論 “其他聲音”: 馬可?丹尼利斯基《葉子議院》裡的後人類哥德

Abstract

一直以來歌德文學都有結合甚至借鏡其他文類的例子。如瑪莉･雪萊《科學怪人》 充滿科幻元素，而愛倫坡短篇小說富有恐怖元素。類似的文類跨越在近年哥德式文學更 是彰顯。許多近代歌德小說結合科幻、愛情、恐怖，甚至是經典文學等文類，好比《傲 慢與偏見與殭屍》。

文學批評家對此文類跨越提出文類混和的概念，其中次哥德文類中的後現代性備受關 注。次歌德文類包括博亭(Fred Botting)的後現代歌德、貝維爾(Maria Beville)的歌 德後現代主義和斯普納(Catherine Spooner)的當代歌德。上述三種次歌德文類互異， 但皆涉及後現代的恐懼議題-人類主體的瓦解。1996 年，傅亭在研究歌德文學時發現後 現代歌德小說的恐懼大多來自書中人物的精神瓦解與片斷敘述帶給讀者的影響。

倘若傅亭的研究延遲四年進行，評論《葉子議院》時他可能會說：「此論述衍生出一種 威脅。其威脅由過度崇高與多樣錯縱複雜的陰暗敘述組成，它瓦解人類的迷思，使其面 對一種超乎自身掌控的神秘力量。」1 納維特森搖搖欲墜的房子和書中的迷宮等，不僅 造就且導致敘述的不穩定性。如書名所示，房子本身即加重敘述的物質形式，又或是小 說的敘述方式揭露了房子的變化與其瓦解。這兩種論述相互影響，在讀者的腦海中形成 與小說裡居住者相同的混亂感。

The Gothic literary genre has always included works that borrow from and connect to

other genres. Consider, for example, the science fiction elements of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or the horror elements of Edgar Allen Poe’s stories. Recently, however, works of Gothic literature often intensify this aspect of genre crossing. Many recent Gothic fictions feature strong connections with genres such as science fiction, romance, horror, and even with literary classics, as in the case of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. These cross-genre works have led critics to suggest sub-genres of Gothic that address and even foreground such hybridization, paying particular attention to the postmodern qualities of these works. Some suggested sub-genres include Fred Botting’s postmodern Gothic, Maria Beville’s Gothic-postmodernism, and Catherine Spooner’s contemporary Gothic. Each of these subgenres of Gothic literature, though distinct from one another, connects with the postmodern fear of the disintegration of the human subject. In his 1996 survey of Gothic literature, Botting notes that the horror of postmodern Gothic fiction arises from both the psychological disintegration of the characters and the effects of narrative fragmentation on readers. From these narratives, he argues, “there emerges a threat of sublime excess, of a new darkness of multiple and labyrinthine narratives, in which human myths again dissolve, confronted by an uncanny force beyond its control.”1 Had his study of the Gothic been

written four years later, Botting may well have used the previous sentence to specifically describe Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. The instability of the Navidson house, the novel’s physical labyrinth, both produces and results from the instability of the narrative that contains it. As the book’s title suggests, the house doubles the material form of the