《五号屠场》:冯内古特的历史意识与政治担当

Historical Awareness and Political Engagement in Slaughterhouse-Five

由于塑造了受虐型的小说人物和抱有宿命论观点的叙述者,加之一般对后现代小说"去政治化"的理解,人们在赞美《五号屠场》高超的叙事艺术的同时,常常忽视了小说的历史维度和作家的政治担当。冯内古特正是通过笔下"反英雄"角色的警示效果,来实现历史修正和政治介入的。作家将历史叙事与小说叙事并置,将历史事件与当代政治并置,将小人物的遭际与官方宏大陈述并置,凸显具体的、虚构的、艺术化再现的历史,引导读者通过想象解构历史,重构历史。这种介入写作是作家参与争夺意义阐释权的斗争,具有平衡和扶正历史的政治意义。

Judging from the passiveness and deterministic attitude of the main character and the narrator in Kurt Vonnegut＇s Slaughterhouse-Five, together with the general understanding of the de-politicization of the postmodern fiction, critics have paid only scanty attention to the author＇s historical awareness and political engagement. Precisely through such ＂anti-heroes＂ serving as warning bells, the author expresses his ideas of historical revisionism and political argument. By juxtaposing historical narrative and fictional narrative, the historical event and contemporary political environment, the personal experience and the official grand narrative, Vonnegut magnifies the power of the concrete, fictional and artistic representation, guiding the reader towards a way of reinterpreting, reimagining and reconstructing history. In this we see the author＇s attempt to gain voice in the power struggle of interpreting and rectifying history.