CROSSING FRONTIERS: DIASPORA IDENTITY IN THE SATANIC VERSES

Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses is a novel about frontier crossing. Transgression, an underlying device, is the key to the issue of diaspora identity. In juxtaposing the re-imagination of the rise of Islam and the representation of the black immigrant community in London, Rushdie traverses the frontiers of fact, fiction, and antagonistic cultures and ideologies with his deferred/different cultural translation of the ＂authentic＂ English/Islamic culture. In this dialogic form, the novel represents a palimpsest vision of metropolitan culture. Locating its setting in London, The Satanic Verses centers on the diasporic anxiety about identification and its transgressive attempt. It depicts the diasporic subject's wavering choice between assimilation and remaining intact, its longing for a unitary identity, and its final liberation from that myth. Its palimpsestual cultural representation re-maps the cityscape of the imperial center, making visible the city's inherent ＂Third Space,＂ its cultural heterogeneity, and its vitality. In transgressing cultural frontiers, Rushdie no doubt productively turns the diasporic neurosis into an impetus for the making of newness.

關鍵字

cultural translation ； diaspora identity ； frontier crossing ； the Third Space ； transgression

並列摘要

魯希迪（Salman Rushdie）的《魔鬼詩篇》（The Satanic Verses）是一部有關跨越邊界（frontier crossing）的小說。踰越（transgression）成為小說處理離散認同（diaspora identity）問題的重要底層結構：作者將伊斯蘭教創立史的改寫和倫敦亞裔移民社區的再現兩相疊覆，形成對話，以文化翻譯（cultural translation）踰越行為一再延／異（defer/differ）「道地」（authentic）的英國／伊斯蘭文化，跨越了歷史、想像、文化、意識形態交鋒的邊界，再現大都會文化（metropolitan culture）層層刮覆的羊皮紙視境（the palimpsest vision）。離散認同的主要困境在於選擇同化（assimilation）或維持不變；然而，在種族主義的放大鏡下，兩者都難逃異化／變形（metamorphosis）的命運。離散主體在歷經渴望認同、尋求拉岡式（Lacanian）「象徵的父親」（the symbolic father）、棄絕父權典範、超越認同等轉變後，終於結合大都會新興論述，達成自我解放，以「居間性」（in-betweenness）顛覆強勢論述。《魔鬼詩篇》以倫敦為背景，刻畫離散族群掙扎於文化、意識形態邊界夾縫的認同焦慮和踰越渴望，重新繪製帝國中心的市景（cityscape），提示了都市潛藏的對話性「第三空間」、文化異質性，和創造力；就此層面而言，跨越邊界無疑富有其創造性和積極面。