評(píng)論
打印
The Man in the Water
水中人
Roger Rosenblatt
羅杰·羅森布拉特
As disasters go, this one was terrible, but not unique, certainly not among the worst US air crashes on record. There was the unusual element of the bridge, of course, and the fact that the plane hit it at a moment of high traffic. Then, too, there was the location of the event. Washington, the city of form and rules, turned chaotic by a blast of real winter and a single slap of metal on metal. The jets from Washington National Airport that normally fly around the presidential monuments like hungry gulls are, for the moment represented by the one that fell. And there was the aesthetic clash as well—blue-and-green Air Florida, the name of a flying garden, sunk down among gray chunks of ice in a black river. All that was worth noticing, to be sure. Still, there was nothing very special in any of it, except death, which, while always special, does not necessarily bring the nation to tears or to attention. Why, then, the shock here?
就災(zāi)難而言，這次災(zāi)難雖然很嚴(yán)重，但并非絕無僅有，當(dāng)然也絕對(duì)不在美國(guó)空難史上最嚴(yán)重的空難之列。這次災(zāi)難的不同之處在于：一是飛機(jī)是在交通高峰時(shí)段撞到了橋梁。另外就是事件發(fā)生的地點(diǎn)在華盛頓。突如其來的冬天的寒風(fēng)以及金屬與金屬的撞擊聲，使這個(gè)布局合理、井然有序的城市突然變得混亂起來。從華盛頓國(guó)家機(jī)場(chǎng)起飛后，噴氣式飛機(jī)一般都像饑餓的海鷗一樣繞著總統(tǒng)紀(jì)念碑飛行。此刻，這架墜落的飛機(jī)成了它們的代表。再有就是飛機(jī)墜落與物體撞擊帶來的美學(xué)意義上的視覺沖擊——號(hào)稱“空中花園”的一架藍(lán)綠相間的佛羅里達(dá)航空公司的飛機(jī)，墜入黑色河水的厚厚灰冰中。固然，這些都值得關(guān)注。不過，這些中除死亡之外沒有什么特別之處。雖說死亡是特別的，但未必會(huì)讓成千上萬(wàn)的人落淚或關(guān)注。那么，為什么這次空難令人如此震驚呢？
