鲍尔斯《奥菲奥》中的恐惧叙事——从埃尔斯的“音乐炸弹客”污名谈起

The Fear Narrative in Richard Powers’s Orfeo

理查德·鲍尔斯是"美国后现代小说家第三代"的杰出代表。在他的小说《奥菲奥》中,主人公埃尔斯试图借助基因编辑手段,用粘质沙雷氏菌的DNA来存储音乐,因而背负"音乐炸弹客"污名。借埃尔斯的污名遭遇,小说展演了当代人日益加剧的个体与集体死亡恐惧,揭露了美国后"9·11"时代以操控、利用和贩卖恐惧为典型特征的恐惧文化。埃尔斯的基因编辑以失败告终,女儿也拒绝了其进一步基因编辑的邀请,小说却开创了一种类似于基因编辑的叙事模式。这既契合了小说的基因编辑主题,又确保同样遭遇艺术死亡恐惧的鲍尔斯在恪守生命伦理底线的同时,超越了艺术死亡恐惧。借此,鲍尔斯在一定程度上,改写了巴塞尔姆笔下求寻"金羊毛"未果却被子代活埋的"亡父"的命运。

Richard Powers is an outstanding representative of"the third generation of American post-modernist novelists."In Orfeo,Els turns to gene editing of serratia marcescens to store his music,which thus brings him the stigma of"musical unabomber."By describing Els’stigmatization,the novel,on the one hand,presents the accelerating individual fear and collective fear,and on the other exposes a culture of fear which dominates the post-9/11 America and is characterized with controlling,taking advantage of and vending fears.Els’gene editing fails at last and his invitation of his daughter’s cooperation in further gene editing is rejected.However,the novel initiates a gene-editing narrative mode.It agrees with its theme of gene editing and ensures that Powers who encounters the similar fear of artistic death abides by bioethics bottom-line and transcends his fear of artistic death.Thus,Powers to some degree rewrites the fate of Donald Barthelme’s"the Dead Father"who fails in searching for"the warm yellowness"and is buried alive by his son’s generation.