后现代文化困境:《无可慰藉》中的艺术异化与时间暴政

On the Cultural Predicament in the Post-modern Society: The Alienation of Art and the Tyranny of Time in The Unconcoled

《无可慰藉》因其梦幻体的叙事形式与主人公荒诞不经的城市漫游经历成为学界研究的焦点。然而,这一显性情节背后存在艺术异化的隐性进程,二者构成互补关系,共同表达了后现代文化困境这一主题。艺术的异化分别从大众与艺术家的角度得到展示,反映了后现代消费社会的文化病症,揭示了这一病症背后历史深度消失的问题及其文化成因,即现代社会线性时间进步观。这一观念无形中构成一种时间暴政,导致人们只关注未来的目标,忽略当下生活的意义,并造成诸如焦虑、倦怠的心理病症。尽管如此,石黑一雄寄希望于日常交流的情感力量,探索通过语言破除文化困境以及人与人异化现实的可能性。

The dream narrative and the propagandist’s absurd city roaming in Kazuo Ishiguro’ The Unconcoled are the major focuses of Ishiguro’s scholars. However, there is a covert progression of the alienation of art behind the plot development. This dual progression reflects the theme of the cultural predicament in the post-modern society. The alienation of art is explored from the perspectives of the audiences and the artists, which reveals the phenomenon of disappearance of the depth of the history in consumer society and its cultural cause-the concept of linear progress. This concept forms the invisible tyranny of time, and forces people to pursue the future goals, so as to neglect the meaning of the present life and cause the psychological syndrome of anxiety and fatigue in the post-modern society. Nevertheless, Ishiguro clings to the hope of daily communication and its emotional force, and probes the possibility of language to get out of the cultural predicament and interpersonal alienated reality.