VOA常速英语2008年-Popular Children's Book 'Horton Hears A Who!' H

By Alan Silverman
Hollywood
14 March 2008

A beloved children's book first published 50 years ago has been made into a computer-animated feature film with the comic actors Jim Carrey and Steve Carell as the voices of the main characters. Alan Silverman spoke¹ with the stars for this look at Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who!

It starts out as an ordinary day for the mayor of Who-ville, but soon his whole world is turned upside-down ...literally². But wait, that's not the beginning. It starts out like this:

"On the fifteenth of May, in the jungle of Nool, in the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool. He was splashing ...enjoying the jungle's great joys ...When Horton the elephant heard a small noise."

Much to the chagrin³ of the other creatures of Nool ...especially the kangaroo, who is adamant⁴ about preserving the traditional order of life in the jungle ...imaginative Horton believes there are tiny beings living on the speck⁵ precariously⁶ perched on a clover blossom. And he's right.

After the mayor tells him about all about the people in Who-ville, Horton is determined⁷ to protect them and the speck on which they live ...even though everyone in the jungle, including his friends, tells Horton to ignore the tiny voices.

"I wanted to be the type of elephant that didn't realize he was enormous and bulky," explains Jim Carrey, who plays Horton. Carrey says his take on Horton ...taken right from the book ...is curious and caring, no matter how big he looks.

"He was 'light as a feather', as he puts it. He was like a dancer. In his head he is not bigger than anybody else," Carrey says. "That's where I wanted to come (from) with that character. Maybe it is an inferiority complex, I don't know, but he doesn't feel like he's bigger. He could do a lot of damage if he wanted to; but he doesn't feel like he has that power. He feels equal to everybody."

So Horton treats the microscopic⁸ residents of Who-ville as equals because, as he proclaims, "a person's a person no matter how small."

Steve Carell, the voice of Who-ville's mayor, says children have had no trouble getting the message since the book was first published more than 50 years ago.

"This is a book that, I think, resonates with kids," Carrell says. "They don't understand the metaphors⁹ and richness to it, but at the same time, it resonates. There is something very specific about the theme that I think even a little kid can understand: and that is that everyone deserves an equal footing in life. I think that's just a very basic tenet of being a creature of the world."

Carrey believes the vivid imagination in the books by Theodore Geisel - "Dr. Seuss" - is what brings new generations of children to the stories and is the spirit that drives the film.

"I think as far as kids go, the thing that attracts them to this is not the deeper concepts involved," Carrey says. "It's really just the fact that Seuss's creativity was so incredible. He was such an original and if you give a kid a character that he has never seen before in world he has never seen before they are able to completely lose themselves in it in an imaginary space; yet at the same time they are getting all those wonderful lessons."

Carell adds that the theme of tolerance¹⁰ - "a person's a person, no matter how small" - is as relevant today as it was when the book first appeared in 1954.

"Without getting too deep or too heavy with it because, after all, it's a family movie ...it's fun, it's funny, it's exciting, it's silly ...but within that there is a very true and pure theme to it," he says.

Horton Hears A Who! also features the voices of Carol Burnett, Seth Rogen, Will Arnett and Isla Fisher. The narrator is veteran news anchor and poet Charles Osgood. The film is directed by Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino.

1 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

2 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

3 chagrin   

n.懊恼；气愤；委屈

参考例句：

• His increasingly visible chagrin sets up a vicious circle.他的明显的不满引起了一种恶性循环。
• Much to his chagrin,he did not win the race.使他大为懊恼的是他赛跑没获胜。

4 adamant   

adj.坚硬的，固执的

参考例句：

• We are adamant on the building of a well-off society.在建设小康社会这一点上，我们是坚定不移的。
• Veronica was quite adamant that they should stay on.维罗妮卡坚信他们必须继续留下去。

5 speck   

n.微粒，小污点，小斑点

参考例句：

• I have not a speck of interest in it.我对它没有任何兴趣。
• The sky is clear and bright without a speck of cloud.天空晴朗，一星星云彩也没有。

6 precariously   

adv.不安全地；危险地；碰机会地；不稳定地

参考例句：

• The hotel was perched precariously on a steep hillside. 旅馆危险地坐落在陡峭的山坡上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The phone was perched precariously on the window ledge. 电话放在窗台上，摇摇欲坠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

8 microscopic   

adj.微小的，细微的，极小的，显微的

参考例句：

• It's impossible to read his microscopic handwriting.不可能看清他那极小的书写字迹。
• A plant's lungs are the microscopic pores in its leaves.植物的肺就是其叶片上微细的气孔。

9 metaphors   

隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I can only represent it to you by metaphors. 我只能用隐喻来向你描述它。
• Thus, She's an angel and He's a lion in battle are metaphors. 因此她是天使，他是雄狮都是比喻说法。

10 tolerance   

n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差

参考例句：

• Tolerance is one of his strengths.宽容是他的一个优点。
• Human beings have limited tolerance of noise.人类对噪音的忍耐力有限。