《論晚期風格：反常合道的音樂與文學》War and Propaganda

這本書去年讀了中國版
反常而合道‧晚期風格：《論晚期風格：反常合道的音樂與文學》

週四, 2010-04-15 19:51 

文／彭淮棟

書名：論晚期風格：反常合道的音樂與文學（On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain）
作者：艾德華．薩依德（Edward W. Said）
譯者：彭淮棟
出版：麥田 2010 / 03

依照阿多諾的詮釋，late style之late（晚、遲），似乎非必指此風格出現於漫長人生或藝術生涯晚年、遲暮、末年之謂。據阿多諾在《貝多芬：阿多諾的音樂哲學》所言，57歲 去世（1827年）的貝多芬，主要是A大調鋼琴協奏曲作品101（1816年）開始，作品「構成一種本質有異的風格，亦即晚期風格」，但貝多芬生涯中期有 晚期風格的影子或種子，晚年有中期風格的殘跡或重現。

薩依德的晚期風格論承阿多諾之說，但反三活用而頗有變化，主要是其「晚期」一詞偏重編年式的意思，限定於「人生的最後或晚期階段」：

人生的最後或晚期階段，肉體衰朽，健康開始變壞……我討論的焦點是偉大的藝術家，以及他們人生漸近尾聲之際，他們的思想如何生出一種新的語法，這新語法，我名之曰晚期風格。

薩依德說的「新語法」，明顯相當於阿多諾所謂「一種本質有異的風格」。新語法、本質有異的風格，詞別而義同，唯阿多諾以作品之質變為晚期風格之徵， 薩依德則以人生階段為晚期風格之準，故視莫札特以36歲猝逝前一年（1790年）首演的《女人皆如此》為「晚期風格」之作。薩依德意義的「晚期」，用之於 《論晚期風格》裡討論的理查．史特勞斯、惹內、藍培杜沙、維斯康提，皆無疑義。

晚期風格的特質
然而晚期風格，其決定性的要素除了藝術家生涯晚、末期，可以說還有風格（體製格調），亦即某種或某些特色使藝術家之風格成其遲、晚。證據之一是，在 本書的〈《女人皆如此》：衝擊極限〉這一章，薩依德點明，「《女人皆如此》比較可以說是一部晚期（風格的）作品」，而非如前二劇（《費加洛婚禮》與《唐喬 萬尼》）那樣「只是成熟之作」。
然則使作品成為晚期風格之作，而非「只是成熟之作」者，是一個特色，這特色何在，在本書的副標題一語道盡：against the grain，即逆理、踰矩、反常、離經。「晚期風格」一詞不宜死參，要參活句，因為以晚期風格創作的藝術家，如薩依德在本書討論的莫札特、理查．史特勞 斯、貝多芬、惹內、顧爾德、藍培杜沙、維斯康提諸人，以及諸人屬於「晚期風格」的作品，各各有其所逆之理、所踰之矩、所反之常、所離之經，晚期風格也緣此 而紛繁多樣。

《論晚期風格》首章〈適時／合時與遲／晚〉開宗明義，大致區分藝術家兩種晚期特質。其中之一如下：

在一些最後的作品裡，我們遇到固有的年紀與智慧觀念，這些作品反映一種特殊的成熟、一種新的和解與靜穆精神，其表現方式每每使凡常的現實出現某種奇蹟似的變容（transfiguration）。

例子包括莎士比亞的《暴風雨》，及希臘悲劇大家索福克里斯的《伊底帕斯在科勒諾斯》，一切獲得和諧與解決，泱泱有容，達觀天人，會通福禍，勘破夷險，縱浪大化，篇終混茫，圓融收場。

薩依德分析第二種晚期風格，「冥頑不化、難解、還有未解決的矛盾」，作品充滿不和諧的、非靜穆的緊張，產生一種刻意不具建設性的、逆行的特質，例如 易卜生末年「憤怒、煩憂」，「戲劇這個媒介提供他機會來攪起更多焦慮，將圓融收尾的可能性打壞，無可挽回，留下一群更困惑和不安的觀眾」。如同易卜生，晚 期的貝多芬「老」無適俗韻，對所用媒介掌握爐火純青，卻「放棄與他所屬的社會秩序溝通，而與那套秩序形成矛盾、疏離的關係」。違時絕俗的結果，「他的晚期 作品構成一種放逐」。

薩依德對這第二種晚期風格的分析直承阿多諾的貝多芬晚期風格論，並且直接引用阿多諾語，「晚期作品是災難」：

晚期作品的成熟不同於水果之熟，它們並不圓諧，而是充滿溝紋，甚至滿目瘡痍，它們缺乏甘芳，令那些只知選樣嘗味之輩澀口、扎嘴而走。

西方文學有一派作者鄙夷「普通讀者」（the common reader），作品不欲人人能讀喜讀，宋詩有一派要去組麗而求平淡，除雕琢而顯骨力，極端至於東坡謂「凡詩，須做到眾人不愛、可惡處，方為工」，陸放翁 進一步直言「俗人猶愛不為詩」。斷章取義套用的話，貝多芬大有還有人愛，就不算音樂之意。

石化的風景：疏離和碎裂
阿多諾指出，貝多芬晚期出現阿多諾說的「一種本質有異的風格」，這風格產生境界疏離而結構碎裂的作品，這些晚期作品是沒有生氣流轉的情韻意脈為之統 一密織的斷錦裂繒。據阿多諾之見，貝多芬早、中期的音樂與黑格爾哲學若合符節，例如，「在貝多芬的音樂裡，發動形式的意志、力量永遠是整體（das Ganze）、黑格爾的世界精神」，據此精神，「整體是一切」，個人無意義，沒有任何事物是自身存在（an sich）。

貝多芬的晚期音樂不再服從黑格爾式概念，改走正、反、反之路，以不解決二律背反為真諦，擺落整體，「離棄汲汲經營，視圓滿為虛榮」，「不再講求動力 的全體性，換成片斷零碎」。阿多諾認為，「織地（Gewebe），也就是聲部彼此纏繞交織，殊途同歸於圓整合聲的工夫，在最晚期的貝多芬裡退卻，甚至是刻意避開」。貝多芬整個晚期風格，將「古典」成分如內容完滿、表裡圓足、形式完密無罅，抖落殆盡，整個朝「離析、傾塌、瓦解」發展。
阿多諾的晚期風格論頗成一家言，說晚期貝多芬，哲學、樂理互證，也勾深抉微，處處獨見。不過，晚期風格紛繁多樣，阿多諾舉一，薩依德以多隅反，解出 多采多姿的晚期風格天地。如本書編者麥可．伍德〈導論〉所言，薩依德沒有阿多諾那種無可救藥的鬱黯與悲觀。阿多諾的「否定的辯證法」與「絕對否定論」，其邏輯結論是否定一切，莫說一切理性建構，連藝術亦告不保，落得白茫茫大地一片真乾淨。薩依德則論事不苟，析理嚴密，而論人多恕，談藝活絡，這或許是薩依德 晚期風格的一大特色：他比阿多諾領會藝術千古事，得失作者知，而與藝術家同參「那說盡世上一切藝術的政治和經濟層面之後」依舊存在的藝術境界與潛力。

（本文摘自該書序文 / 麥田出版提供）


---2012.6.3 重讀Kenneth Clark 的回憶錄第二部 The Other Half: A Self-Portrait  序言提到許多名人的自傳多不如泛泛之輩來得精彩 原因很多
如政客多參考和引用過去的信件等等 文章就很笨重
還有些人在晚年才寫  當時作者已經覺得此生已休 (one's appetite for life   他認為H. G. Wells 的自傳是少數的例外 因為他寫書時 還有生之生氣---此書值得一記 因為我參訪過哈佛大學的燕京圖書館竟然只記得它的架上有此書的漢譯本 )
--Kenneth 是在70歲之後才感到"人生不過如此而已 "   不過他努力以赴 所以雖然 沒有第一部(談36歲前的人生)的神韻或神來之筆 還是可觀



 War and Propaganda by Edward Said

這文集是日譯本 (2002 出版一月就3刷)

Propaganda and War

Islam and the West are inadequate banners, The Guardian, 2001 集團的狂熱

Backlash and backtrack, l-Ahram Weekly & Edward Said 反彈與歸正

The clash of ignorance, The Nation, 2001無知之衝突

A vision to lift the spirit, l-Ahram Weekly & Edward Said 提振精神之願景

Suicide ignorance,l-Ahram Weekly & Edward Said 危險的無知

Israel's deadend,l-Ahram Weekly & Edward Said 以色列的死胡同

Interview by David Barsamian on September 11.... 訪談論 911

Propaganda and war

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by Edward Said

Never have the media been so influential in determining the course of war as during the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which, as far as the Western media are concerned, has essentially become a battle over images and ideas. Israel has already poured hundreds of millions of dollars into what in Hebrew is called hasbara, or information for the outside world (hence, propaganda). This has included an entire range of efforts: lunches and free trips for influential journalists; seminars for Jewish university students who over a week in a secluded country estate can be primed to "defend" Israel on the campus; bombarding congressmen and -women with invitations and visits; pamphlets and, most important, money for election campaigns; directing (or, as the case requires, harassing) photographers and writers of the current Intifada into producing certain images and not others; lecture and concert tours by prominent Israelis; training commentators to make frequent references to the Holocaust and Israel's predicament today; many advertisements in the newspapers attacking Arabs and praising Israel; and on and on. Because so many powerful people in the media and publishing business are strong supporters of Israel, the task is made vastly easier.

Although these are only a few of the devices used to pursue the aims of every modern government, whether democratic or not, since the 1930s and '40s -- to produce consent and approval on the part of the consumer of news -- no country and no lobby more than Israel's has used them in the US so effectively and for so long.

Orwell called this kind of misinformation newspeak or doublethink: the intention to cover criminal actions, especially killing people unjustly, with a veneer of justification and reason. In Israel's case, which has always had the intention to silence or make Palestinians invisible as it robbed them of their land, this has been in effect a suppression of the truth, or a large part of it, as well as a massive falsification of history. What for the past few months Israel has successfully wanted to prove to the world is that it is an innocent victim of Palestinian violence and terror, and that Arabs and Muslims have no other reason to be in conflict with Israel except for an irreducibly irrational hatred of Jews. Nothing more or less. And what has made this campaign so effective is a long-standing sense of Western guilt for anti-Semitism. What could be more efficient than to displace that guilt onto another people, the Arabs, and thereby feel not only justified but positively assuaged that something good has been done for a much-maligned and harmed people? To defend Israel at all costs -- even though it is in military occupation of Palestinian land, has a powerful military, and has been killing and wounding Palestinians in a ratio of four or five to one -- is the goal of propaganda. That, plus going on with what it does, but seeming to be a victim just the same.

Without any doubt, however, the extraordinary success of this unparalleled and immoral effort has been in large part due not only to the campaign's carefully planned and executed detail, but to the fact that the Arab side has been practically non-existent. When our historians look back to the first 50 years of Israel's existence, an enormous historical responsibility shall rest damningly on the shoulders of the Arab leaders who have criminally -- yes, criminally -- allowed this to go on without even the most meagre and half-hearted response. Instead, each of them has fought each of the others, or has relied on the hopelessly self-serving theory that by trying to ingratiate themselves with the American government (even becoming clients of the US) they would assure themselves of longevity in power, regardless of whether Arab interests were being served or not. So deeply ingrained has this notion become that even the Palestinian leadership has subscribed to it, with the result that as the Intifada rolls on, the average American hasn't the slightest inkling that there is a narrative of Palestinian suffering and dispossession at least as old as Israel itself. Meanwhile Arab leaders come running to Washington begging for American protection without even understanding that three generations of Americans have been brought up on Israeli propaganda to believe that Arabs are lying terrorists and that it is wrong to do business with them, let alone protect them.

Since 1948, Arab leaders have never bothered to confront Israeli propaganda in the US. All the immense amounts of Arab money invested in military spending (first on Soviet, then Western arms) have come to nought because Arab efforts have been neither protected by information nor explained by patient, systematic organising. The result is that literally hundred of thousands of lost Arab lives have gone for nothing, nothing at all. The citizens of the world's only superpower have been led to believe that everything Arabs do and are is wasteful, violent, fanatical and anti-Semitic. Israel is "our" only ally. And so $92 billion in aid since 1967 have gone unquestioningly from the US taxpayer to the Jewish state. As I said earlier, a total absence of planning and thought vis--vis the US political and cultural arena is hugely (but not exclusively) to blame for the astounding amount of Arab land and lives lost to Israel (subsidised by the US) since 1948, a major political crime which I hope the Arab leaders one day answer for.

I recall that during the siege of Beirut in 1982, a large non-governmental group of very successful Palestinian businessmen and prominent intellectuals gathered in London to establish an endowment to help Palestinians on all levels. With the PLO trapped in Beirut and incapable of doing much, it was felt that a mobilisation of this sort might help us to help ourselves. I also recall that as the funds were quickly gathered, a decision was made after much discussion that fully half the money would go for information in the West. It was felt that since -- as usual -- Palestinians were being oppressed by Israel with scarcely a voice lifted in the West to support the victims, it was imperative that money should be spent for advertisements, media time, tours and the like in order to make it more difficult to kill and further oppress Palestinians without complaint or awareness. This was especially important, we felt, in America, where taxpayers' money was being spent to subsidise Israel's illegal wars, settlements, and conquests. For about two years, this policy was followed; then, for reasons I have never fully understood, efforts to help the Palestinians in the US were abruptly terminated. When I asked why, I was told by a Palestinian gentleman who had made a fortune in the Gulf that "throwing money away" in America was a waste. The philanthropy now continues exclusively for the occupied territories and Lebanon, where this association does much good, but very little in comparison with the projects funded by the European Union and numerous American foundations.

Some weeks ago the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), by far the largest and most effective Arab-American organisation in the United States, commissioned a public opinion poll on current American perspectives on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. A very wide and deep sample of the population was polled, with quite startling, not to say disheartening results. Israelis are still believed to be a pioneering democratic people, even though no Israeli leader did very well in the poll. Seventy-three per cent of the American people approve of the idea of a Palestinian state, a very surprising result. The interpretation of that statistic is that when you ask an educated American who watches television and reads elite newspapers whether s/he identifies with the Palestinian struggle for independence and freedom, the answer is mostly yes. But if the same person is asked what his idea is about Palestinians, the answer is almost always negative -- violence and terrorism. Images of the Palestinians seem to be that they are uncompromising, aggressive, and "alien," that is, not like "us." Even when asked about the stone-throwing young people, whom we believe are Davids fighting against Goliath, most Americans see aggression rather than heroism. Americans still blame the Palestinians for obstructing the peace process, Camp David most particularly. Suicide bombing is viewed as "inhuman" and is condemned universally.

What Americans think of Israelis is not a great deal better, but there is a much greater identification with them as people. The most disturbing thing is that hardly any of the questioned Americans knew anything at all about the Palestinian story, nothing about 1948, nothing at all about Israel's illegal 34-year military occupation. The main narrative model that dominates American thinking still seems to be Leon Uris's 1950 novel Exodus. Just as alarming is the fact that the most negative things in the poll were what Americans thought and said about Yasser Arafat, his uniform (seen as needlessly "militant"), his speech, his presence.

Overall, then, the conclusion is that Palestinians are viewed neither in terms of a story that is theirs, nor in terms of a human image with which people can easily identify. So successful has Israeli propaganda been that it would seem that Palestinians really have few, if any positive connotations. They are almost completely dehumanised.

Fifty years of unopposed Israeli propaganda in America have brought us to the point where, because we do not resist or contest these terrible misrepresentations in any significant way with images and messages of our own, we are losing thousands of lives and acres of land without troubling anyone's conscience. The correspondent of the Independent, Phil Reeves, wrote passionately on 27 August that Palestinians are dying or being crushed by Israel and the world looks on silently.

It is therefore up to Arabs and Palestinians everywhere to break the silence, in a rational, organised and effective way, not by shooting off guns or by wailing or complaining. God knows we have reason to do all of the above, but cold logic is necessary now. In the American mind, analogies with South Africa's liberation struggle or with the horrible fate of the Native Americans most emphatically do not occur. We must make those analogies above all by humanising ourselves and thus reversing the cynical, ugly process whereby American columnists like Charles Krauthammer and George Will audaciously call for more killing and bombing of Palestinians, a suggestion they would not dare do for any other people. Why should we passively accept the fate of flies or mosquitoes, to be killed wantonly with American backing any time war criminal Sharon decides to wipe out a few more of us?

To that end I was pleased to learn from ADC President Ziad Asali that his organisation is about to embark on an unprecedented public information campaign in the mass media to redress the balance and present the Palestinians as human beings -- can you believe the irony of such a necessity? -- as women who are teachers and doctors as well as mothers, men who work in the field and are nuclear engineers, as people who have had years and years of military occupation and are still fighting back. (Incidentally, one astounding result of the poll is that less than three or four per cent of the sample had any idea that there was an Israeli occupation in the first place. So even the main fact of Palestinian existence has been obscured by Israeli propaganda). This effort has never before been made in the US: there have been 50 years of silence, which is about to be broken.

Even though it is modest, the announced ADC campaign is also a major step forward. Consider that the Arab world seems to be in a state of moral and political paralysis, its leaders encumbered by their ties both to Israel and, more important, to the US, their people kept in a state of anxiety and repression. As they and their brave Lebanese comrades did in 1982 when 19,000 were killed by Israeli military power, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are dying not only because Israel has the power to do so with impunity, but because for the first time in modern history, the active alliance between propaganda in the West and military force worked out by Israel and its supporters, has enabled the sustained collective punishment of Palestinians with American tax dollars, $5 billion of which go to Israel annually. Media representations of Palestinians show them with neither history nor humanity, as aggressive rock-throwing people of violence, and have made it possible for the dim-witted but politically astute George Bush to blame the Palestinians for violence. This new ADC campaign sets out to restore their history and humanity, to show them (as they have always been) as people "like us," fighting for the right to live in freedom, to raise their children, to die in peace. Once even the glimmerings of this story penetrate the American consciousness, the truth will, I hope, begin to dissipate the vast cloud of evil propaganda with which Israel has covered reality. Since it is clear that the media campaign can only go so far, then the hope is that Arab Americans will feel empowered enough to enter the political battle in the US to try to break, modify, or fray the link that binds US policy so tightly to Israel. And then, we can hope again.

Source:
by courtesy & 2001 Al-Ahram Weekly & Edward Said