영어로 읽는 고전 _ 캐슬린 톰슨 노리스의 저류
캐슬린 톰프슨 노리스의 『Undertow』는 20세기 초에 쓰인 소설이다. 이야기는 앨버트 브래들리와 앤 포크 배럿이 결혼 생활을 시작하는 과정을 따라가며, 사랑과 사회적 기대, 그리고 경제적 어려움이라는 주제를 함께 엮어 낸다. 서로 다른 배경과 가족들의 압박을 배경으로, 급변하는 사회 속에서 두 사람의 관계가 지닌 복잡함이 펼쳐진다.
소설의 첫머리에서 독자는 주인공 낸시와 버트를 만난다. 두 사람은 형편이 넉넉지 않다는 이유로 양가의 반대에 부딪히면서도 결혼을 준비하고 있다. 버트는 부동산 일을 하는 젊은이지만 수입이 변변치 않고, 낸시는 자선 사업에 몸담은 직장 여성으로서 스스로를 건사하는 문제와 씨름한다. 결혼을 앞두고 두 사람이 지나온 배경의 차이는 점점 뚜렷해지지만, 함께 삶을 꾸려 가겠다는 결심 또한 그만큼 분명해진다. 초반의 장들은 이들의 일상과 바람, 그리고 이들이 감당해야 할 사회적 기대를 차분히 들여다보면서, 바깥의 압박과 안쪽의 의심 속에서 변해 갈 두 사람의 관계를 본격적으로 탐구할 무대를 마련한다.

Classics Read in English _ Undertow by Kathleen Thompson Norris
Undertow, by Kathleen Thompson Norris, comes from the early years of the twentieth century. It follows a marriage from its beginning ? Bert Bradley and Nancy, who marry over the objections of both families, for the plainest of reasons: there is not enough money. The novel is about love and social expectation, but mostly it is about what a small income does to two people over a long stretch of years.
At the outset the pair are almost unreasonably hopeful. Bert works in real estate and earns little. Nancy has supported herself, given her days to charitable work, and knows the value of what she is about to give up. Their backgrounds do not match, and the families on both sides are eager to say so. Neither of them is listening.
The early chapters stay with the texture of their days: what they want, what they can afford, and the steady pressure of a society with firm opinions about how a young couple ought to live. Norris is unhurried here, and deliberately so. She is establishing the ordinary surface of a life so that the reader will feel what begins to move beneath it ? the slow current of the title, pulling in a direction neither of them chose.

In the body of the text
The marriage of Albert Bradley and Anne Polk Barrett was as close as anything comes, in these prosaic days, to a high adventure. Nancy's Uncle Thomas, a quiet, gentle old Southerner who wore tan linen suits when he came to New York, which was not often, and Bert's mother, a tiny Boston woman who had lived in a diminutive Brookline apartment since her three sons had struck out into the world for themselves, respectively assured the young persons that they were taking a grave chance. However different their viewpoint of life, old Mrs. Bradley and old Mr. Polk could agree heartily in that.
Of course there was much to commend the union. Nancy was beautiful, she came of gentlefolk, and she liked to assert that she was practical, she "had been a workin' woman for yeahs."