从《哈龙和故事海》看萨尔曼·拉什迪的文学观

A Study of Salman Rushdie’s Literary Views Based on Haroun and the Sea of Stories

印裔英国作家萨尔曼·拉什迪的中篇小说《哈龙和故事海》以童话寓言的形式生动地传达出这样一个寓意:虽然讲故事如王尔德所言是一门古老的撒谎艺术,但却具有震撼人心的表达效果。由于拉什迪声称这部作品是他在人生最黑暗时期创作的一部最明朗、最令人愉快的小说,所以我们可以说,这部同时写给儿童和成人的童话故事与作家本人的文学观紧密相连。本文将从三个方面解读拉什迪如何以童话寓言的形式阐述他对文学的影响,文学与政治的关系,以及文学的社会功用等问题的思考。

Haroun and the Sea of Stories,a novella by the contemporary British-Indian novelist Salman Rushdie,written in the form of a fairy tale,seems to convey this message:storytelling,the ancient art of lying,as Oscar Wilde puts it,has extraordinary effect on the reader.Rushdie characterizes this novella as his brightest and most cheerful work written in the darkest time of his life.We can say that this book,for both children and adults,is inextricable from Rushdie’s literary vision.This article reads this novella in an attempt to understand Rushdie’s views on literary influence,the relationship between literature and politics,and the social function of literature.