从肉到土豆:鲁斯·尾关访谈(英文)

From Meat to Potatoes:An Interview with Ruth Ozeki

"从肉到土豆"这一表述反映了鲁斯·尾关从一个在纽黑文阅读文学经典的儿童成长为一位纽约的电影制作人,再成长为当前的畅销小说作者和获奖作家的全过程。在本篇访谈中,她就种族主义、环境危机、政治激进主义、怀孕与堕胎、艺术过程等问题阐发了自己的观点,特别讨论了她在创作她的两部小说过程中面临的困境,回答了她在小说中所提出的问题。这两部小说向读者提出了一些实质性的问题,如21世纪的真实性、混杂性的问题(例如,《食肉之年》中简·小田垣及其杂糅的文化传统、《天下苍生》中的转基因农作物等)。同时,她的小说还预示了一个新方向,即小说题材本身正在导致科学与虚构之间对抗性的弱化,导致两者疆界的模糊。尾关在《食肉之年》中使用尾注和文献索引将她的作品同时置于虚构世界和真实世界,从而其小说理念也具有了混杂性。本篇是笔者在2009年6月5日在加拿大维多利亚大学对尾关进行访谈的一部分,发表时做了适当编辑。

＂From meat to potatoes＂ documents Ruth Ozeki ＇ s growth into the award-winning author she has become, from her childhood reading classic literary works in New Haven, to her early years as a film-maker in New York, and until the present as a best-selling novelist. The interview covers Ozeki＇ s views on topics such as racism, the environmental crisis, political activism, questions about reproduction, and the artistic process. Among the many things Ozeki discusses are the challenges she faced in producing her two novels, and answers questions about the challenges that her novels offer. Both of her novels offer substantial challenges to readers. For instance, the notion that authenticity is possible in the 21 st century is one of the main challenges of Ozeki＇ s no- vels, and she explores various notions about hybridity in each, whether it is the hybridity of Jane Tagaki-Little and her mixed heritage in My Year of Meats or the hybridity of transgenic crops in All Over Creation. Also, it is very clear that Ozeki＇ s novels herald an exciting new direction that the genre of the novel itself is taking toward lessening the sense of opposition between science and fiction, toward the blurring of those boundaries. Ozeki＇ s use of footnotes and a bibliography in My Year of Meats places her work both in the world of fiction and in the world of fact so that （ like the themes she follows） her own use of the novel genre itself becomes something of a hybrid. Transcribed here is the edited version of part of that interview held on June 5, 2009, at Canada＇ s University of Victoria.