纳博科夫的凹凸镜:《绝望》中的假分身

Nabokov’s Crooked Mirror:The Artist’s False Double in Despair

本文梳理纳博科夫在《绝望》这本小说中使用的“凹凸镜”和“假分身”两个隐喻,以阐发他的“艺术即明目张胆地欺骗”此一美学。对纳博科夫而言,艺术既不比现实优越,也不独立于现实。反之,艺术只能是现实的拙劣摹本。而书中的角色虽然尝试模仿造物主,也只能是画虎不成反类犬。纳博科夫的美学要求读者对艺术有一种不同的态度:我们既不该轻易地代入书中的角色,也不该盲目地赞扬艺术,而应该借由明辨原型和赝品的区别,以锻炼我们的思辨批判能力。对我们的后真相时代而言,纳博科夫的美学提供一个伦理范式,即真相虽然隐晦,但并未被毁灭。寻求真相更是我们的时代义务。

The article explicates Nabokov’s metaphors of crooked mirrors and false doubles in his novel Despair,which articulate his aesthetics that art is self-obvious deception.For Nabokov,art is neither superior to nor independent of reality,but is rather its inferior mimic.Thus Nabokov’s simulacrum always refers to the revered model:the author himself.Nabokov’s aesthetics challenges the readers to have a different attitude toward art:rather than sympathy or appreciation,we should instead cultivate our critical discernment by distinguishing between the simulacrum and the true model.In our age of post-truth,Nabokov’s aesthetics provides us an ethical paradigm where reality is concealed but not altogether cancelled,a reality that is rather the prize that the readers are invited to actively seek out.