《美》中的海地画作与历史书写

The Haitian Painting and the Writing of History in On Beauty

扎迪·史密斯在《美》中对历史的思索由海地画作《情人爱尔斯利》开启。书中虽然画作众多,然而这幅来自加勒比岛国的艺术作品却代表着具有修正功能的“美”,与作者对公正的探寻紧密相关。作家让海地画作成为小说中众多人物关注的焦点,通过赞誉画作之美、阐释画作中女神形象的文化寓意,映射出帝国话语中充斥臆想、占有和自我中心主义的歪曲史观,质疑其中对所谓不同文化之形象的刻意扭曲与抹除。在此基础上,史密斯更是通过塑造美的受益者,实践着对诞生发展于黑色大西洋中文化形象的公正呈现,进而推助全球非裔移民在身份构建过程中实现对自身多样性和复杂性在历史维度上的重新认知,也让这部看似与历史无关的小说成为史密斯在道德叩问中进行的历史书写。

In On Beauty,Zadie Smith explores the theme of perceiving history through her depiction of the Haitian painting Maîtresse Erzulie.This article argues that that painting from the Caribbean,which attracts each main character's attention in the story,is extraordinary,comparing to all the other artistic works in the fiction,because it symbolizes the“beauty”that Smith cherishes.It is the beauty that functions to deconstruct the historical context overwhelmed by imperialistic fantasy,possessiveness,and centralization,and thus to assist Smith articulating the significance of justice that has long been distorted in imperial discourses.Such symbolization unveils Smith's questioning about the distortion⁃and⁃erasure⁃dominated historical writing framed in the discourses of imperialism,and also makes it possible for the writer to conduct a morality⁃driven writing of history without explicitly enclosing historical events in the text.The writing of history stimulated by the painting enables the writer to present in a fair and just way the cultural images and values formed and emerged in the Black Atlantic—an endeavor which inspires immigrants with an African ancestry,through the lens of history,to develop a fair understanding of their complex and diversified identities.