巴西的现代性 (Brazilian Modernity)

Flora Süssekind, Cinematograph of Words: Literature, Technique, and Modernization in Brazil (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997).

这是一本巴西学者写的书，被翻译成英文在美国出版，得以让英语读者也了解作者对巴西文学与现代性的思考。书里从新技术和新发明的角度来谈论近现代巴西的文化活动，分析了留声机、照相机、电影、打字机等等对文化生产和消费的冲击。这个比较有意思。本书关注的巴西文化进程，差不多是从十九世纪末到二十世纪初这段时间，正好是我们大清国“锐意进取”的末期。巴西在1889年就已经从帝制迈向共和了。我们的大清国一直挺到1911年。做为两个大国，又在大致的历史时期走向近现代社会，晚清民初的日常生活和同时期的巴西有些共性。其中一个相似之处就是对新技术和新发明的好奇。拿我们的晚清民初来说，不管是颐和园的电灯，溥仪的自行车还是上海的照相馆，新玩意儿的引进和应用都五花八门，对文化的影响更复杂得很。留声机刚传入巴西的时候，也是个新奇的玩意儿。值得玩味的是，最先有机会摆弄这个新玩意儿的还是旧制度的头头——巴西的皇上。留声机在巴西最初录下来的，是末代皇帝的声音。此时离皇上的退位仅剩一个星期。

通过讲述新技术和发明进入巴西后所产生的文化意义，此书告诉读者：怀旧和布新，并不是泾渭分明的。

Some quotations:

(The exhibition and the royal auditions of Edison’s phonographs in 1889)
What is ironic about this incident is that it took place on the eve of the proclamation of the republic, and that in its earliest use in Brazil the phonograph should have preserved the last voices of the empire—including that of the emperor himself. (32)

There was yet another phonograph exhibition before the imperial family—the most melancholy of all. This was on November 14, 1889—the night before the proclamation of the republic. (33)

Thus, from a political point of view the phonograph played the part of recording the voices of the rulers of the empire just before their fall from power. These recordings had a somewhat ambiguous effect: at the same time that they preserved and reproduced the voices they also seemed to divest them of their earlier aura, in a rather cruel way. The voice of the emperor, recorded on November 9, was the voice of a deposed monarch only one week later. It was as though the daguerreotypes and phonograms that held such a fascination for Pedro II were announcing, without his being aware of the fact, the fading of the empire’s insignia and the extinction of the monarchy. And the new devices, having been blessed by the emperor, were soon in the service of those who succeeded him in power. (33)

© by Dun Wang (王敦). All rights reserved. 著作权拥有者：Dun Wang (王敦)。