失去的樂園：魯西迪《小丑薩利瑪》的空間再現

Abstract

《小丑薩利瑪》是魯西迪首次探討有關喀什米爾衝突以及恐怖攻擊議題之小說。有別於其他著眼於恐怖主義與反恐怖主義關係等論述，本書可視為魯西迪書寫樂園的寫作計畫之延續。樂園乃至失樂園的意象可謂是魯西迪作品中相當重要的主題，除了代表作者對於逝去之理想的哀嘆，亦是提供魯西迪述說那些在當代現實生活中未被提及的故事的藝術空間。在《小丑薩利瑪》中，魯西迪透過書寫虛構的喀什米爾村莊帕希岡以及美國加州的洛杉磯，重塑了對於失去的樂園之想像。除了描繪出樂園如何被破壞，帕希岡與洛杉磯的空間再現可視為是魯西迪試圖連結無法回復的樂園意象與逝去的喀什米爾主義的一種表現。本論文旨在檢視魯西迪於《小丑薩利瑪》中如何透過描述居民們的觀點去表現樂園不再之意象。

本論文共計五章。第一章為緒論，說明魯西迪作品中樂園意象與喀什米爾主義的關聯，並簡述《小丑薩利瑪》在再現失去的樂園過程中所呈現的相關議題。第二章援引列斐伏爾的空間生產理論，並探討再現的空間如何展現抵抗的力量。第三章閱讀帕希岡村莊的空間再現，試圖理解該空間如何從和諧的村莊風景轉變為處在交戰狀態中的失樂園，並檢視人們如何經歷並記憶樂園的逝去。第四章則檢視洛杉磯作為帕希岡對應與相關的樂園意象，探討遷移帶給城市想像的不同敘述觀點，以及故事中角色印地亞/卡什米拉的紀錄片計畫如何呈現她試圖抵抗外在強加的知識與暴力。第五章總結本論文，探討魯西迪書寫帕希岡以及洛杉磯兩地的空間再現所呈現出的共通點，並連結魯西迪對於喀什米爾主義的看法，釐清作者於《小丑薩利瑪》中書寫失去的樂園之意圖以及作者如何面對暴力之反思。In Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown, the writer directly talks about the issues of Kashmir conflicts and terrorist attacks directly for the first time. Different from dominant discourses on terrorism and counter-terrorism, the novel can be regarded as a continuous part of Rushdie’s literary project of writing paradises. The image of paradise, especially lost paradises, has become an important motif in many of Rushdie’s works. It not only refers to Rushdie’s lament for his lost ideals but also serves as an artistic space for the writer to speak for those untold stories of our contemporary realities. In the novel, Rushdie reinvents the remote village in Kashmir, Pachigam, and the metropolis in California, Los Angeles, as his emblem of paradise lost. Both of them do not merely represent the destruction of paradises in general. Instead, the spatial representations of Pachigam and Los Angeles as irretrievable paradises can be connected with the loss of Kashmiriyat. My thesis aims to examine how Rushdie portrays the two places through perspectives of their residents to represent irretrievable paradises in Shalimar the Clown.

This thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter one serves as an introduction, in which I briefly discuss the connection between the motif of paradise in Rushdie’s writing project and the author’s search for Kashmiriyat and provide an overview of how the novel can be read as a story of irretrievable paradises. In chapter two, I try to investigate into Henri Lefebvre’s The Production of Space and his elaboration on resistance force emerging from representational spaces. Chapter three will focus on spatial representations of the fictitious village in Kashmir, Pachigam, in order to examine its transformation from a harmonious village into a smashed paradise in militancy and to tease out how people experience and memorize its destruction. In chapter four, I turn to its counterpart, Los Angeles, to see how migration brings alternate narratives into the vision of the city of angels and how India/Kashmira’s documentary project exemplifies her efforts to resist imposed knowledge and violence. In the final concluding chapter of the thesis, I would like to tease out the common features shared by the two places and examine Rushdie’s intention of writing lost paradises and his reflection on encountering violence in Shalimar the Clown.