get away from. Paraphrase : With the healthy, the young, and the able –bodied all gone, Magdaluna was not what it had been . The house, the streets and the store were there, but they were no longer alive with laughter and the loud voice of the men talking, laughing, and arguing. It became a much-deserted place, a place to escape from, a graveyard or cemetery.