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课件网) B7U1 Understanding ideas language points For many of us, it’s something we already have experienced. One moment, we are lying comfortably in bed, about to fall into a deep sleep. The next, our eyes are open and we find ourselves wondering or even worrying about possibly the most important issue of our lives – the future. Will we get into the school of our choice What will we be doing in ten years’ time Can we become the person we really want to be In the face of such questions, how should we approach the future Can we take action to shape it, or should we just accept whatever comes our way As many of us already know, having plans in place for the future is no guarantee that they will become reality. In this respect, some people are more fortunate than others, as can be illustrated by comparing the lives of two famous authors, born 40 years apart. Although they shared the same ambitious and energetic approach to life, their careers unfolded in contrasting ways. The American author, Ernest Hemingway, born in 1899, was from early boyhood single-minded in his ambition to write. On leaving high school, he joined a local Kansas newspaper as a trainee reporter. He went on to become foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and used his extraordinary experiences in Europe and later Cuba to inform his writing. In his words, “I decided that I would write one story about each thing that I knew about.” Having set himself this goal, he wrote novels and short stories based on his personal experiences of the First World War, the Spanish Civil War, bullfighting and deep-sea fishing, amongst others. His novel The Old Man and the Sea, about the three-day epic struggle between an elderly fisherman and the biggest fish he had ever caught, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953. He would later go on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. 4 5 6 By contrast, the young Arthur Conan Doyle, born in Scotland in 1859, had originally worked as a doctor. But Doyle’s main ambition was to become a writer of historical novels. Although some of his historical novels were published, their success was nothing compared to the stories of his fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, which he is still best known for to this day. Interestingly, Doyle wrote some of his early Holmes stories while he was waiting for patients in his medical practice in London. After Sherlock Holmes made him a household name, Doyle gave up medicine and devoted himself entirely to writing. He still longed to become known for his historical novels amongst other academic works. The public, however, couldn’t get enough of Sherlock Holmes. In desperation, Doyle killed off the famous detective in a novel published in 1893 so that he could focus on his “serious” writing. However, fans of Holmes were so angry that Doyle, under immense pressure, was forced to bring Holmes back from the dead. Doyle’s many historical novels, plays, poems and ac ... ...
