煤炭的言说:《像这样的小事》新物质主义书写

Coal Talk:New Materialistic Writing of Small Things Like These

爱尔兰现代作家克莱尔·吉根的最新力作《像这样的小事》于2021年出版,并入围2022年度布克奖的短名单。这部小说讲述了1985年发生在爱尔兰小镇上的“小事”,一个“关于希望、安静的英雄主义和温柔的难忘故事”。20世纪90年代开始的“物转向”使具体的物件成为研究小说文本的一个重要批评路径。吉根借助煤炭这个不起眼的物将客观史料融入虚构的想象之中,对爱尔兰“抹大拉洗衣房”这段历史进行叙述、阐释和重构。充满着生命的丰富性和强烈悲剧色彩的煤炭犹如一根“线”把温情、希望、悲惨以及残酷一颗颗“珠子”串起来贯穿在小说中。该作的新物质主义书写揭示了宏大历史背景下“堕落女性”的悲惨生活、教会修道院惨无人道的丑恶嘴脸以及小人物的英雄主义精神。

Irish modern writer Claire Keegan’s latest book,Small Things Like These,was published in 2021 and shortlisted for the 2022 Man Booker Prize.The novel,narrating some trifles taking place in a small Irish town in 1985,is about an“unforgettable story of such elements as hope,quiet heroism and tenderness”.The“object turning”since the 1990s has made concrete objects become an important critical approach to the study of novel texts.With the help of coal,an inconspicuous object,Keegan incorporated objective historical sources into fictional imagination,narrating,interpreting and reconstructing the history of Ireland’s“Magdalene Laundries”.The coal,full of richness of life and strong tragic color,is like a“thread”that strings the beads of warmth,hope,misery and cruelty throughout the whole novel.By exploring this ordinary and insignificant object,it is found that the new materialistic writing of the works reveals the tragic life of the“fallen women”,the ugly face of the inhuman action of the church and the convent and the heroic spirit of the nobody under the great historical background.