划界与跨界:空间批评视阈下的《郊区佛爷》

Demarcating and Transgressing the Borders:The Buddha of Suburbia Under Perspective of Spatial Criticism

哈尼夫·库雷西在当代英国文坛享有盛誉,空间问题一直在他的作品中占有重要地位。以空间批评的视角来解读他的代表作《郊区佛爷》,会发现三种不同的空间,即划界的郊区、跨界的伦敦和"无界"的纽约。郊区的种族、阶级界线分明,充满着白人权力的偏执与蛮横;伦敦作为"另类空间"有着明显的后现代特征,在这里各种各样的界线被打破;而纽约则是新兴资本主义强国的象征,是个充满幻象的"异托邦"。对这三个空间的描绘不仅体现出库雷西对于空间问题的关注,也充分说明了空间的政治性与意识形态性。

Hanif Kureishi is a writer with great fame in contemporary British literature. Spatial problems have occupied an important position in his works. His representative work The Buddha of Suburbia presents three different kinds of spaces. Under the perspective of spatial criticism, these spaces can be interpreted as the demarcated suburbia, the border-transgressing London and the borderless New York. Suburbia is a place with clear distinctions and full of racial discriminations, as well as the crankiness and peremptoriness of white power. London is an alternative space and filled with postmodernist characters, where different kinds of boundaries are broken, while New York is a symbol of newly arising capitalist country and heterotopias. Kureishi＇s depictions of theses three spaces not only reveal his concern for space but also demonstrate that spaces are political and ideological.