拒绝遗忘和告别“天使”之笑——米兰·昆德拉《笑忘录》中双主题变奏细解

Rejecting Failure to Remember and Bidding Farewell to the Laughter of the "Angels": Illumination on the Dual Theme Variations of Milan Kundera's Book of Laughter and Forgetting

米兰.昆德拉的小说《笑忘录》模拟双主题变奏曲形式,从不同角度和层面探讨"遗忘"和"笑"。小说深刻揭示了遗忘作为一个历史学命题,是极权主义借以用来奴役人民的根本方式;作为一个人类学命题,遗忘则是人类死亡的一种形式,与人类的"存在"根本对立。同时,小说以嘲讽的口吻对"天使"的笑和"魔鬼"的笑作了解剖,指出所谓"天使"的笑声乃是极权主义与儿童心态结合的产物,是人的精神状态沉溺于幻想和蒙昧之中的外在表现。而"魔鬼"的笑声则是因为徒劳的抗争和无力的愤怒所导致的一种特殊心态,它被昆德拉命名为"利多斯特"(Litost),是一种自我嘲讽、自我惩罚的施虐—受虐。

Milan Kundera＇ s novel The Book of Laughter and Forgetting mimics the dual theme variations in music composition and explores from different angles and levels the implications of＂ laughter＂ and ＂forgetting＂. The novel puts forward a historical proposition that forgetting is the basic approach by which totalitarians bind people in chains of slavery; as an anthropological proposition, forgetting is a form of death which is opposite to man＇ s existence. Meanwhile the author performs an autopsy, with a tone of irony, of the laughter of＂ angels＂, which he defines as the combination of totalitarian and a child＇ s state of mind, an external expression of a human mentality lost in delusion and obscurity, and that of ＂devils＂, which he refers to as an abnormal mentality as a result of useless struggles and powerless indignation which Kundera names as＂ Litost＂, which is a kind of self- ridiculing and self - punishing bedeviling and autosadism.