新纪元与“追魂砂”——《新纪元》中的时间与战争

Time and War in The New Era

本文以1908年出版的小说《新纪元》为研究对象,探讨其对明日世界的想象如何受到当时种族主义话语的影响并重演了殖民主义的逻辑,指出作者所主张的"黄帝纪年"虽是西方公元纪年的翻版,但本土的时间计量系统仍在作品中发挥作用。正是不同时间计量系统之间的斗争与纠缠,为未来叙事提供了起点,同时又给新旧过渡时代的叙事者造成了困扰,使他所描述的"未来"无法真正超越"现在"。此外,故事中决定战争胜负的"追魂砂"等"法宝",历来被研究者视为传统神魔小说元素的残余,但本文通过对各种"法宝"有关信息的逐一追踪,证明它们事实上源自当时报刊上对西方最新发明的报道。

This paper takes the late Qing science fiction The New Era （1908） as its subject, and, through close reading, investigates how the imagination of tomorrow＇s world was affected by the racist discourse and how it replicated the logic of colonialism unconsciously. The study reveals that, although the Yellow Emperor＇s calendar, which was advocated by the author, is a replica of the Christian calendar, China＇s native time measurement still played a role in this work. It is the entanglement of different time measurements that provided a starting point for the narration of the future, but it also contributed to the perplexity of the narrator, which was caused by the dilemma in the transition from the old to the new. As a result, ＂the Future of China＂ described in this novel could not go beyond ＂the present-day West.＂ Moreover, the magic weapons, such as ＂Soul-stealer sand,＂ which determined the outcome of war in this story, have always been regarded by research- ers as the remnants of traditional Chinese novels about demons and spirits. However, by re- trieving the relevant information about these magic weapons, this paper tries to prove that the author obtained all the information from contemporary newspapers and magazines in which the latest Western inventions were introduced.