作为隐喻的气味——《香水》与造神

The Scent as a Metaphor:Perfume and God-making

帕特里克·聚斯金德的小说《香水》通过描述主人公格雷诺耶的寻香之旅,呈现了法国十八世纪社会的风貌和人民的精神状态,气味作为文本关键的隐喻,更隐含了其作为"人的存在"的重要意义。聚斯金德首先利用气味隐喻铺垫了主人公成神的道路,而后又拒绝隐喻产生的遮蔽,使其作为神破灭与复现的标志;在这个过程中,隐藏在历史背后的社会问题得以体现,人的境遇由此被置于一种全新的高度重新审视,神所象征的启示性体验消解了浮躁社会带来的内心冲击,展现了现代社会中人走向爱与救赎的可能。

Patrick Suskind's novel Perfume presents the style of the 18th-century French society and the spiritual state of the people by describing the protagonist Grenouille's journey of seeking scent. The scent is the key metaphor of the text, which even implicates the significance as "the existence of man". Suskind first used the scent metaphor to pave the way for the protagonist to become a god, and then refused the obscuration of metaphor, so as to make him a sign of the destruction and resurrection of God. In this process, the social problems hidden behind history are reflected. Thus, human's circumstances have been re-examined at a new level. The apocalyptic experience symbolized by God has dispelled the inner shock brought by the impetuous society and demonstrated the possibility of people moving towards love and redemption in modern society.