From "The Review of Contemporary Fiction," Summer 1993, Vol. 13.2
LARRY McCAFFERY
Your essay following this interview is going to be seen by some people as being basically an apology for television. What's your response to the familiar criticism that television fosters relationships with illusions or simulations of real people (Reagan being a kind of quintessential example)?
接著本篇訪談刊出的隨筆,在某些人眼中恐怕是在為電視的脫罪。常聽到的批評是,電視助長人跟真人的幻象或模擬產生關係(雷根算是一種入木三分的例子),你怎麼回應這種批評?
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE
It's a try at a comprehensive diagnosis, not an apology. U.S. viewers' relationship with TV is essentially puerile and dependent, as are all relationships based on seduction. This is hardly news. But what's seldom acknowledged is how complex and ingenious TV's seductions are. It's seldom acknowledged that viewers' relationship with TV is, albeit debased, intricate and profound. It's easy for older writers just to bitch about TV's hegemony over the U.S. art market, to say the world's gone to hell in a basket and shrug and have done with it. But I think younger writers owe themselves a richer account of just why TV's become such a dominating force on people's consciousness, if only because we under forty have spent our whole conscious lives being "part" of TV's audience.
文學社會學改個名字
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作家、書籍及讀者三方面的參與為前題。總括來說,就是作者、作品及大眾藉著一套兼有藝術、商業、工技各項特質而又及其繁複的傳播操作,將一些身份明確(至少總是掛了掛了筆名、擁有知名度)的個人,和一些通常無從得知身份的特定集羣串連起來,構成一個交流圈。[^demo](3)
[^demo]: On which page is it?
這個結構的特點是作者身分明確相對於讀者(被預設為大眾)匿名,可是「一本書籍只有在被人閱讀時才算存在,那麼文學就該被視為一種溝通的過程。」(粗體為原書所有,Satre語,《什麼是文學》),加上文學同時隸屬於個人心智、抽象形式以及羣體結構,而且歷史發展使文學被排擠為「無動機」的^1--凡作品以本身為目的,而不是一種工具或手段,就可歸納為文學性作品(22),同樣^哪樣,閱讀行為若不具功能目的或實用性質,純為滿足文化需求,那就是文學性的閱讀行為。(22)偏偏寫作已經被納進經濟經濟範圍,書籍於是也是一種可供消費、有其供需的產品,
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