“出位之思”:试论西方小说的音乐叙事

“Andersstreben”:On Music Narratives of Western Novels

"出位之思"其实也就是"跨媒介"问题。所谓"跨媒介",就是一种表达媒介在不改变其自身媒介特性的情况下,还跨出其本位去追求另一种媒介的"境界"或效果。小说的音乐叙事就是一种跨媒介叙事,它所指的并不是小说家在创作小说时利用音乐艺术的基本语言——音符来进行叙事,而是说:小说家创作的基本工具仍是语词,但通过模仿或借鉴音乐艺术的某些特征,在"内容"或"形式"上追求并在很大程度上达到像音乐那样的美学效果。在中国小说中,有意识地追求小说音乐效果的跨媒介叙事现象极为罕见,而西方小说中的这种情况却较为常见。概括起来,西方小说的音乐叙事可以分为三类:第一类是在"内容"层面模仿音乐,其最常见的形式是叙述音乐家的故事,或者说塑造音乐家形象的叙事作品;第二类是最大限度地缩减语词的表意性,尽量减少对外在事件或"故事"的再现,追求像音乐那样的纯粹的形式美;第三类是在结构上模仿或借鉴音乐艺术。

The concept of "Anders-streben" poses a cross-media problem. It suggests that one medium aspires out of the hard limitation of its nature towards the features, or the "state"(effect) of another kind of medium. When applied on the discussion of "music narrative," it refers to the intermedial relations between music and language: i.e. the narrative of fiction relies on words as its basic tool, rather than music notes, the basic language of musical art and, by imitating or integrating certain features of musical art, achieves the aesthetic effects of musical art in "content" or "form." Cross-media narratives that pursue the musical effect intentionally are extremely rare in Chinese novels, but quite popular in Western novels. Generally speaking, music narratives in Western novels fall into three categories: 1) narratives that imitate music in content, depicting stories of musicians, or creating their images;2) narratives that minimize the expressiveness of words and phrases, reducing the representation of external events or "stories" as much as possible;3) narratives that adopt or borrow structural characteristics from musical art.