是否存在过一种线性叙事?——读成碎片化的传统叙事与读成线性化的碎裂的后殖民叙事(英文)

Linear Narrative ― Did It ever Exist? Traditional Narratives Read as Fragmentary vs. Fractured Post - Colonial Ones Read as Linear

本文的基本假设是叙事本身并非线性的或者碎裂的,线性与碎片性都是阐释的结果。读者若对一致性感兴趣,便倾向于在每一种叙述中找到线性,若是乐见对于碎裂的人类境况的表征,则几乎无法看到线性。这一假设可由四个例证论述。第一个例证是明显属于线性叙事的小说《三个火枪手》。细读其《序言》可知,该文本目的在于突显其虚构性,一直调用叙事聚焦,颠覆角色的身份,动摇年代顺序,对线性提出挑战。第二个例证则是匈牙利1930年代的冒险小说,从叙述时间处理的角度看,这种文类中通常会很简单,但该小说则不然。突兀的叙述只在读者的回想中才才变成线性的,与主角那侦探似的故事创造者一样。因此,传统认为的线性叙述文类在后现代文学熏陶下的读者看来,有可能是碎裂的;这一点与此文例举的另外两部非常复杂老道的叙事恰成对照。这两部碎片化的后殖民叙事作品是拉什迪的《小丑沙利马》(2005年)以及俄罗斯女作家乌利茨卡娅的《美狄亚和她的孩子们》(2005年)。尽管这两部小说的碎片化和多视角叙事技巧令人惊叹,其基于时间发展而成的家族故事主线仍然显而易见。真正的线性叙事也许从未存在过,而甚至是极具艺术技巧的碎片化叙述依然可以读成线性的。

The ground hypothesis of this paper is that narratives are not per se linear or fractured： linearity and fragmentariness are interpretive achievements. Readers interested in the experience of coherence tend to find linearity in every narrative, while those who like the representation of a fractured human condition will hardly experience linearity anywhere. The hypothesis is tested through four examples. The first one could be regarded as the most obvious example of linear narratives The Three Musketeers. A careful reading of its ＂Introduction＂ suggests that this text tends to advertise its fictionality, continuously plays with the focaliza- tion, undermines the identity of the characters, destabilizes the chronology, and challenges linearity. The second example is a popular narrative, a Hungarian adventure novel from the 1930s, which should be really simple from the viewpoint of narrative management of time, but it is not. The abrupt narrative becomes linear in retrospection through the eye of a reader, and detective - like story - creating achievement of the main protagonists. The result that narratives traditionally described as linear may seem actually fractured to a reader schooled in post - modem literature is tested in the counterexamples of two highly sophisticated nar- ratives, which are both fragmentary and post - colonial, Salman Rushdie＇ s Shalimar the Clown （2005） and Ludmila Ulitskaya＇ s Medea and Her Children （ 1997 ）. Despite all fragmentariness and fascinating muhiperspective narrative techniques, it is not re- ally difficult to see the main family stories in those novels evolving in time linearly. Really linear narratives might have never exis-ted and even the highly artistic fractured narratives of contemporary literature can be read as linear.