德里罗《地下世界》中的历史书写与伦理沉思

Historical Writing and Ethical Meditation in Don DeLillo’s Underworld

堪称“冷战史诗”的《地下世界》集中体现了德里罗在历史书写中探讨伦理问题的小说创作思路。从一只承载着诸多个体与集体记忆、具有丰富象征意义的棒球出发,小说不仅阐释了主人公尼克在记忆建构中反思个人成长史的行动,而且思考了如何让科学技术在人类社会中发挥积极作用、如何在后冷战时期建立与全球化发展相适应的国际关系等具有现实导向的问题。小说对个体、社会、国际三层伦理的考察表明,摒弃偏执片面的思维方式、以敬畏之心克制非理性欲望、在增进了解的基础上展开对话交流对完善个体生命、追求社会和谐及国际关系稳定极为重要。这也正是德里罗在小说虚构中所要完成的伦理沉思。

Focusing on the Cold War era,Underworld demonstrates a key feature in Don DeLillo’s fiction,which aims at discussing ethical issues through historical writing.Taking a special baseball with individual and collective memories and abundant symbolic meanings as its core image,Underworld not only elaborates the protagonist Nick’s mnemonic reflections on his maturing process,but also contemplates such reality-oriented questions as how to regulate science and technology to play positive roles in human society,and how to develop international relations compatible with globalization in Post-Cold War period.Its survey of individual,social and international ethics indicates that abandoning the paranoid and one-dimensional thinking,restraining the irrational desire with reverence,and carrying out dialogue and communication on the basis of mutual understanding is crucial to fulfilling individual life,pursuing social harmony and achieving stable international relations.These are DeLillo’s ethical meditations in Underworld.