Joy English
Joy English
← レッスンに戻る

Joy English · レベル C2 · 批評的レビューjoy-english.com

小説の批評的レビュー

名前:日付:

ニュアンスのある評価をする批評的レビューを書きます。的確に称賛し、配慮をもって留保をつけ、すべての判断に根拠を示します。

Review: The Salt Cartographer by Marit Solheim

Marit Solheim's third novel opens with a premise that sounds, on paper, faintly precious: a retired surveyor, Anselm Rook, sets out to redraw the coastline of an island that the sea is steadily reclaiming. That the book is anything but precious is the first of several pleasant surprises.

Solheim's great gift is restraint. Rook's grief for his late wife is never named; it seeps instead into his obsession with tidal tables and the shifting of sandbanks, so that every measurement becomes an act of mourning by other means. The prose, spare and exact, rarely raises its voice, and the few occasions on which it does, such as the storm that occupies the central chapters, land with considerable force.

Where the novel falters is in its secondary characters. Rook's neighbours, a ferryman and a schoolteacher who is perpetually on the point of leaving, are drawn with affection but little depth, and they too often serve merely to prompt the hero into reflection. One suspects that Solheim, so confident with landscape, is less at ease with conversation: dialogue that might have crackled instead settles into a polite murmur.

Nor is the ending wholly satisfactory. The final pages gesture towards a reconciliation between Rook and his estranged daughter that the preceding three hundred pages have done little to earn, and the metaphor of the vanishing island, hitherto handled with a light touch, is pressed rather too insistently into service. It is a pity, since the book's best moments depend precisely on what is left unsaid.

These reservations should not obscure what is accomplished here. Solheim has written a novel about loss that is neither sentimental nor cold, and about work as a form of consolation, which is a harder trick than it looks. Readers in search of plot may grow restless; those prepared to adjust to its tidal rhythms will find it quietly rewarding. It is not flawless, but it is, in the best sense, a book that stays with you after the sea has gone out.

評価とトーン

最も適切な選択肢を選びましょう。

  1. Which sentence is the most balanced and supported evaluation?
    • a) The book is brilliant and everyone should read it.
    • b) The dialogue is bad.
    • c) The dialogue, so crisp in the early chapters, settles later into a polite murmur.
  2. "The dialogue settles into a polite murmur." What does this imply?
    • a) It lacks the energy the reader might have hoped for.
    • b) It is full of emotion.
    • c) It is difficult to hear.
    • d) It is the book's best feature.
  3. "Where the novel falters" means where the novel ___.
    • a) succeeds spectacularly
    • b) loses strength or confidence
    • c) changes direction
    • d) repeats itself
  4. Which is the closest in meaning to "Nor is the ending wholly satisfactory"?
    • a) The ending leaves something to be desired.
    • b) The ending is utterly brilliant.
    • c) The ending is completely hopeless.
    • d) The ending is too short.
  5. What is the purpose of "These reservations should not obscure what is accomplished here"?
    • a) To retract all the earlier criticism
    • b) To remind readers that the book has significant merits despite its flaws
    • c) To suggest the book is a failure
    • d) To change the subject entirely
  6. The final pages ___ towards a reconciliation.
    • a) gesture
    • b) gather
    • c) grapple
    • d) gaze
  7. Which sentence hedges an interpretation appropriately?
    • a) The author is definitely poor at conversation.
    • b) Everyone agrees that the author cannot write dialogue.
    • c) One suspects that the author is less at ease with conversation.

レビューで使う表現を完成させましょう

各文を完成させる語を1語入力しましょう。

  1. The prose rarely raises its ___.
  2. His grief seeps into his obsession ___ tidal tables.
  3. A reconciliation that the preceding pages have done little to ___.
  4. It is, in the ___ sense, a book that stays with you.
  5. Readers in search ___ plot may grow restless.
  6. The metaphor is pressed rather too insistently into ___.
  7. Dialogue that might have crackled instead settles ___ a polite murmur.

ライティング課題

あなたがよく知っている本、映画、展覧会、アルバム（創作しても構いません）の批評的レビューを書きましょう。全体的な判断を述べ、具体的な長所を2つ称賛し、少なくとも1つの側面を配慮をもって批判し、少なくとも1つの解釈をヘッジ表現で和らげ、どんな読者が楽しめるかを述べてください。

280〜340語

文章を確認する

  • 冒頭で、作品の印象と、自分の全体的な姿勢をはっきり示しました。
  • 具体的な長所を称賛し、それぞれに細部で裏付けをしました。
  • 少なくとも1つの側面を、厳しい言葉ではなく控えめな表現で、配慮をもって批判しました。
  • 少なくとも1つの解釈を、ヘッジ表現（one suspects、arguably、perhaps）で和らげました。
  • あらすじをすべて語ったり、意外な結末を明かしたりしませんでした。
  • さまざまな読者に何を期待できるかを伝える判断で締めくくりました。

解答

評価とトーン

  1. c) The dialogue, so crisp in the early chapters, settles later into a polite murmur.具体的な特徴を評価し、根拠を挙げているからです。ほかの文は、裏付けのない判断を述べているだけです。
  2. a) It lacks the energy the reader might have hoped for.Polite murmur は、会話が感じは良いものの平板であることを示しています。
  3. b) loses strength or confidenceTo falter は、力、自信、勢いを失うことです。
  4. a) The ending leaves something to be desired.Not wholly satisfactory は、本当に欠点のある結末についての控えめな表現です。
  5. b) To remind readers that the book has significant merits despite its flawsこの文は、判断を述べる前にバランスを取り戻しています。
  6. a) gestureGesture towards は「示す、ほのめかす」という意味です。ほかの動詞は、この意味では towards とコロケーションをなしません。
  7. c) One suspects that the author is less at ease with conversation.One suspects は、事実ではなく、知識に基づく解釈であることを示します。

レビューで使う表現を完成させましょう

  1. voiceTo raise your voice は固定表現で、ここでは散文に対して比喩的に使われています。
  2. withObsession with が標準的な形です。
  3. earn / justify / warrantTo earn (または justify) an ending は、結末を説得力のある形で準備するという意味です。
  4. best / truestIn the best sense は「良い意味で」という意味の固定表現です。
  5. ofIn search of が固定表現です。
  6. servicePress something into service は「それを使う」という意味で、理想的ではない場合によく使われます。
  7. intoSettle into は「次第に〜になる」という意味です。

解答例

Threads of Weather, now showing at the Lantern Gallery, is an exhibition that asks a modest question and answers it with unusual grace: what would a year of weather look like if it were woven?

The textile artist Ilse Brandvold has spent three years collecting daily records of temperature, rainfall and wind speed from a single valley, and translating each into a band of coloured thread. The result is a cloth eleven metres long that hangs in a spiral through the main hall. From a distance it is merely handsome; close up, one notices that a particularly dry March has been rendered in a tight, pale ochre that seems to hold its breath.

Brandvold's finest decision is to let the data do the work. There is no wall text telling visitors what to feel about the weather, only the cloth and a small notebook of figures. This restraint gives the piece a dignity that more insistent works rarely achieve, and it leaves visitors free to find their own meaning in the threads.

The smaller side rooms are less assured. A series of embroidered cloud studies, though technically accomplished, feels like a rehearsal for the main work rather than a companion to it, and a video installation of the artist at her loom adds little that the cloth does not already say. One suspects that the gallery, anxious to fill the space, has been more generous than the artist would have wished.

Nor is the lighting entirely satisfactory. Spotlights set too high cast the spiral's inner curves into shadow, so that the very winter weeks that Brandvold has taken most care over are the hardest to see.

These quibbles aside, this is a thoughtful and quietly moving show. Visitors who expect spectacle will be disappointed; those willing to stand still for ten minutes in front of a single month of rain will leave seeing the sky differently.

Joy English · 無料の英語練習 · https://joy-english.com/ja/writing/critical-review-of-a-novel