Loving and Hating New York 翻译
2011-04-23 10:22阅读：
Loving and Hating New
York （19-22）翻译
| By Adolf Hitler’s
definition, New York is mongrel city. It is in fact
the first truly international
metropolis(大都市). No
other great city- not London, Paris, Rome or Tokyo----
plays host (or hostage) to so many nationalities. The mix is much
wider- Asians, Africans, Latins ---- that when that tumultuous
variety of European crowded ashore at Ellis Island. The newcomers
are never fully absorbed, but are added precar |
iously to the undigested many.
New York is too big to be dominated by any
group, by Wasps or Jews or blacks, or by Catholics of many origins
— Irish, Italian, Hispanic. All have their little sovereignties,
all are sizable enough to be reckoned with and tough in asserting
their claims, but none is powerful enough to subdue the others. Characteristically, the city
swallows up the United Nations and refuses to take it seriously,
regarding it as an unworkable mixture of the idealistic, the
impractical, and the
hypocritical(虚伪的). But New Yorkers themselves are in training in how to
live together in a diversity of
races- the necessary initiation into the
future.
The
diversity gives endless color to
the city, so that walking in it is constant education in
sights and smells. There is wonderful variety of places to eat or
shop, and though the most successful of such places are likely to
touristy hybrid compromises, they too have genuine roots. Other
American cities have ethnic turfs jealously defended, but not, I
think, such an admixture of groups, thrown together in such jarring
juxtapositions(并列). In the same way, avenues of high-rise luxury in
New York are never far from poverty and mean streets. The sadness
and fortitude(刚毅，勇气) of New York must be celebrated, along with its
treasures of art and music. The combination is unstable; it produces friction, or an
uneasy forbearance that sometimes becomes a real toleration.
Loving and
hating New York becomes a matter of alternating moods, often in the
same day. The place constantly
exasperates(使恼怒), at times
exhilarates(使高兴). To me it is the city of unavoidable
experience. Living
there, one has the reassurance of steadily confronting
life.
根据阿道夫·希特勒的定义，纽约是个杂种。纽约事实上是一个真正的国际大都市。没有其他的城市---不管是伦敦，巴黎或是东京---能够容纳如果多的国籍。这是一种更为广泛的混杂---亚裔，非裔，拉丁裔---比当时喧杂多样欧洲人拥挤在埃利斯岛登岸时还要多。新来者永远都没有完全被同化，只是不稳定的加入了这个并未融合的群体里。
纽约太大了以至于任何一个群体都将其无法控制，无论是白人新教、犹太人、黑人还是不同起源的天主教徒——爱尔兰人、意大利人和西班牙人。每一个群体都有属于自己的天地，每一个群体的力量都不容忽视，每一个群体都坚决维护自己的利益，但没有哪一个强大到足够控制其他群体。这个城市很典型地将联合国吞并，但却不愿把它当回事，而把它看为是一个理想的、不切实际的、虚伪的、无法运转的混合体。但纽约人却不断训练自己怎样更好地在多种族的群体里生活，因为这是迈向未来的第一步。
多样化赋予了这个城市无尽的色彩，漫步其中，可以感知各种景观和风味。有各种极棒的地方品尝小吃和购物，虽然这些地方的最成功之处似乎是在于把各种风味混合在一起，但是他们都有自己的根基。在美国的其他城市，种族之间都有各自的地盘，并都小心翼翼的加以防护，但是我认为，那里并没有这些把各种冲突都拼凑在一起的混合群体。同样的，纽约豪华的高层大楼从来都与贫穷窄小的街道相毗邻。纽约的忧郁与刚毅，连同它艺术和音乐的瑰宝都必须加以赞扬。这种结合并不稳定，它带来了摩擦，或者说是一种不稳定的克制。然而这种克制有时变成了一种真正的宽容。
人们常常可以在一天之内感受到对纽约的喜爱和厌恶这两种心情。这个地方经常能惹恼人，有时却也能让人非常愉悦。对我而言，这种矛盾的感受在纽约是无可避免的。生活在这里，
人们可以在永久的动荡中感受到安慰。
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