论《手势人生》中的音乐叙事与“他者”政治

On musical narrative and the politics of the “other” in Chang-Rae Lee's A Gesture Life

作为当今美国中生代的韩裔作家,李昌来以多部获奖小说蜚声文坛。他的作品几乎无一不在深刻地探索着少数族裔群体与白人主流社会之间复杂的互动关系,这也使得他在相当一段时间颇受文学批评家、尤其是后殖民主义批评家的广泛关注。其中,《手势人生》以老年男性富兰克林·秦为叙述视角,集中展示了他身上兼有的韩、日、美三重身份之间极为脆弱的张力,为批评家们提供了尤为广阔的阐释空间。然而,大多数批评家往往都忽视了小说中一个非常重要的方面,那就是西方古典音乐在多处颇为微妙的在场。事实上,正是在聆听、演奏这些充满丰富叙事性的音乐时,小说男主人公隐藏、压抑的真实身份才与他现在建构的各种人格面具产生了一系列激烈、深刻的对抗与对话,并最终促成他完成从"他者"到"自我"的精神成长之旅。

As a major Korean American writer today, Chang - Rae Lee＇ s has made his name with sev- eral prize- winning novels, almost all of which profoundly explore the interaction between minority groups and the mainstream white society, thus attracting wide attention from literary critics, especially post - colonial ones. Among them, A Gesture Life is a text that is especially open for critical interpreta- tions, for it manages to fully show the fragile tension created by the triple （ Korean, Japanese and Amer- ican） identities of its protagonist, the old male Franklin Hata. However, most critics tend to overlook the subtle presence of western classical music within the text. In fact, it is in listening to and perform- ing it that the concealed and repressed true identity of the male protagonist starts to be engaged with the various self - constructed personas in a series of intense and profound confrontations and dialogues, e- ventually contributing to his mental growth from the＂ other＂ to his true＂ self＂.