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ABSTRACT

Born during the middle part of the 20th century, Hanif Kureishi (1954- ) is a novelist experiencing all the blessings and following chaos of the sea change of British society. His second novel The Black Album, though not highly acclaimed for its narrative forms or artistic creativeness, is ambitious in its rendering of various chaotic conditions in Britain. With the Rushdie Affair at its backdrop and revolving around the protagonist’s quest for belonging among different reference groups, The Black Album represents the formation of (impossible) communities of various kinds, be it of Islamic fundamentalism, canonical literature, pop culture or love. This paper mainly considers The Black Album in the light of Jean Luc-Nancy’s idea of community, and appropriates related ideas in chaos theory to illuminate that under a seemingly linear plot the novelist highlights deviations of belief systems and communal coordination. In so doing The Black Album goes beyond positive identity politics to attest that a community only comes into being as it is unworking.

KEY WORDS: Kureishi, community, capitalism, Islam, Communism, chaos 

摘 要

出生在二十世紀中期的英國作家庫雷西(Hanif Kureishi 1954-)經歷了二次世界大戰後英國社會興衰的巨變 過程。他的第二部長篇小說《黑色唱片》並未在藝術上得到 很高的評價,卻有著處理混沌狀態下各種議題的野心。庫 雷西將魯希迪事件放在小說背景中,讓主角在游移於各個 參考團體之時尋找自我的歸屬。於描繪這些團體之時,庫 雷西再現了(不可能的)共同體的形成過程,不論它們是名 之為伊斯蘭基本教義派、經點文學、流行文化還是愛情。 本文試圖以儂曦(Jean Luc-Nancy)的共同體理論閱讀《黑 色唱片》,並挪用渾沌理論的相關概念來說明本書看似線性 的情節發展,在價值體系和共同體組成上有著種種偏移的 現象。如此一來,《黑色唱片》超越了正面肯定的認同政 治,呈現出共同體唯有在無法運作時才會浮現。

關鍵詞:庫雷西、共同體、資本主義、伊斯蘭、共產主 義、渾沌 

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