约翰·巴斯的后现代之后——以《水手某末航记》为个案

John Barth:After Postmodernism:Taking The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor as an Example

美国作家约翰·巴斯因其写于1967年的《文学的枯竭》一文,被视为后现代主义的先行者之一。一如博尔赫斯,他的许多作品均可被看作是“关于小说的小说”,也即“元小说”,在叙事的迷宫或书籍的宇宙中炫示精妙与玄奥。但到上世纪80年代中期,巴斯的创作理念有所调整,并认为世人对其早期《文学的枯竭》一文存在误读。本文便尝试以其作品《水手某末航记》为个案,探讨其创作理念在这近20年中所经历的转变动因及其表征所在,表明巴斯在不断地探索中借由“重写神话”加剖析现实而走向了他的后现代之后。

The American writer John Barth is regarded as one of the forerunners of postmodernist literature because of his essay"The Literature of Exhaustion",written in 1967.Like Borges,many of his works can be regarded as"novels about novels","metafictions"showing off subtlety and mystery in the labyrinth of narrative or the universe of books.But by the mid-1980s,Barth's creative philosophy and ideas had been adjusted,and he argued that the world had misunderstood his early essay"The Literature of Exhaustion".This article tries to take his work The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor as a case to explore how he understands the transformation of his creative concepts in the past 20 years and its manifestations.It shows that Barth,in his continuous exploration,has gone beyond his post-postmodern by"rewriting myths"and analyzing the realities.