论扎迪·史密斯新作《摇摆时光》中舞蹈的多重隐喻功能

2016年英国女作家扎迪·史密斯出版了她的第五部长篇小说《摇摆时光》,而贯穿于小说中的"舞蹈"元素成为该作品的一大亮点。从某种意义上说,"舞蹈"就是史密斯《摇摆时光》中的"文化模因"。这种具有"遗传效应"的DNA片段建构起了《摇摆时光》的基本结构、线索和风貌。作为"文化模因"的舞蹈元素与小说的人物和主题有机结合,实现了史密斯对黑与白之间、身体与头脑之间、历史与当下之间关系的辩证思考。小说中舞蹈的独特"文化模因"在作为奴隶记忆的"阿斯坦之舞"、作为身体记忆的"特雷西之舞"和作为非洲记忆的"坎克冉之舞"中体现得最为明显,而英国当下黑人的文化身份则在不同的舞蹈之中曲折地多元呈现。

British writer Zadie Smith published her fifth novel Swing Time in 2016. The most striking feature of this new book is the dance elements running through the book as a thread. In some sense, dance is the "cultural meme" in Swing Time. This DNA fragments with genetic effect construct the basic structure, line and style of the new book. Dance, as a "cultural meme", integrating with the characters and theme of the story, realizes Smith’s dialectical meditation on the relations between black and white, body and mind, past and the present. The unique "cultural meme" in the book is strikingly embodied in "Astaire’s dance" as slave memory, "Tracy’s dance" as body memory and "Kankurang’s dance" as African memory, and the cultural identities of English blacks nowadays are represented in different types of dances in multiple and complex ways.