Are they so frightful because the valley is full of foreigners--dull, insensate brutes, with no love of beauty in them? Then why didn't these foreigners set up similar abominations in the countries that they came from? You will, in fact, find nothing of the sort in Europe--save perhaps in the more putrid parts of England. There is scarcely an ugly village on the whole Continent. The peasants, however poor, somehow manage to make themselves graceful and charming habitations, even in Spain. But in the American village and small town the pull is always toward ugliness, and in that Westmoreland valley it has been yielded to with an eagerness bordering upon passion. It is incredible that mere ignorance should have achieved such masterpieces of horror.
这些房屋如此丑陋，难道是因为该河谷地区住满了一些愚蠢迟钝、麻木不仁、毫无爱美之心的外国蛮子吗?若果然如此，为什么那些外国蛮子却并没有在自己的故土上造出这样丑恶的东西来呢?事实上，在欧洲绝对找不到这种丑恶的东西--英国的某些破败的地区也许例外。整个欧洲大陆很难找到一个丑陋的村落。欧洲那儿的农民，不论怎么穷，都会想方设法将自己的居室修造得美观雅致，即使在西班牙也是如此。而在美国的乡村和小城镇里，人们千方百计地追求的目标是丑陋，尤其在那个威斯特摩兰河谷地区，人们对丑的追求已达到狂热的程度。如果说单凭愚昧无知就能造就这样令人毛骨悚然的杰作，那是无法让人信服的。
On certain levels of the American race, indeed, there seems to be a positive libido for the ugly, as on other and less Christian levels there is a libido for the beautiful. It is impossible to put down the wallpaper that defaces the average American home of the lower middle class to mere inadvertence,or to the,obscene humor of the, manufacturers. Such ghastly designs, it must be obvious, give a genuine delight to a certain type of mind. They meet, in some unfathomable way, its obscure and unintelligible demands. The taste for them is as enigmatical and yet as common as the taste for dogmatic theology and the poetry of Edgar A Guest.
美国某些阶层的人们当中似乎的的确确存在着一种爱丑之欲，如同在另一些不那么虔信基督教的阶层当中存在着一种爱美之心一样。那些把一般美国中下层家庭的住宅打扮得像丑八怪的糊墙纸决不能归咎于选购者的疏忽大意，也不能归咎于制造商的鄙俗的幽默感。那些糊墙纸上的丑陋图案显然真正能使具有某种心理的人觉得赏心悦目。它们以某种莫名其妙的方式满足了这种人的某种晦涩难解的心理需要。人们对这类丑陋图案的欣赏，就同某些人对教条主义神学和埃德加·A格斯特的诗歌的迷恋一样，既不可思议，又让人习以为常。
来源:可可英语 //www.utensil-race.com/Article/201509/398708.shtml
评论
打印
