1. the 19th-century tendency to conceal the body under layers of clothing and distort its shape by corsetry

十九世纪那种用层层衣衫隐藏肉身、以紧身内衣扭曲（女性）形体的倾向

注意：①区别clothing、clothes、cloth，音也都要读准。②corsetry是集合名词，《韦氏大学》11版解作underwear (as corsets, girdles, and brassieres) meant to shape a woman’s body。

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2. The other side finds expression in constant complaints in his diary about [. . .].

另一方面体现在他日记里对……的频繁抱怨。

注意：①find expression in sth.是词组，“体现在……”。②每逢3·15，都要想到complaint也可表示“投诉”。

3. express Kafka’s ambivalence towards his body and towards the body in general

表达卡夫卡对自己肉身和一般意义上的肉身都抱有矛盾心态

注意：ambivalence与towards的搭配。形容词ambivalent里，ambi-是“两者兼有”，-valent从拉丁语的valēre来，意思是to be?of worth?or?strong，这valēre在英语里还有两个“阿凡达”：value和valo(u)r。

4. a large and unwieldy insect body

一个硕大笨重的昆虫躯体

注意：比起反义词wieldy来，unwieldy常见多了。

5. Kafka’s prose is always surrounded by a penumbra of further suggestion.

围绕着卡夫卡的散文，总有一种暗示不断的晦明无定。

注意：①prose这个“散文”，与essay不同，反义词是“韵文”，poetry。都不可数。②penumbra是暗喻用法，很多词典不曾收录。另，请查umbra与umbrella的词源关系。③suggestion此处既不可数，则必非“建议”也。

来源

Robertson, Ritchie.?Kafka: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.