文化重写本——评《牧羊少年奇幻之旅》

Cultural Palimpsest: On Coelho's The Alchemist

巴西作家保罗·柯艾略的《牧羊少年奇幻之旅》堪称一个"文化重写本"。《一千零一夜》的第351故事为其底稿,在此之上,柯艾略以《圣经》故事设色铺陈,又加以炼金术士的笔触点化成金。读者虽对这些故事耳熟能详,却因柯艾略将其放置在不同背景中,而获得了新的阅读体验。本文拟从互文性的角度解读小说中不同文本的叠加与重复。在几个互文本的撞击与晕染中,阿拉伯文化、犹太教文化以及基督教文化散发出了新的魅力。

The Alchemist, written by Paulo Coelho, is a kind of cultural palimpsest. He has used No. 351 story from The Thousand and One Nights as an outline, picked up biblical stories and allusions as his materials, then blended up everything and turned it into his story of an alchemist. Though readers are familiar with these stories, they would get a new reading experience because of the different contexts that Coelho puts them into. In light of intertextuality, this essay intends to interpret the overlaying and repetition of different texts in the novel. With the merging and clashing of different inter-texts, both Arabian culture and Judeo-Christian culture have sent forth new glamour.