Longreads Best of 2013: The Best Sentence I Read This Year

Aileen Gallagher (@aegallagher) teaches magazine journalism at Syracuse University and is a contributing editor to College @Longreads.

Aileen Gallagher (@aegallagher) 在雪城大学教授杂志新闻学，并且是 College @Longreads 的特约编辑。

## “The way it worked was that they joined the Army because they were starry-eyed or heartbroken or maybe just out of work, and then they were assigned to be in the infantry rather than to something with better odds, like finance or public affairs, and then by chance they were assigned to an infantry division that was about to rotate into the war, and then they were randomly assigned to a combat brigade that included two infantry battalions, one of which was going to a bad place and the other of which was going to a worse place, and then they were assigned to the battalion going to the worse place, and then they were assigned to the company in that battalion which went to the worst place of all.”

## “它的运作方式是，他们加入陆军是因为他们过于乐观或心碎，或者可能只是失业，然后他们被分配到步兵，而不是更好的机会，比如金融或公共事务，然后偶然他们被分配到一个即将轮流参加战争的步兵师，然后他们被随机分配到一个战斗旅，其中包括两个步兵营，其中一个要去一个坏地方，另一个要去一个坏地方。一个更糟糕的地方，然后他们被分配到去更糟糕地方的营，然后他们被分配到那个去最糟糕地方的营的连。”

-From David Finkel’s “The Return,” in The New Yorker (subscription required).

-摘自《纽约客》上大卫·芬克尔的《回归》（需要订阅）。

Not sure how such an Esquire-y sentence made it into The New Yorker, but I’m glad it did.

不知道这样一句绅士风格的句子是如何登上《纽约客》的，但我很高兴它出现了。

The sheer weight of the sentence and its many clauses suggests the soldiers’ psychological burden.

这句话的分量及其众多的条款表明了士兵们的心理负担。

That sentence carries the cruelty of fate.

这句话，承载着命运的残酷。

## The Return

## 回归

David Finkel | The New Yorker | September 2013

大卫·芬克尔 |纽约客 | 2013年9月

***

***

Read more stories from Longreads Best of 2013

阅读 Longreads 2013 年精选的更多故事

***

***

We need your help to get to 5,000 Longreads Members.

我们需要您的帮助才能获得 5,000 名 Longreads 会员。