解读《酸甜》的错置书写

Reading Displacement in Timothy Mo's Sour Sweet

《酸甜》是英国华裔作家毛翔青的成名作,也是英华文学中为数不多的唐人街叙事文本。小说中对主人公陈氏一家与移居国和母土的双重疏离、陈和陈妻的社会性别的错置书写,不管是情感疏离还是社会性别的错置,均是英国华人移民生活百般况味的典型体现,而其根源则是离散族裔的文化身份认同困境。《酸甜》对20世纪中期华人移民在英国的离散境遇有着深刻的体察,而出生地和移居国之间、当下与过去之间难以愈合的断裂使离散族裔的身份认同总是处于一种归属的两难境地。

Sour Sweet is the first novel that earns Timothy Mo international fame,as it presents the few narrated Chinatown life in London in the 1960s.By studying its displacement narrative through the historical background with focuses on the double estrangement overwhelming the protagonists from both the English and Chinese culture,and the gender displacement between Chen and his wife Lily,this article explores the English-Chinese culture collides in the mid-20th Century and the ethnic identity of the Chinese immigrants.The double estrangement and displaced gender serve as typical representations of the tastes of displacement,rooted in the diaspora identification cruelty.Sour Sweet provides a vivid picture of the Chinese diaspora practice in UK whereas the disjuncture between England and China,between the present and the past has turned Chinese immigrants into a dilemma of identification.