Science as an Approach to World Literature: Hard Science Fiction and Post-Apocalyptic Dystopia in Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth’s Past Trilogy

科學作為一種世界文學的方法：劉慈欣《地球往事》三部曲中的硬科幻與後末日反烏托邦

10.6271/fd.201806_27(2).0004

楊乃女(Nai-nu Yang)

Remembrance of Earth's Past ； Chinese science fiction ； science ； hard science fiction ； World Literature ； post-apocalyptic dystopia ； 《地球往事》三部曲 ； 中國科幻 ； 科學 ； 硬科幻 ； 世界文學 ； 後末日反烏托邦

小說與戲劇

27卷2期（2018 / 06 / 01）

81 - 109

英文

With the success of his Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, Cixin Liu, winner of the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel, paved a new way for Chinese science fiction to enter into the domain of World Literature. His three texts -- The Three- Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death's End -- are enriched by the mingling of several popular sci-fi elements, such as outer space, alien civilizations, and post-apocalyptic writing. Above all, Liu's foregrounding of science enables him to construct a special dimension of aesthetics, one which I will call ＂the aesthetics of hard science fiction.＂ While he is often criticized for his lack of complicated characterization, Liu deliberately employs this strategy in order to focus on merging his narrative themes with those of advanced scientific knowledge and innovations. Science becomes the essential instrument which enables him to imagine and depict alternative worlds. Liu's stories inevitably tend toward ＂dehumanization＂ since he is primarily concerned with the destiny of a universe within which the human race is merely a grain of sand, a fleeting moment. For him, science transcends national boundaries and thus enables his novels to connect with a much larger readership. As his settings move from the Western world to China and then back to the Western world, Liu's sci-fi elements inevitably encounter the force of ＂extreme cultural and linguistic difference,＂ as Emily Apter says. They are disassembled and reassembled into a new literary machine. Thus I argue that Liu is opening a window through which Chinese science fiction, approaching the world via the universe, is encountering World Literature.

在2015年贏得雨果獎最佳小說獎項的劉慈欣，以《地球往事》三部曲成功打入西方市場，這個作品也可以說是為中國科幻進入世界文學奠定了一個新的基礎。這三個文本，《三體》、《三體II：黑暗森林》及《三體III：死神永生》不論在文體上或內容上皆十分豐富，因其融合了多項科幻文類的元素，例如外太空、外星人文明和後末日書寫等。但是劉的作品之所以獨特在於其書寫策略，也就是以科學為方法建構科幻中的美學。本文中稱此一策略為「硬科幻美學」。雖然劉的作品常被批評缺乏複雜的角色描述，劉刻意將書寫的重點放在以科學的先進知識融入故事，或者說成為故事的角色之一。科學成為他想像另類世界的重要工具。因此他的故事中的去人類化的傾向並不令人意外，因為他關切的是宇宙的命運，人類不過是滄海之一粟。對劉而言，科學超越國家邊界，成為連結更廣大讀者群的媒介。劉作品中的科幻元素其實是從西方旅行到中國，再從中國旅行到西方世界，借用艾蜜莉．愛普特（Emily Apter）的話來說，這些元素「被迫遭遇極端文化和語言的差異。」即使如此，它們被去畛域化和再畛域化，成為新的文學機器。因此本文認為劉的三部曲為科學作為進入世界文學方法的最佳代表。

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