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教 育 專 題 深 入 報 導
═══════════════════════《2003/04/18》═════
*****【本 期 內 容】
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教育專題 ◎ Exploring
Rushdie's 'Midnight's Children'
◎ （國際專版）主文導讀：魯西迪的《午夜之子》，將搬上舞台
◎ （國際專版）副文導讀：被追殺的魯西迪
◎ （國際專版）
絕命追殺令原文，搭配Rushdie3
◎ The
Satanic Verses and the Fatwa
********************************************************************
◎ Exploring Rushdie's
'Midnight's Children'
Thu April 10, 2003 07:28 PM ET
By Simi Horwitz
NEW YORK (Backstage) - "Is there any objective way to say if a
scene -- or if a choice an actor has made -- is working or not?" asks an
audience member during a question-and-answer session following an open table
rehearsal of Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children."
There is a moment of silence before Assistant Director Aileen
Gonsalvez, who is leading the rehearsal, remarks, "It's totally
subjective."
The handful of participating actors -- all members of the Royal
Shakespeare Company (RSC) -- make assenting noises, although one or two insist
that the actors ultimately know (on an instinctual level) if their choices are
working or not. One actress suggests, however, that the audience's responses to
those choices are, at least from her point of view, far too often not even
addressed by the actors.
The open rehearsal -- designed to introduce interested New York City
theatergoers to the often convoluted process of rehearsing a play -- was part
of a month-long "Midnight's Children" Humanities Festival at Columbia
University that ran throughout March. The open rehearsal took place in a black
box theater at Alfred Lerner Hall at Columbia University.
The festival's centerpiece was a dramatization of Salman Rushdie's
Booker Prize-winning 1981 novel, performed by the RSC at the Apollo Theater in
Harlem. The production, staged in the States for the first time, represented
the unprecedented collaborative efforts of Columbia, the University of
Michigan, University Musical Society and, of course, the RSC.
Throughout the month, Columbia University hosted more than 20 panels,
readings, interviews, debates, and discussions on an array of topics --
literary, political, cultural, anthropological, and theatrical--that a complex
novel like "Midnight's Children" (and its transformation into a
staged work) evokes directly and tangentially.
Among these: the aforementioned open rehearsal, a seminar on "High
Art and Low Art -- The Mix of Language and Class in Literature," "The
Performed Novel" (with actors reading passages from the book), and a panel
discussion on "The Creative Process -- From Novel to Dramatic
Presentation," which featured Rushdie and one of his co-adaptors, Simon Reade,
the RSC's dramaturge.
FROM PAGE TO STAGE
The dialogue between Rushdie and Reade -- moderated by Jayme Koszyn,
the festival curator -- was of special interest because of the extraordinary
challenges the two artists faced in morphing a large, nonlinear, symbolic, and,
at times, stream-of-consciousness novel into a self-contained dramatic work.
"Midnight's Children" (the play) has now been mounted in London and
Ann Arbor, Mich., as well as New York City.
To make the task of transferring the novel to the stage even more
daunting, the co-adaptors had to grapple with a novel that alludes to history,
religion, and politics.
Indeed, at its core, "Midnight's Children" is most profoundly
a political novel, examining literally and metaphorically India's journey from
the moment of its independence in 1947 up until 1978.
Rushdie said that one of the novel-cum-play's central themes is
"the relationship between the individual and history. I deal with how the
public smashes into the private life. Our age has removed the comfortable
distance between the public and private."
On the most rudimentary level, "Midnight's Children" is the
saga of a Muslim family; specifically, the journey of Saleem Sinai who, among
other curious traits, boasts telepathic powers, making it possible for him to
communicate with all the other Indian children who, like himself, were born at
the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947 -- the moment of India's independence
from Britain.
Supernatural powers, passion, and, most crucially, two children
switched at birth, all play major roles in this wild, panoramic, comic-tragic
tale. There are dozens of subplots and an equal number of characters in the
500-plus-page novel.
Similarly, the play, which features 20 actors playing 70 roles, runs
for more than three hours. It is a frenetic work punctuated by video
projections -- including fantasy sequences and historical film clips -- and
brightly flashing lights. On stage, it is clearly Saleem's (Zubin Varla) story,
his account and interpretation of events, past and present.
Nevertheless, Rushdie described the play as "political theater
that draws on the tradition of late '60s and '70s plays about Vietnam."
And that raises a central issue, Koszyn suggested: What kind of
political-historical background does the theatergoer need to follow the work at
all (onstage, or in the novel for that matter)? She wondered if and how the
adaptors addressed that problem.
"Knowing English helps," Rushdie quipped, and then added
seriously. "You assume audiences know nothing and what we offer should be
complete, including historical and cultural information. But it cannot be
extraneous. It has to be the story. And we've talked with audiences to find out
what was needed and what needed to be filled.
"It's interesting to see the different responses among
audiences," he continued. "Westerners respond to the fabulist
elements. Those from India see the work as a history lesson. One man from India
actually said to me, 'I could have written it."'
All agreed that a major challenge in transferring the novel to the
stage was in finding and highlighting the driving through-line, difficult
enough in a simple novel. But in a work of fiction that has at least three
narratives running concurrently -- the tale of a Muslim family, the evolution
of an era, and the journey of one man -- it becomes especially problematic.
Admittedly, some of the issues had been mitigated because Rushdie had
already written a teleplay based on the book. The actors were cast, the
director selected, and the shooting was about to begin when, through a series
of bad breaks, it all fell apart at the eleventh hour several years back.
"India refused us permission to film there," recalled
Rushdie. "So we relocated to Sri Lanka and then following political
upheaval there, the government changed its mind. It was shattering."
Still, a script was on hand and that served as a basis for the stage
version. The teleplay was a particularly useful guide because of its detailed
directions -- albeit cinematic -- that nonetheless translated into staging,
observed Reade.
That said, a lot of work was called for, with cutting heading the list.
The potential stumbling block was to trim down the work without violating its
spirit.
"We felt three hours was as much as an audience could tolerate and
yet Salman felt if it was any shorter it would no longer be 'Midnight's
Children,"' recalled Reade. "He asked us, are we doing a condensed
version or just showing the highlights?"
Once the cuts were agreed upon, editing came into play, with new bits
added and others deleted for dramatic purposes. The sequence of scenes largely
remained intact, although some of the dialogue was reconceived and the characters'
roles in the narrative underwent a sea change to make it better theater.
A case in point: Saleem's sounding board, Padma (Sameena Zehra),
becomes the voice and ears of the audience--the theatergoers' surrogate
onstage.
Rushdie stressed that, "The RSC's detail to language was humbling.
If there are three short sentences in a script, the actors say those lines as
written. In fact, the actors would point out that parts of the novel that they
felt should be in the script had been left out. The RSC is very much a writer's
theater."
◎（國際專版）主文導讀：魯西迪的《午夜之子》，將搬上舞台
第三世界與後殖民文學
文賴明芝
打開電視新聞看這個世界，眼裡見到的，除了戰爭、金錢和食物之外，就是可怕的疾病正在威脅人類的生命。但是，這個世界不是只發生這類的事情而已，在地球上某個角落，還有一部份人正在努力文學的耕耘，只是，關心前者的人太多，關心後者的人太少。
最近，魯西迪1981年出版的《午夜之子》（Midnight's Children），將從文字躍上舞台（from page to stage），讓魯西迪的忠實讀者，能一飽眼福，讓腦海中想像的內容，有了實際的影像。在台灣，讓魯西迪聲名大噪的作品，是舉世皆知的《魔鬼詩篇》。自從中文版上市之後，台灣人也知道了魯西迪因為這部作品被伊朗宗教領袖何梅尼下令信徒追，而引發全球文化界對捍衛信仰或創作自由的熱烈討論。但是，台灣知道魯西迪曾經因為1981年出版的《午夜之子》，而贏得英國文壇最高榮譽『布克獎』的人，恐怕就沒這麼多了。也許，《魔鬼詩篇》的名稱和花邊新聞，才夠辛辣，才能引起台灣島上吃慣重口味的閱聽人睜開眼睛注意。事實上，《午夜之子》後來還被選為20世紀百大小說之一呢！
如果說，魯西迪的《午夜之子》是一部非常傑出的小說，那麼，他的成就絕非夢幻式的文字而已。《午夜之子》獲得英國布克獎後，鼓舞了許多非英語系作家，開始以英語創作，描述自身土地上的故事，《微物之神》就是另外一個例子。這才是《午夜之子》傑出之處。也難怪1993年布克獎廿五週年時，《午夜之子》能夠從布克獎25年來的得獎著作裡，再度脫穎而出，成為佼佼者中的第一名。
《午夜之子》以尋覓起源為隱喻，藉著印度獨立之夜第一個誕生的孩子的命運，點出第三世界新興國家所面臨的矛盾，如何從現代性和自主性取得平衡，厚植民的爆發力於焉釋放。《午夜之子》國家論述，不是單向的。同時處理國族命運與家族命運的手法，魯西迪成功描繪出獨立之後的印度。
◎（國際專版）副文導讀：被追殺的魯西迪
文賴明芝
1989年，出生於孟買一個回教家庭的魯西迪（Salman Rushdie），出版了《魔鬼的詩篇》（The Satanic Verses）。這部晚了《午夜之子》近10年的作品，讓魯西迪過了14年逃亡匿居的日子，因為《魔鬼的詩篇》被認為是對回教先知穆罕默德的褻瀆，伊朗的宗教領袖對魯西迪下達了追殺令，使他成了眾回教徒得而誅之的對象。
魯西迪曾經在英國躲匿了10年之久，為了保護他的人身安全，英國政府每年得花上1百萬英鎊的開銷，直到1990年代末期處死他的伊斯蘭法令逐漸解禁為止。
去年底，伊朗著名學者阿哈亞里（Hashem Aghajari），因為批判了回教神學士治國無方，而被判處死刑。魯西迪這名印度裔英國籍小說家，特地在紐約時報輿論版撰文，譴責這種以回教之名展現的暴力行為。魯西迪還對奈及利亞發佈伊斯蘭宗教令，要求處死一名批評先知穆罕默德的女記者，以及奈國舉辦的世界選美比賽風波，發表了許多的個人意見。魯西迪在文中呼籲心胸包容的回教徒要站出來，譴責這種偏頗狹隘的宗教暴行。
魯西迪《魔鬼的詩篇》爭議之大，讓許多國家的出版社和譯者因此受到恐嚇和攻擊。歐美書店被丟炸彈，日文版的譯者更是遇害身亡。聲援魯西迪和言論自由的運動被發起後，才讓這本書能在部分地區重新上架。
台灣的讀者一直要等到顏秀娟在今年自創雅言出版社後，才能一睹這部極具爭議小說的中文版。尤其是美國911恐怖攻擊事件發生後，《魔鬼的詩篇》更是「紅」了。自此，《魔鬼的詩篇》不再只是重要的後殖民文學、後現代文學或是後設小說而已。這本書成了擺在書架上的「裝飾品」（teatime
book），滿足了人的消費行為。有沒有看懂不重要，有沒有買才重要。
◎（國際專版）
絕命追殺令原文，搭配Rushdie3
"I inform the proud Muslim people of the world that the author of
the Satanic Verses book which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran, and
all involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to
death."
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
FATWA issued February, 1989
against Salman Rushdie
◎The
Satanic Verses and the Fatwa
¡]¸ê®Æ¨Ó·½¡GEmory University¡GPostcolonial
Studies at Emory¡^
On September 26, 1988, Rushdie published his
novel The Satanic Verses.? He had been granted a $850,000 advance for the novel
and believed it would be met with?"acute interest, if not open
admiration."? Although it was initially perceived that way, the novel was
quickly viewed as offensive by?Muslim fundamentalists.? Many perceived the
novel as a "blasphemous parody of the Prophet Mohammad," and the book
was soon banned by the government of Indian on October 5.
With the first one on December 10 in London,
mass protests against the book began taking place all over the world.? These
demonstrations soon turned deadly; dozens of people were injured and killed at protests
all over the world.? On February 14, the Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the
Iranian revolution, declared a fatwa, or a judicial decree, that sentenced
Rushdie and "all those involved in its publication" of The Satanic
Verses to death.? He called on all zealous Muslims to execute them quickly, and
placed a bounty of $1.5 million on Rushdie?s head.
On February 15, Rushdie went into hiding
under the protection of the British government.? Within the first four months
of the fatwa, Rushdie and his wife Marianne were forced to sleep in fifty-six
different beds.? Complaining of her husband?s lack of courage, Wiggins left
Rushdie in 1992 (Brennan np).