Rage against the machine: Cyberspace narratives in Rushdie's Fury
Rage against the machine: Cyberspace narratives in Rushdie's Fury
复制标题
对机器的愤怒：《拉什迪之怒》中的网络空间叙事
DOI：
10.1177/0021989411425480
复制
发表时间：
2012
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Maurer Y
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Maurer Y
This article examines the science-fictional aspects of Rushdie’s 2002 novelFury, focusing on the cyberspace narrative at its centre. I suggest that Rushdie engages with the enabling potential of cyberspace, only to finally reject it in favour of a return to the “real”.Furyquestions the science-fictional or cyberspace option as a vehicle for previously unimagined artistic freedom. The protagonist, Malik Solanka, finds he cannot overcome personal and collective “fury” by “living in the electricity”. The science-fictional cyber narrative he creates collapses into the “real”, leaving Solanka disillusioned by his dream of artistic freedom and total control. Rushdie presents the allure of cyberspace narrativity as a seductive but dangerous means of artistic escape, and questions cyberspace’s offer of total artistic freedom. Solanka’s disillusionment thus mirrors Rushdie’s sceptical stance towards cyberspace and its possibly redemptive potential. The novel’s ending signifies a qualified return to the “real” and a rejection of the dream of an ultimate “elsewhere” in cyberspace. Solanka’s return home to London and to his son, Asmaan (sky), envisions a different form of futurity, to be found in the next generation. This promise for a possibly better future is represented by Solanka’s estranged son, whom he longs to reencounter in person, rather than in the disembodied technological realm of cyberspace.
