Watchers by Dean Koontz Watchers by Dean Koontz文句なくおもしろい。このところIan Rankinの重苦しい小説を読んでばかりいたせいでしょうか。英文の素直さ，展開の速さ。登場人物の絶妙な設定。後半が一気にきて，すこし気が抜けますが，前半は見事。物語にすぐに没頭させる筆致は久しぶりです。大昔に読んでドキドキハラハラしたシドニーシェルドンやグリシャムのことを思い出しました。
舞台はロスアンゼルスからカリフォルニア。半年ぐらいの物語ですが，情景が目に浮かぶようで感心。
| Airstream | equanimity | mesquite |
| mileage | PCP | scrabble |
| wiseass |
この植物「メスキート」が何回か登場しました。
equanimity
He had always taken pride
in his unshakable equanimity and hardheaded pragmatism-in that if in
nothing else.
(緊急時の)平静, 落着き；(運命に対する)あきらめ
よく見る単語です。私のコーパスでは１０回登場。そのうち３回がこのwatchersで，どうもKoontzが好きなよう。
He was so familiar with
the arrangement of the wood in the storage space that he worked blindly in its
lightless confines, filling a sturdy tin hod with half a dozen logs.
この「れんが, モルタルなどを入れ, かついで運ぶための長い柄の付いた木製の箱型容器」は結構重要な場面での登場でしたが，「ホッド」という訳語しかありませんでした。辞書には図が載っていることが多いようです。
「グローバル英和」（三省堂）
PCP, Ken thought. Only some asshole stoned on PCP would
be violent enough to do something like this.
pentachlorophenol；phencyclohexylpiperidine ピーシーピー《フェンシクリジン(phencyclidine)という麻薬（ジーニアス大英和）
The press treated the
campers as a couple of kooks, and on the evening news the happy-talk
anchorpersons got a lot of mileage out of the story.
(発言などの)根拠, 内容, 重み
mileageは「マイレージ」ですから，「総マイル数」ならわかりますが，おもしろい表現でした。
With Einstein between them, they drove to their wedding in the pickup, leaving the unhitched Airstream at the campgrounds.
"Don't we look like
a bunch of spoiled rich kids?" one of them asked, playing wiseass.
「知ったかぶりの, 生意気な, 思い上がった」 これもKoontzが好きな単語のよう。６個中４個がこの小説からでした。
On the fifth of August,
late in the afternoon, she and Travis were sitting at the table in his kitchen,
playing Scrabble,
and she was feeling pretty. A few minutes ago, in the bathroom, she'd had
another of those revelations when she had looked in the mirror, and in fact she
had liked her looks more than ever before. Now, back at the Scrabble board, she
felt buoyant, happier than she would have once believed possible-and mischievous.
She started using her tiles to spell nonsense words and then vociferously
defended them when Travis questioned their legitimacy.
'Dofnup'?" he said,
frowning at the board. "There's no such word as 'dofnup.'
"It's a triangular
cap that loggers wear," she said.
"Loggers?"
''Like Paul Bunyan.”
"Loggers wear knit
caps, what you call toboggan caps, or round leather caps with earfiaps."
"I'm not talking
about what they wear to work in the woods," she explained patiently. '
'Dofnup.' That's the name of the cap they wear to bed."
He laughed and shook his
head. "Are you putting me on?"
She kept a straight face.
"No. It's true."
"Loggers wear a
special cap to bed?"
'Yes. The dofnup."
実は私はスクラブルファンです。スクラブルを始めて知ったのは，実はひょんなことから。英語クラブでST（当時はStudent Times）のクロスワードを解いたところ，一人の生徒が懸賞に応募。当時の景品がスクラブル。それ以来，しばらくスクラブル三昧。残念なことに英語科の同僚で好きな人は少なくやむなく数学科の同僚とよくやっていました。いまでもコンピュータゲームでたまにやります。
ところで，この部分はスクラブルを知らない人にはわかるのでしょうか？
（２００３年７月２１日）
