The Shape Of Water by Andrea Camilleri
The Shape Of Water （Amazon.comへ）
このページは私の読書の備忘録ですから，前回のThe Terra-Cotta Dog の読了日が２月１１日となっていますので，それから３ヶ月かかってこの本を読み終えたことになります。実際には読まない日が多かったのですが，いずれにしろ，読む本はこの本だけという状態がかなり長いこと続いたことになります。この間，大学入試問題を解いたり，エミル出版からの長文問題集第４弾(Cutting Edge 4)の原稿書き，それから，２台のパソコンを組み立てて，古くなった１台を子どもたち用に家庭内LＡＮ(無線に使用としたのが大失敗。速度が大幅に低下して結局有線にもどしました。こんなことなら，最初から有線で組めば良かった。）
さて，全く背景知識なしに読んだシチリア島の警部Montalbanoのシリーズ第１作。シリーズ物は第１作を読まないと，登場人物もよくわからなくて，難儀する，ということで読み始めましたが，なんといっても２ページ読んでは，３日休み，といった断続的な読み方で，登場人物の名前も紛らわしく，結局なんの話だったかわからないままに終了。the Pastureといういかがわしい場所が犯行現場であったこと。殺害には権力闘争があったり，不倫ありだったこと，などおぼろげに把握した程度。ハラハラドキドキ，一気に読了という感じからは全く正反対の読み方になりました。ミステリーには全く適しませんでした。
総語数はたったの４万語ということで，この種の物語としては短め。訳者のくせか，英語のバランスが悪くて，大変易しいときもあれば，難解な，それもちょっと古いんじゃない，という表現にも出会います。たとえば，
as) cool as a cucumber「落ち着き払って」は受験英語ではおなじみですがかなり古め。
私のdatabaseでは，次の１例が典型的な例としてあるのみ，
Went to the bank as cool as cucumber with a forged cheque and a letter purporting to come from Mathilda, instructing them to hand over the loot.
そんな表現が出てきました。
he keeps cool as a cucumber, doesn't get upset, doesn't ask where we found him, how he died, if he was shot,
if he died in a car crash, nothing.
ちょっと表現が古めな感じ。
ところで，次の９８年の防衛大の問題は時代錯誤的で目を疑います。
６ 次の(A)〜(E)の比喩表現を完成するのに量も適切な英語の組み合わせは
，下記の(1)〜(5)のうちどれか。
(A) as cross as ( )
(B) as vain as ( )
(C) as stubborn as ( )
(D) as cool as ( )
(E) as thoughtful as ( )
(1) (A) a bear (B) a peacock (C) a mule (D) a cucumber (E) an owl
(2) (A) a bear (B) a peacock (C) an owl (D) a cucumber (E)
a crow
(3) (A) a mule (B) a fox (C) a bear (D) a cucumber (E)
a crow
(4) (A) a mule (B) a fox (C) a mule (D) an apple (E) a peacock
(5) (A) a crow (B) a fox (C) an owl (D) pie (E)
a peacock
"Not now, of course, but bear in mind, in any case, that it is an improcrastinable matter."
シチリア語の難しい単語（イタリア語）を翻訳したようで，教養があると思われる警部とニュースキャスターがしばらくこの単語について問答しています。
"You have to be very adroit, very adroit," said the inspector, thinking of Rizzo, and he wasn't referring only to the lawyer's adroitness in casually uttering tongue twisters.
Thus there are two
possibilities: either Baba was lying or the maid's daughter was lying. In the
uncensurable opinion of the holy Roman prelates, it was the maid who had lied
(how could it be otherwise?), and Giacomo was incapable of procreating (and for
this we should thank the Lord in heaven). Granted her annulment, Baba got
engaged to a cousin with whom she'd already had relations, while Giacomino
headed toward the foggy lands of the North to forget.
Though the breaches in this second wall he could see rusted machinery,
large tubes-some twisted, some straight-gigantic alembics, iron scaffolds
with big holes, trestles hanging in absurd equilibrium, steel turrets soaring
at illogical angles.
I can't tell anyone about
this, he said to himself. They would
ride me out of the force on a rail.
there was a Guttuso portrait of a peasant from the forties, a landscape in Lazio by Melli, a demolition by Mafai, two rowers on the Tiber by Donghi, and a woman bathing by Fausto Pirandello.
He took a diuretic, you see, and had to go to the bathroom many times a day and could have easily put them properly back on at any point of the day.
"That is up to you to discover, if you so desire. Or else you can stop at the shape they've given the water.
"I'm sorry I don't understand."
"I'm not Sicilian; I was born in Grosseto and came to Montelusa when my father was made prefect here. We owned a small piece of land and a house on the slopes of the Amiata and used to spend our summers there. I had a little friend, a peasant boy, who was younger than me. I was about ten. One day I saw that my friend had put a bowl, a cup, a teapot, and a square milk carton on the edge of a well, had filled them all with water, and was looking at them attentively.
"'What are you doing?' I asked him. And he answered me with a question in turn.
"'Water doesn't have
any shape!' I said, laughing.
'It takes the shape you give it."'
