本·方登《漫长的中场休息》的后现代战争书写

Neo-War in Ben Fountain's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

后现代战争指敌人身份不确定的非正面的现代战争。美国对伊拉克及阿富汗的战争都属于后现代战争的范畴。本·方登在其《漫长的中场休息》中,打破语图叙事的边界,消解战争宏大叙事与日常书写的边界,采用电影叙事的手法,展现了美国对伊拉克战争的后现代战争实质,呈现了视觉文化之下后现代战争的矛盾与困境,这种视觉化的战争包含着一种无法摆脱的视觉政治。在这种视觉政治中,战争创伤及英雄成为一种消费符号,成为权力和意识形态的直接表征,爱国主义也呈现出"仿真性"和"虚拟性"的特征。

American war on Iraq and Afghanistan is a typical neo-war with its uncertain enemy and unknown winning side. Ben Fountain’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk reveals the true nature of War on Terror and addresses the paradoxical predicament of the neo-war, which entails an unavoidable visual politics enmeshed in consumption, power relations and internalized ideology. Focusing on the transformation from text to visual images in Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, this article intends to analyze the novel’s visuality, cinematic techniques, and the paradox of American patriotism in which trauma and heroism, as signs for consumption, become markers of power and ideology. In the meantime, patriotism exhibits characteristics of "simulation" and "virtuality".