汤亭亭的“全球小说”:作为一种现代性策略

Maxine Hong Kingston's Global Novel as a Modern Strategy

美国华裔的文化身份使汤亭亭的创作是跨语言、跨文化、跨国界的,但同时也使她处于中美两个文学空间的边缘。而汤亭亭追溯并认同自惠特曼以来的美国语言与文学传统,并将美国文学空间首都纽约的语言文化的多元性作为创作的现代性模范。她在创作历程中不断地稳固现代美国作家的地位,而她在这一背景下提出的“全球小说”(global novel)概念也就区别于通常概念下的世界文学。这是一种为获得来自美国文学空间的文学性与现代性认可而提出的写作策略。基于帕斯卡尔·卡萨诺瓦在《文学世界共和国》中提出的文学空间理论,并结合汤亭亭的创作与访谈,本文将还原汤亭亭在美国文学空间中“被同化”的过程以及得到文学性准入的路径,同时分析其地位的不稳定,借此探寻“全球小说”作为汤亭亭创作策略的内在逻辑。

Her cultural identity as a Chinese American enables Maxine Hong Kingston's writing to go across languages,cultures and national borders,and,at the same time,to be situated on the edge of the two literary spaces of China and America.On her part,Kingston traces back to and identifies with American language and literary tradition since Whitman and regards the multiplicity of the language and culture in New York,capital of the American literary space.In her writing career,she keeps stabilizing the position of modern American writers,and it is against this background that she proposes the concept of Global Novel as distinguished from the common concept of world literature,a writing strategy proposed to obtain recognition by the literariness and modernity of the American literary space.Based on the theory of literary space,proposed by Pascale Casanova in The World Republic of Letters,and in association with Kingston's writing and interviews,this article will restore the process in which Kingston is assimilated in the American literary space and gains her access to literature while analyzing the instability of the position,thus exploring the inner logic of the Global Novel as Kingston's writing strategy.