Excuse me, who is the author of "Lonely Raft Crossing the Ocean"<?

★ "Lonely Raft Crossing the Ocean", by Thor Heyerdahl (Norwegian), translated by Zhu Qiping,

Reflections on the Lonely Raft Crossing the Ocean

Book reviewer: Li

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Lonely Raft Across the Ocean is a documentary work written by Norwegian scholar Thor Heyerdanl. He crossed the Pacific Ocean on a raft with five companions from Norway and Sweden. When Jardal made a scientific investigation in the Polynesian Islands in the Pacific Ocean, he comprehensively studied the cultural relics and folklore there, as well as the wind direction and tides in the Pacific Ocean. He was convinced that the first inhabitants of the islands crossed the sea from Latin America in the 5th century A.D., but some scholars objected to this statement, for the simple reason that it was impossible for humans to cross the Pacific Ocean by raft.

Hector Jardal firmly believes that his point of view is right. In order to refute each other with facts, he and his companions planned funds to overcome various difficulties. They built a raft completely according to the style of ancient Indian rafts and sailed west from Peru in April 1947. The small raft they drove experienced all kinds of unexpected torture and thrills in the vast South Pacific, which lasted more than three months and crossed more than 4,000 nautical miles. This voyage is a feat that shocked the whole world. Jardal and others proved their judgment with their own hard practice and showed their loyalty and dedication to science.

After the publication of 1950, the original book was reprinted more than ten times in a row, which was warmly welcomed by readers all over the world. More than 30 countries, including the United States, France, Britain, Japan and the former Soviet Union, have translated this book, and some countries regard it as a compulsory extracurricular reading for middle school students.

Mr. Zhu Qiping's translation of this book began in the mid-1950s at the request of Peng Zigang, editor-in-chief of Traveler magazine. Just serialized several issues, the disaster of 1957 came. Peng Zigang and Zhu Qiping were both labeled as "Rightists", and the serialization was immediately broken. Until 198 1 65438+February, the complete Chinese version was first published by Hunan People's Publishing House. I printed more than 80 thousand copies for the first time, but I don't think I have printed them again, and I haven't seen any weighty book reviews. At that time, I was still working. Although I verbally mentioned to relevant comrades to organize book reviews and publicize them widely, I still regret that I didn't put them into practice.

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The Chinese translation of Lonely Raft Crossing the Ocean is about 654.38+06,000 words, which truly records a great experience with simple words, thus making readers soul-stirring and deeply educated. So we should have a general understanding of the main plot in the book.

In the book, author Ha Jardal first explains the formation of his theory. After World War II, he decided to publish his theory in America. Faced with the accusation that "it is impossible for human beings to cross the Pacific by raft", he decided to refute it with his own practice, but his ideas were regarded as "jokes" and "crazy" by his friends.

Jardal, on the other hand, seriously began to prepare for what he wanted to do. He lives in new york's "Norwegian Seafarers' Home" to get close to seafarers and study the situation in the South Pacific and the possibility of drifting with them. Sailors all think it is dangerous, but it is not impossible to drift like this.

After that, after finding sponsors and raising funds to solve the economic problems, they set out to solve the most important thing that must be done before sailing, that is, to follow the example of Inca seafarers and cut down nine large rafts in the virgin forest of the Andes in Ecuador (note: a precious wood produced in Latin America is lighter than cork after drying) to bind the rafts. Later, after drifting in the ocean, it was proved that the pulp in the trunk of their raft became saturated because the wood was newly cut down, which prevented the infiltration of seawater and thus avoided the sinking of the raft.

The primitive tribes of Indians live in the virgin forests of the Andes, where people are still cutting off the heads of their enemies and making models for sale. Going there to chop rafts should not only deal with the aborigines there, but also guard against the invasion of pythons, poisonous snakes, scorpions, giant ants, lizards and crocodiles. The thrilling experience is self-evident. After cutting down the raft, they carried it out of the forest, floated it to the estuary and dragged it to Peru with a steam turbine.

Later, they will meet with the President of Peru in Lima, and ask the President for approval to support the Admiralty to build a large raft in the style of ancient Indian raft at the naval dock and set sail from the naval port. The day before departure, ambassadors, ministers and representatives of Norwegian expatriates from more than a dozen countries, including the United States, came to see me off, because it was an earth-shattering feat recognized by the scientific community. 1947 On the morning of April 28th, the raft was towed out to sea by a tugboat of the Peruvian navy, and then the raft entered the humbert current.

The humbert Current is a huge cold current from the Antarctic, which flows northward to the coast of Peru, turns westward, runs under the equator and roars across the sea. In this fast-flowing part, the waves are rough and the white waves are sky-high, and the difference between the valley and the peak is ten feet. They are in shifts of two, taking turns to steer in the huge waves. In the first 24 hours, each person will be at the helm for 2 hours and rest for 3 hours; After physical exhaustion, I changed to class for 1 hour and rest for 1.5 hours, and so on. After being so tired for 30 hours, the sea calmed down a little. In the next two or three months, you will often encounter such big waves for several days in a row. Once in a storm, the peak was 20 to 25 feet higher than the trough, and the helmsman stood by the rudder, and the water did not reach his waist. People seem to be going against the current in a fast-flowing river.

In the process of drifting in the sea, whales, dolphins, sharks, octopus, jellyfish, turtles and all kinds of strange fish are often associated with rafts. Octopus's feet are so long that they can reach every corner of the raft. This foot can kill whales or leave terrible scars on whales, so each of them is equipped with a big knife, ready to be surrounded by octopus's feet at night and cut off its feet when being dragged out of the sleeping bag. They also have to fight the cruel and greedy sharks with harpoons on the raft. There are big dolphins crawling on the raft at night, which makes them often wet when they rest at night.

After more than two months, the clean water brought from the shore stinks and cannot be drunk. There is water everywhere, but there is no water to drink. So, I broke some fish and squeezed the water out to drink.

After hard work, the two radio partners finally got in touch with radio enthusiasts in some parts of the world. Through these enthusiastic people, they also had telegraph contact with King Halian of Norway and the director of the National Weather Service of the United States. Although they wander in the ocean, the whole world is still closely connected with them.

On the 97th day after sailing, they finally drifted to the edge of Angletu Island in Polynesia, but the huge waves hit the rocks and the raft could not find the entrance to the island. As a result, the strong wind blew them into the sea again. After drifting at sea for three days and nights, that is, when they drifted at sea for 100 days, after a very sinister struggle, the raft finally landed on a desert island in Polynesia. All six parrots landed safely except one who died in a storm at sea. A few days later, Polynesians on a nearby island took them away from the desert island by boat. After radio contact, the French colonial governor in the Pacific sent a boat to Papeete, the capital of Tahiti, and the Norwegian government sent a huge ship to Papeete to pick them up. A dangerous and magnificent scientific sea trip has finally come to a successful conclusion.

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The plot of the above retelling is inevitably leaked, but it is not difficult to see from such a very short retelling that some countries recommended this book as a must-read for teenagers at that time.

I think it is necessary to advocate a noble sentiment, an ideal and a spirit of dedication to science among teenagers. Health ideal education should be the main content of students' moral education. In many countries, due to different social systems, their education methods for teenagers are of course different; Nevertheless, there are many similarities in education between different countries, and there are many similarities. Many of these similarities apply to us, and we paid too little attention to them in the past.

Didn't you say you should love science? Then we must love it wholeheartedly, have ideals, and be prepared to pay everything for scientific truth. Of course, not all teenagers are encouraged to risk their lives to prove a theory. What should be advocated is a heroic spirit and fearless spirit behind this feat-a spirit and spirit that is not afraid to sacrifice everything when necessary to safeguard the truth.

Didn't you say that you should cultivate the spirit of overcoming difficulties from an early age? 7 How to overcome difficulties? You should see what these scientists have done.

Didn't you say that we should advocate being serious and responsible? Didn't you say that if there is fear in the world, you are afraid of the word' serious'? 7 how to be serious? This is it!

Don't you advocate careful consideration? This is it! Their care is very specific. The wood used in the raft should not be old, but newly cut. Even such details are taken into account. Only by doing things carefully in this way can they ensure the final victory

Things like this are the "similarities" mentioned above. Can't these be applied to the "moral education" of teenagers in various countries?

Ideal education is very important for the healthy growth of teenagers. Nowadays, the ideal light is gradually fading among the new generation of teenagers in China, and the reasons are complicated, which is beyond the detailed discussion of this article. But in school education, moral education is also regarded as a link of exam-oriented education, which is also one of the reasons for the loss of teenagers' ideals. The so-called moral education in many schools is to let you recite some rules and regulations to prepare for various exams, including entrance exams, because rules and regulations are everything. As for how to cultivate students' ideals and sentiments, I'm afraid little consideration has been given to cultivating their excellent ideological quality and moral standards in some practical learning activities, so that students can become capitalized people, noble people and excellent people after entering the society, rather than mediocre people and villains who are hypocritical, short-sighted and "mercenary", or they have not done anything at all. Judging from the attitudes of many countries towards the book "A Lonely Boat Crossing the Ocean" in youth education, I think it should provide some enlightenment to moral education in our school.

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Providing useful extracurricular reading materials for teenagers is another enlightenment of this book to our school education.

Originally, in school education, guiding students to read some useful extracurricular books seriously is a necessary condition for the healthy growth of teenagers' quality, intelligence, physique, aesthetic taste, moral concept, labor concept and personal hobbies. Unfortunately, this aspect has been seriously ignored now. Examination-oriented education squeezes out all the time and interest of students in reading useful extracurricular books and stifles them. Students are immersed in poorly written, heavy, trivial or even meaningless exercises all day. Completing these exercises is everything to learn; To cope with the exam, getting high marks in the exam is everything in learning. Only in this way can we cultivate all kinds of talents needed for modernization with both ability and political integrity, broad vision and creative thinking? The answer should be no.

Many countries attach importance to teenagers' extracurricular reading. The education departments of many countries have stipulated the extracurricular books that primary and secondary school students must read. The United States even listed Marx and Engels' Manifesto of the Productive Party as one of more than 20 extracurricular books for high school students (see the famous essayist Mu Hui's "Write after Reading"). I think this is precisely because they realize that teenagers should be exposed to works with various ideological tendencies, so that they can make their own choices or be inspired, enlightened and moved by them; In this way, thoughts can be rich and varied, and not stiff and stiff.

People can do this, why don't we dare or can't? A book with rich content, noble sentiment and plot suitable for teenagers can be stipulated as compulsory reading for teenagers after class. Why not?

I even think so. The education department may wish to use "exam-oriented education" to stipulate that students must read one or twenty books after class and test their reading experience in the entrance examination. Of course, don't do digressions and strange questions, but you should really see the students' ideological gains from the test paper.