约翰·福尔斯

约翰·福尔斯（共3篇）

约翰·福尔斯 篇1

John Fowles is honored as the greatest British novelist and the first postmodern novelist.His most popular works were created in the 1960’s, including The Collector (1963) , The Magus (1966) and The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969) .Comparatively speaking, his late works are not as popular as his early representative ones.Furthermore, his last novel A Maggot (1985) has been ignored since its publication.Even now there are few critical essays on it.This thesis analyses the text to illustrate that A Maggot is a typical Fowlesian metaphysical detective story.

2 Characteristics of Metaphysical Detective Fiction

What is metaphysical detective fiction?According to Merivale, a metaphysical detective story is a text that parodies or subverts traditional detective-story conventions.[1]Therefore, there are quite different characteristics between traditional detective stories and metaphysical detective ones.Firstly, most traditional detective stories must evolve around“a dead body”, while metaphysical detective stories usually begin with“a missing person”.Secondly, in a classical detective story, the detectives are determined to solve any mystery.So classical detective stories are closed texts with the conclusions arranged by writers.Readers just passively read them.However, in metaphysical detective fiction, the detectives usually fail to solve any mystery, which is left to readers to interpret.So it does not provide readers a satisfying ending but several endings or merely a closure.Thirdly, classical detective fiction is to solve such problems as“what has happened?”, “why did it happen?”and“who did it?”, while metaphysical detective fiction is a kind o self-conscious fiction which answers such questions as“what i the world like?”and“how does a man live in the world?”or“wha kind of roles does a man play in the world?”.So the metaphysica genre is also named“ontological detective story”by some literar critics.Or in other words, metaphysical detective stories are selfreflective.

To sum up, the distinctive characteristics of metaphysical de tective fiction comprise an unsuccessful detective, a non-conclu sion and self-reflexiveness.Thus, metaphysical detective fiction must be an unsolved mystery and a self-reflexive story.

3 Metaphysical Detective Elements in A Maggot

3.1 An unsolved mystery

In A Maggot, the missing man Bartholomew is an upper-clas gentleman in the eighteenth century.He leads an admirable life a the younger son of a duke since“he was given all”.[2]His sudden disappearance seems to be beyond common sense.He seems abso lutely normal until he is last to be seen going into a cavern in a de serted upland of Devonshire and then disappears without a trac from the world.Mr.Bartholomew’s family arranged for Mr.Ay scough to investigate the case of disappearance.To find out th truth, Ayscough interrogated some witnesses whose testimon seems to show Bartholomew has elaborately planned to disappea thoroughly.

With the development of Ayscough’s investigation, readers are opening up a“Chinese box”, when they attempt to discover the secret in the innermost box only to find it an empty one, since different witnesses have different and even contradictory opinions of the same event and character.So in the end Mr.Ayscough only could make some inferences:murder, suicide, traveling abroad, without solving the mystery of the missing person.In this sense, Ayscough is not a success as the“detective”, and the story does not provide a satisfactory solution to the mystery of the disappearance of Mr.Bartholomew.It provides readers an open closure instead of a traditional closed ending.Obviously, it is in accordance with Michael Holquist’s explanation—“the metaphysical detective story...is not concerned to have a neat ending in which all the questions are answered, and can be forgotten”.[3]

3.2 A self-reflexive novel

Under the disguise of the seemingly banal detective story, A Maggot indeed has some extraordinary characteristics in form.The story is not only told in the third-person narration by a modern narrator but also made up of many investigation dialogues, the clippings out of magazines and newspapers in 1736 and some epistles written by Ascough.As a result, meanings in the novel are generated by two ways:one is by the collision of opinions between the modern narrator and the eighteenth-century character, and the other is by differences between the real historical documents and historical fiction.It is just through juxtaposing the various texts from the Gentleman’s Magazine with fictional illusions created by the interrogative text that the novel unfolds its self-reflexiveness, .

A Maggot is a self-reflexive novel since it openly reflects upon its own processes of artful composition.[4]According to Linda Hutcheon, this kind of fiction not only is self-reflexive metafictional and parodic, but also makes a claim to some kind of historical reference.It does not so much deny as contest the“truths”of reality and fiction...fiction is offered as another of the discourses by which we construct our versions of reality.[5]In the novel Fowles imitates the eighteenth-century novel and tries to break down the walls between fictional history and historical reality so as to awaken readers to the ontological doubts about the limits between reality and fiction.

So it is no wonder that, nearly at the end of the novel, the transcribing clerk John Tudor says that there are indeed two truths:“One that a person believes is truth;and one that is truth incontestable”[6]That is to say, A Maggot openly asserts that there are only truths in the plural, and never one Truth;and there is rarely falseness per se, just others’truths.[7]It is absolutely no doubt that the entire novel derives its attractiveness more from its verisimilitude than from any historical truth.

4 Fowles’s theory of disappearance

The unsolved mystery of Bartholomew’s disappearance may throw some light on Fowles’s theory of disappearance:the disappearance of the authoritative author, the indeterminacy of meaning and the participation of the reader.This theory of disappearance also reflects Fowles’s ideas of creative writing.Fowles emphasizes in his non-fictional work, The Aristos:“if there had been a creator, his second act would have been to disappear.”[8]So, on the one hand, the disappearance of the author means the deconstruction of the authority of the author who not only determines the lives of characters but dominates the narrative;on the other hand, it also means the achievement of the freedom of characters and the indeterminacy of the meanings.In this sense, the disappearance of Bartholomew could not be solved at all because Fowles has intentionally left it to readers to decipher.

How thoroughly the theory of disappearance is applied in A Maggot is also reflected in its form.In the novel, the investigation dialogues are presented in the form of real interrogative text of“Q”and“A”without any additional narration or comment.It is clear that Fowles intends to efface the author’s role and leave readers more freedom to locate their own positions in the text.Without the interference of the author, readers themselves are able to imagine Ayscough’s and Rebecca’s expressions when they are confronting each other.And in so doing, readers are completely free to make their own judgments.It is just as Seymour Chatman argues that“Stories that are uniquely dialogic or rely heavily on it require the implied reader to do more inferring than other kinds”.[9]Therefore, it is no denying that Fowles is such a skilled craftsman as to practice his poetics of writing in his novel so perfectly.

5 Conclusion

According to the above analyses, it is obvious that Fowles shows his talent in writing as an innovator in A Maggot.For one thing, he borrows the theme of the missing person from the metaphysical detective fiction;for another, he plants his own theory of disappearance in it.So his last novel A Maggot is really a typical Fowlesian metaphysical detective story, just thanks to his theory of disappearance.

参考文献

[1]Patricia Merivale.Detecting Texts:The Metaphysical Detec-tive Story from Poe to Postmodernism[M].Philadelphia:Univer-sity of Pennsylvania Press, 1999:2.

[2]John Fowles.A Maggot[M].Boston&Toronto:Little Brownand Company, 1985:159.

[3]Patricia Merivale.Detecting Texts:The Metaphysical Detec-tive Story from Poe to Postmodernism[M].Philadelphia:Uni-versity of Pennsylvania Press, 1999:2.

[4]Chris Baldick.Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms[M].Shanghai:Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2000:201.

[5]Linda Hutcheon.A Poetics of Postmodernism[M].New York&London:Routledge, 1988:40.

[6]John Fowles.A Maggot[M].Boston&Toronto:Little Brownand Company, 1985:308.

[7]Linda Hutcheon.A Poetics of Postmodernism[M].New York&London:Routledge, 1988:109.

[8]John Fowles.The Aristos[M].London:Triad/Panther, 1981:18.

[9]Mahmound Salami.John Fowles’s Fiction and the Poetics ofPostmodernism[M].London&Toronto:Farleigh Dickinson Uni-versity Press, 1992:220.

约翰·福尔斯 篇2

大学有6个院系，大部分院系位于特定的校区，但是对于联合荣誉学位和综合性的学科的学位来说，院系的重叠意味着学位由多个院系同共颁发。商学和法学系;教育，社团及公共系;健康保健与应用社会学系 ;媒体，艺术和社会学系;科学系;技术和环境系。利物浦约翰摩尔斯大学是一所教学与研究水平很高的大学，在英国教育委员会的教学质量评估(TQA)中获得“优秀”，由于课程设置的领先以及教学水平的优势，该校毕业生的就业率在英国名列前茅，94%以上的毕业生在毕业后六个月之内找到合适的工作。优势学科如下：工商管理、国际会计与财务、旅游与休闲管理、传媒与新闻学、教育管理、建筑与地产管理、汽车工程、英语教育(TESOL)、有机生物、计算机游戏科技、计算机信息系统、艺术与设计。

约翰·福尔斯 篇3

《收藏家》 (The Collector) 是约翰·福尔斯 (John Fowles) 的第一部小说, 作品发表后引起了广泛关注, 但是诸多批评视角, 如阶级批评、心理分析、女性主义批评, 都囿于克莱格 (Clegg) 囚禁米兰达 (Miranda) 这一事实, 将他们之间的关系简化为囚禁与被囚禁这一关系模式, 忽视了隐藏在这一关系模式下的更加复杂的权力关系, 导致了对人物性格的模式化与片面性的解读—克莱格是冷血的杀人怪物, 米兰达是纯洁的受害羔羊。这种黑白对立的人物塑造并非福尔斯的本意, 在《智者》 (The Aristos) 中, 他说:“克莱格是绑架者, 他犯了罪;但是我想说, 他的罪恶很大程度上, 也许全部是由缺乏教育、恶劣的环境和被遗弃造成的……米兰达绝非完美, 她高傲自大, 是一位道学先生, 一个自命不凡的自由主义-人本主义者, 像许许多多大学生一样。”[1]可见, 福尔斯追求的是一种立体的而非平面的人物塑造方式, 克莱格与米兰达都是有着优缺点的活生生的人。

二

米歇尔·福柯 (Michel Foucault) 的权力关系理论探讨微观权力的运作方式。他认为, 权力产生于人与人的关系中, 任何个体都不可能永久性的占有权力, 它在关系网络中不断流动。权力有其表现形式, 他说:“权力关系只能在两个不可或缺的因素的基础上得以表现:一是, ‘另一方’ (被施以权力的一方) 作为行动主体的地位得以辨识和保存;二是, 面临权力关系时, 整个回复、反应、结果和新发明的场域将会开启。”[2]由此可见, 权力具有生产性, 它肯定受力方的能动性, 因此, 它意味着更多的行动和可能性, 它是“引起其它行动的一组行动 (A set ofactions upon other actions) ”。[3]

权力关系是一个不断激发福尔斯思考的伦理学命题, 他说:“到十八岁时, 我已经支配了六百多个男孩, 懂得了权力、等级以及对规则的操纵。从此, 我一直对领导者、组织者、老板报有强烈的憎恨, 我憎恨任何将获得或持有对他人的专制权力视为好事的人。”[4]可见, 福尔斯十分关注人与人的权力关系问题, 他的种戏剧化经历使他能以深刻敏锐的目光洞察权力的性质以及它在关系网络中的运作模式。《收藏家》虽然是福尔斯的第一部小说, 但是, 它对克莱格与米兰达之间对立互换的权力关系模式的描述则是精妙的。

三

《收藏家》的故事是由克莱格对米兰达的迷恋引起的, 爱与被爱的关系构成了其权力关系的第一个方面。克莱格在回忆录中写到了他对米兰达的痴迷, “她的头发颜色很浅, 柔软光滑, 就像榆树上的茧子……在她成为我这儿的客人之前, 我只有一次有幸看见她把头发松下来, 那真是漂亮极了, 就像一条美人鱼, 看得我连气都喘不过来” (3) 。[5]克莱格的陶醉可见一斑。在他赢得足球彩票之后, 他将痴迷转化为行动, 跟踪并最终捕获了米兰达。在这一过程中, 克莱格与米兰达之间是主动—被动的关系。克莱格居于主动者的地位, 他把米兰达确定为他的爱情目标, 并为实现他的目标而不断观察、想象和行动, 他是爱的主体;而米兰达是被动的, 她只是他的欲望对象, 是克莱格爱的客体。

但是, 正如叙事学家米克·巴尔 (Mieke Bal) 所说, 在这种典型的爱情故事中, 女方最终决定是否把自身“给予”男方。[6]由此, 原来男女之间主动—被动的关系被置换成了被动—主动的关系。这种转换也出现在克莱格与米兰达的关系中—克莱格能否得到他所渴望的爱情最终是由米兰达决定的, 但她自始至终没有把自身“给予”克莱格。因为他是丑陋的;无知无识。最终, 当克莱格向她求婚时, 她拒绝了他。

在“引诱事件”中, 米兰达主动向克莱格提供自己的肉体和性, 则彻底摧毁了他理想主义的爱情观。在克莱格心目中, 米兰达应是一个“母亲—处子—灵气—女神 (mother-virginanima-goddess figure) ”[7]的结合体, 事发之后, 米兰达“把所有的罗曼蒂克扼杀了, 她已经把自己混同于任何别的女人了” (117) 。他这样描写自己的失落感:“我出去之后, 简直像疯了一样。我没法解释这是为什么。我一夜都没睡, 不停地回想着, 回想着我们俩光着身子站在那儿、躺在哪儿的情景我不想让这长夜结束, 我希望就这样永远沉沦于夜色之中” (115) 。可见, 米兰达的所作所为不仅是一种侮辱, 更是克莱格理想的幻灭—他一直渴望的爱情被贬低成了恶心的性交易, 处女竟然是一个荡妇。

四

囚禁与被囚禁的关系是批评家们讨论最多的层面, 但其权力关系并不是从克莱格到米兰达的单向线条, 而是双向互换的。捕获米兰达之后, 克莱格剥夺了米兰达的自由, 建立了森严牢固的监狱系统以实现对她的完全占有。他精选了前不着村、后不着店的老房子做为囚禁场所, 并改造了地下室, 将其中最隐蔽的一间小室做成了米兰达的房间。除了空间上的限制, 克莱格还对米兰达实行时间上的控制。米兰达绝对没有见日光的机会;每周最多洗一次澡;周末决不能踏出她的房间。这些空间与时间上的限制恰好组成了福柯在他的《规训与惩罚》中所论述的“规训权力”。福柯认为, “规训权力”起源于监狱对囚犯的管制, 它有一定的空间和时间上的特征。在空间上, 规训“有时需要封闭 (enclosure) , 就是指明一个地方, 让它与所有其他地方都不同, 自成一个系统”[8];在时间上, “对行动进行周密的时间控制”[9]是规训的又一特征。

克莱格将老房子做成了牢房, 但是米兰达却把牢房变成了奢侈的王宫。虽然米兰达被捕之前, 克莱格已花费了大量金钱对房子进行修缮和装修, 米兰达还是让克莱格买来了昂贵的印度和土尔其小地毯, 仅仅由于她厌恶橘红色;她甚至设法让克莱格给她买到了G.P.的画。实际上, 通过每天写一张购物条给克莱格, 她能得到所有她想要的东西。在她美丽的王宫里, 打发闲暇, 阅读、听音乐、做画、谈论艺术成了她的生活。

在米兰达把监狱变成王宫的同时, 她自己也变成了女王, 而克莱格则沦为了奴仆。米兰达被囚期间, 克莱格花费了大量精力照顾她的日常起居, 他回忆说, “每天都是老样子, 我在8、9点之间到地下室给她做早饭, 倒垃圾桶……上午, 从刘易斯回来之后, 我就收拾房间, 然后给她做午饭……” (69) 。此时, 克莱格根本不是一个监狱看守人, 而是一个尽职尽责的奴仆。米兰达这样描写他的仆人形象, “他恭恭敬敬站在那儿, 等待我对他发布命令” (136-7) 。于是, 他们之间主动与被动的关系再次被翻转了, 米兰达不再是原来处于被动地位的囚徒, 通过支配克莱格的行动, 其能动的主体地位得到了承认和表征;克莱格则失去了主动者的地位, 虽然他仍有行动能力, 但他的行动从根本上只是米兰达意愿的衍生物, 失去了真正的能动性。

五

克莱格是收藏家, 惯用收藏家的思维方式处理人与人的关系。赖福 (Lever) 对这种思维方式做了精确的定义, 他说, “收藏家出于错误的原因而对物和人感性趣:因为他渴望他/它们分类, 渴望抹杀他/它们的个性, 他只看到他/它们诸多特点中与他的分类方案相匹配的那些方面, 并且, 他想将他/它们象物体一样占有。”[10]在克莱格看来, 米兰达是“女人”这一物种里的“稀有品种”。如他所说, 米兰达“与众不同, 甚至和那些漂亮人物也不相同。更符合真正鉴赏家的胃口” (4) 。而其他女人“粗俗不堪” (7) 。克莱格在此对女性群体做了明确的分类, 这是他收藏家心态的典型表现。最终, 米兰达如克莱格收藏的蝴蝶一样, 没能逃脱死亡的命运, 因为死亡是克莱格保存各种收藏品最安全的方式。

具有讽刺意义的是, 恰恰是米兰达的优越, 使得克莱格一直处于守势。米兰达写到, “我比他高尚 (superior) 得多, 我知道此话听起来未免太狂妄了。但我就是比他高尚” (145) 。于是她就堂而皇之的担负起了教育克莱格的责任, 她给克莱格讲绘画艺术的秘密;她还是他的道德导师, 教导他人应该关心世界上发生的事情。实际上, 米兰达的教导并不适合克莱格, 但她却固执地以自己的意愿来塑造他, 他不敢提出异议, 唯有服从。正如奥尔生 (Olshen) 所说, “占有者本人被占有了, 他既是害人者又是受害者。”[11]

六

由以上分析可知, 克莱格与米兰达之间的关系决不仅仅是囚禁与被囚禁的关系。他们之间还有爱与被爱, 收藏与被收藏的关系。更为重要的是, 权力关系的新视角帮助我们较为全面地看清了他们关系的实质。克莱格并没有完全的控制权, 我们看到他“显然想得到某种权力, 这种权力凌驾于米兰达以及 (或许) 她所代表的一切, 但是, 很多时候, 操纵局面的人是米兰达, 克莱格感觉最多的是等量的软弱无力与沮丧的混合物。”[12]可以说, 处在由爱—被爱、囚禁—被囚禁、收藏—被收藏构成的权力关系网络中, 克莱格和米兰达都没有完全拥有权力, 他们对立互换的关系特征决定了他们必然是在竞争权力的时候实现权力的分享。

这种对立互换、竞争—分享的权力关系模式回应了福尔斯对其男女主人公性格的评判。克莱格是绑架者、杀人者, 他的罪过不可饶恕, 但他也有单纯善良的一面, 他渴望爱情和体面的生活, 甘心如奴仆般侍奉他所爱的人;但他却是迷茫的, 以至将米兰达囚禁起来据为己有, 这是由现代社会普遍存在的孤独空虚和不平等造成的。米兰达是象牙塔内的自命不凡的大学生, 但她在生死关头脱去了上层阶级人士的优雅, 为自己的生命做了坚持不懈的努力与斗争, 她的本性—自私、势利、残忍、虚伪—也显现了出来。这表现了作者对人性和人类关系的关注, 以及对生命—人的和昆虫的—的敬重。

参考文献

[1].Fowles, John.The Aristos.Rev.ed.New York and Scarborough, Ontario:New American Library, 1975.p10

[2].Foucault, Michel.“The Subject and Power”in Power Ed.James D.Faubion.Trans.Robert Herley and others.New York:The New Press, 2000.p340

[3].ibid.p341

[4].引自Huffaker, Robert.John Fowles.Boston:Twayne Publishers, 1980.p22

[5].引自《收藏家》, 约翰·福尔斯著, 李尧译, 上海译文出版社, 1999。以下原著引文均自该书。

[6].《叙述学:叙事理论导论》 (第二版) , 米克·巴尔著, 谭军强译, 北京:中国社会科学出版社, 2003.4。p239

[7].Huffaker, Robert.John Fowles.Boston:Twayne Publishers, 1980.p82

[8].Foucault, Michel.Discipline and Punish:the Birth of the Prison.Trans.A.Sheridan Smith.New York:Pantheon, 1977.p141

[9].ibid.p151

[10].Lever, Karen M..“The Education of John Fowles”in Contemporary Literary Criticism Vol.15Ed.Sharon R.Gunton&Laurie Lanzen Harris.Detroit Michigan:Gale Research Company, 1980.p233

[11].Olshen, Barry N.John Fowles.New York:Fredrick Ungar Publishing Co., 1978.p22