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讀紐時學英文
2017/03/03 第163期 訂閱/退訂看歷史報份
 
 
紐時周報精選 Building to the Sky, With a Plan for Rising Waters紐約建防洪大廈 淹水一週也不怕
川普讓人怕怕!反烏托邦小說熱銷Uneasy About the Future, Readers Turn to Dystopian Classics
紐時周報精選
 
Building to the Sky, With a Plan for Rising Waters紐約建防洪大廈 淹水一週也不怕
文/David W. Dunlap
譯/陳韋廷

There is a breathtaking view of the mid-Manhattan skyline from the 48th floor of the taller of two new copper-clad apartment towers just south of the United Nations.

聯合國總部大樓以南不遠處,有兩座包銅外牆的新建公寓高樓,從較高那一棟的48樓望出去,可以看到曼哈頓中城天際線的壯觀景色。

No plutocrat will enjoy it, however. This impressive penthouse aerie is hogged by five emergency generators. For the developers, giving up premium space to machinery is insurance against an ominous future: They want tenants in the towers’ 760 apartments to be able to live in their apartments for at least a week, no matter how high floodwaters may reach nor how long the power is out.

“We said: ‘Water is going to come in here. What are we going to do about it?'” explained Simon Koster, a principal in JDS Development Group, which is building the towers.

然而,它卻不會讓任何富豪來享用。這個令人心動的頂樓公寓被5個緊急發電機占據了。對於開發商來說,把黃金空間讓予機器,是為了預防不祥未來所採取的一種安全措施。他們希望大樓內760戶公寓的住戶,無論洪水多高或是停電多久,都能在自家公寓裡至少住上一個禮拜。

JDS開發集團目前正興建這兩座大樓,該集團一位負責人西蒙.柯斯特解釋道:「我們問自己:『水將會淹進來,我們該怎麼辦?』」

Along coastlines and lake shores and riverfronts across the country, tenants and homeowners, regulators and planners, private developers and public institutions are embracing the accumulating evidence of climate change and fortifying buildings and infrastructure against rising sea levels and ever more intense storms.

“Rising sea levels and a changing climate present a challenge for our country’s largest city, and also an opportunity to create a more resilient, sustainable and equitable New York City,” said Daniel A. Zarrilli, the city’s chief resilience officer and the senior director for climate policy and programs in the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio.

全國各地海岸線、湖岸與河岸沿線上的房客與屋主、監管機構與規畫者、私人開發商以及公共機構,都注意到不斷累積的氣候變遷證據,並正在加強建築物與基礎設施對抗海平面上升和更強暴風雨的能力。

紐約市的復原長暨白思豪市長氣候政策與計畫資深主管丹尼爾.札瑞利說:「海平面上升和氣候變遷,是這個我國最大城市所面臨的一項挑戰,同時也是創造更有復原力、更可永續發展,也更公平的紐約市的一個機會。」

Whether President Donald Trump embraces or resists the emerging notion of resilient design remains to be seen. Moments after his inauguration last month, almost every reference to climate change was removed from the White House website.

A vital lesson taught by Hurricane Sandy was that high-rise apartment dwellers might be forced to live without power from Consolidated Edison.

川普總統會支持或抵制復原設計的新興概念仍有待觀察,而在他上月就職後不久,白宮網站中跟氣候變遷有關的內容幾乎全遭刪除。

颶風桑迪帶給我們的一個重大教訓就是,高樓公寓的住戶恐怕會被迫在愛迪生聯合電力公司無法供電的情況下生活。

There was no question about installing enough emergency generators to power the eight passenger elevators and two freight elevators, the water pumps and lighting in common areas.

But JDS took the further step of installing enough emergency generating capacity to power the refrigerator in every apartment indefinitely, as well as one outlet in every apartment that tenants can use to recharge their mobile phones, among other things.

在公共區域內安裝足夠的緊急發電機來供應8座客梯和2座貨梯、抽水機以及公共區域照明用電,自然不在話下。

JDS採取了進一步的做法,包括建立足夠的緊急發電能力,來為每戶公寓裡的冰箱無限期供電,並在每戶公寓內設置一個插座,讓住戶用來為自己的手機充電。

 
川普讓人怕怕!反烏托邦小說熱銷Uneasy About the Future, Readers Turn to Dystopian Classics
Last month, as hundreds of thousands of women gathered in Washington to protest the inauguration of President Donald Trump, the novelist Margaret Atwood began getting a string of notifications on Twitter and Facebook. People were sending her images of protesters with signs that referenced her dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

“The Handmaid’s Tale,” which takes place in near-future New England as a totalitarian regime has taken power and stripped women of their civil rights, was published 32 years ago. But in recent months, Atwood has been hearing from anxious readers who see eerie parallels between the novel’s oppressive society and the current Republican administration’s policy goals of curtailing reproductive rights.

上個月,當數十萬婦女齊聚華府抗議川普總統就職之際,小說家瑪格麗特.愛特伍開始在推特與臉書上收到一系列的推文通知,人們將抗議者手拿標語牌的影像傳送給她,這些標語內容都與她的反烏托邦小說《使女的故事》有關。

《使女的故事》在32年前即已出版,書中將時間設定於不久的將來,敘述新英格蘭的極權政權在掌權後剝奪婦女民權的故事。但愛特伍在最近幾個月一直聽到焦慮的讀者們表達的心聲,他們認為小說中的壓迫社會與當前共和黨政府剝奪生育權的政策目標間,有著令人毛骨悚然的雷同之處。

In 2016, sales of the book, which is in its 52nd printing, were up 30 percent over the previous year. Atwood’s publisher has reprinted 100,000 copies in the last three months to meet a spike in demand after the election.

“The Handmaid’s Tale” is among several classic dystopian novels that seem to be resonating with readers at a moment of heightened anxiety about the state of American democracy. Sales have also risen drastically for George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and “1984,” which shot to the top of Amazon’s best-seller list last month.

這本書已經52刷,2016年的銷量比前一年成長了30%。為了滿足美國大選後暴增的需求,愛特伍的出版商在過去3個月裡又印了10萬本。

有幾本經典反烏托邦小說似乎與此際對美國民主狀態憂心忡忡的讀者產生了共鳴,《使女的故事》正是其中之一。而喬治.歐威爾的《動物農莊》與《1984》的銷量亦大幅成長,後者上個月更一舉衝上亞馬遜暢銷書排行榜的榜首位置。

Other novels that today’s readers may not have picked up since high school but landed on the list were Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel “Brave New World” and Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel “It Can’t Happen Here.”

Interest in “1984” surged last month, set off by a series of comments from Trump, his press secretary, Sean Spicer, and his adviser Kellyanne Conway, in which they disputed the news media’s portrayal of the crowd size at his inauguration. To many observers, Conway’s remark that Spicer had not lied about the crowd size but was offering “alternative facts” evoked Orwell’s vision of a totalitarian society in which language becomes a political weapon and reality itself is defined by those in power.

而今日讀者高中畢業以後可能就沒再看過,卻登上排行榜的其他小說還有—阿道斯.赫胥黎的《美麗新世界》,以及辛克萊.路易斯在1935年出版的小說《這裡不會發生那種事》。

川普、白宮新聞秘書史派瑟及川普的顧問康威,針對新聞媒體就川普就職典禮觀禮人數規模報導所發表的一系列言論,上個月也激發讀者對於《1984》的濃厚興趣。對許多觀察人士而言,康威所發表的史派瑟未在觀禮人數規模上撒謊,而是提供「另類事實」的言論,令人想起歐威爾對極權社會的看法,亦即語言在社會裡成為一種政治武器,現實本身則由當權者來定義。

Of course, it is not the first time that readers and pundits have invoked “1984” to criticize a government. It is such a standard trope that Orwell’s name has become an adjective.

“It’s a frame of reference that people can reach for in response to government deception, propaganda, the misuse of language, and those are things that occur all the time,” said Alex Woloch, an English professor at Stanford University. “There are certain things this administration is doing that has set off these alarm bells, and people are hungry for frames of reference to understand this new reality.”

這當然並非讀者和學者專家第一次援引《1984》來批評政府。這本書是個如此標準的比喻,而歐威爾的名字也已變為一個形容詞。

史丹佛大學英語系教授艾力克斯.沃洛克表示:「它是個人們可觸及的參考框架,可用以對政府的欺騙、宣傳、語言濫用做出反應,且這些都是經常發生的事情。這個政府正在從事的某些事情已觸發這些警報,人們渴望利用參考框架來了解這個新的現實。」

說文解字看新聞

文/Alexandra Alte

川普時代的來臨讓不少美國民眾對前景深感不安,對於難以預測的未來,他們希望能在書本中找尋慰藉與方向,而反烏托邦小說更是引起他們的共鳴,一時洛陽紙貴,銷量大幅飆升。

dystopia此字源自烏托邦(utopia),希臘語字面意義為「不好的地方」,指的是充滿恐懼醜惡、不得人心的極端惡劣的社會型態,主要特徵有極權、社會不公以及對自由的剝奪和社會管控。

反烏托邦一詞經常跟極權主義totalitarianism聯繫在一起,形容詞是totalitarian,當名詞時為「極權主義者」,由代表「全部、所有」的字首total跟表示形容詞或名詞的字尾arian所組成,意思同於totalistic、undemocratic、despotic、dictatorial。例句:US Former president George W. Bush once said the Shia and Sunni extremists were different faces of the same totalitarian threat.(美國前總統小布希曾說,什葉派與遜尼派極端分子是同一極權主義威脅的不同樣貌。)

此外,動詞片語strip somebody of something指的是「剝奪某人的某物」之意,跟另一片語deprive somebody of something意思相近。

 
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