《进入空气稀薄地带》中登山者的伦理选择困境

The Dilemmatic Ethical Choices for the Alpinists in Krakauer’s Into Thin Air

与喜马拉雅时代的传统登山小说不同,美国探险作家乔恩•克拉考尔以1996年珠峰山难为题材的非虚构小说《进入空气稀薄地带》将伦理问题锚定在海拔7600米以上的“死亡地带”,集中笔力书写登山者的伦理选择困境。克拉考尔将日本登山队员“无法顾及的道德”与登山绳的象征意义深度钩连,传达出对珠峰商业化浪潮下人际信任关系的隐忧。“短绳事件”在克拉考尔看来是夏尔巴领队在东西方“深度博弈”过程中责任优先秩序的选择失误,其本质是一种伦理责任失范,也是夏尔巴人生存境况的隐喻。而迷失在传统登山精英和商业顾客两种伦理身份中的作者,“幸存者的内疚”是其伦理选择的后遗症,更是男子气概“阴柔化”不可避免的后果。克拉考尔对于登山伦理的思考使《进入空气稀薄地带》成为当代登山文学中最具批判性和启发性的精神质询,突显了文学的道德责任和义务。

Unlike the other traditional Himalayan mountaineering novels,Into Thin Air,a nonfiction novel based on American mountaineer and writer Jon Krakauer’s experience in the 1996 Mt.Everest disaster,anchors ethical issues in what is known as the“death zone”,an area with an altitude above 7,600 meters,and focuses its depiction on the dilemmatic ethical choices faced by the alpinists.By linking the“untenable morality”of the Japanese alpinists with the symbolic significance of the climbing rope,Krakauer tries to convey his implicit worry over the diminishing trust among people in the wake of the sweeping commercialization on Mt.Everest.To Krakauer,the“short-roping incident”seems to be the Sherpa leader’s selective failure to prioritize the order of duties in the“serious games”between the East and the West,which is,in essence,both an anomie of ethical responsibility and a metaphor of the Sherpa people’s living conditions.Furthermore,as to the author who has been dangling between his double ethical identities as a traditional elite mountaineer and a commercial client,the“survivor’s guilt”is the aftermath of his ethical choice and,particularly,the inevitable consequence of his feminized masculinity.Krakauer’s contemplation of mountaineering ethics turns Into Thin Air into the most critical and enlightening spiritual inquiry in contemporary mountaineering literature and highlights the moral responsibility and obligation of literature.