New Orleans is an affront to nature, and nature isn’t shy about reminding New Orleans of it. Lots of other places are affronts to nature, too, but, if they are in the United States, they usually have the hermetically sealed feeling of high-rise beachfront condominiums and desert suburbs and houses perched on mountaintops. New Orleans is too scruffy ever to achieve that. Tendrils of vines poke up through the floorboards. Paint flakes, wood rots, stamps self-adhere, and chunks of concrete must fly out of the roadbeds in the middle of the night (how else could they have disappeared?). The air is wet and heavy enough to slice into chunks and carry out of town in shopping bags. Streams lose their coherence and turn into swamps. Rats and roaches and snakes sashay through the gutters. Southern Louisiana is the site of many environmental depredations, but one of them will never be a feeling of locked-down sterility as an appurtenance of human habitation. Nature has the upper hand.

熱心網友

新奧爾良是自然災害襲擊的目標，大自然不斷用自己的摧毀力來證明這一點。其他地方也遭受自然災害的襲擊，但是，只要是在美國，這些高于海拔的海岸線，沙漠荒郊和山上房屋通常都是密閉安全的。新奧爾良卻沒那么幸運了，滿地的葡萄枝藤，殘畫的碎片，腐爛的木頭，不干膠貼畫和大塊的水泥在半夜里一定是隨風飛舞，被吹落到馬路上（不然怎么會無影無蹤了呢？）。空氣濕淋淋的，異常凝重，仿佛可以用刀切成一片片，用購物袋裝走似的。溪流干涸變成了沼澤，廢墟和路溝到處都是老鼠、蟑螂和蛇等竄來竄去。南路易斯安娜是一個被自然災害多次摧毀的地方，然而它并不是一個人類就此不再居住的不毛之地。大自然威力無比。***文章寫得真棒！只可惜本人才疏學淺，糟蹋了這篇美文啊！

熱心網友

新奧爾良的所作所為冒犯了大自然，大自然也不介意用它的方式提醒新奧爾良注意這一點。還有其它的許多地方都可以說是對大自然的冒犯。但是，如果這些地方位于美國，它們經常能保證讓人們共同擁有一片海灘樂園，享受遠離塵世，飄飄欲仙的感覺。要么就是沙漠中的城郊小鎮，或是高山之巔的小屋。新奧爾良臟亂到連這些條件都不具備。在那里，地板下面會伸展出茂密的藤蔓，漆皮碎屑、爛木屑、不干膠郵票和水泥碎塊這些東西在午夜時分才會被從馬路上掃除（還有別的方法處理它們嗎？）空氣潮濕沉滯，仿佛可以切成一片一塊用購物袋裝走。小溪也失去了它固定的河道，淤積成為沼澤。老鼠、蟑螂和蛇在排水溝里亂竄。南路易斯安那這個地方集中了眾多的環保災難，不過，這些災難再嚴重，人們也不會由于人居環境過度惡劣，而停止孳生繁育。自然之力才是最高主宰。有很多理解和樓上的有出入，希望各位指正。