時間無底的風景：從德勒茲的角度閱讀卡爾維諾《看不見的城市》

Abstract

伊塔羅•卡爾維諾的《看不見的城市》雙重建構於兩個觀點相對的角色，小說的雙層結構呼應這兩個不同的觀點。小說的框架敘述忽必烈可汗為了追求帝國的普遍原則而開始的對話，小說的內容則是馬可波羅對忽必烈問題的回覆：對於單一原則的追求，他應之以無可歸類的諸多故事。在這兩個迥異的觀點之間，《看不見的城市》的風景浮現。這個風景產生於這兩方共同參與的對話中，因此必然是既一元又多元的。本論文從時間性來探討這種風景如何讓一元與多元互相關連而彼此創造。透過將小說與吉爾•德勒茲的時間哲學對話，本文指出這本小說聚焦於大寫故事的時間，並在時間呈現自身各面向的過程中，展開了多層次的風景。小說行進於這個風景的逐步顯現：忽必烈統攝性的一元觀點被他與馬可波羅的對話消解了，而馬可波羅口中時間各異的種種城市形成了一種時間整體的風景。這個整體被複數決定，因此一元多元不分。如此的風景接著雙重反映於忽必烈容納差異的地圖集，以及馬可波羅從分散的故事細節中看見的連續性故事。在這兩者中，一元與多元摺入彼此，變成多元一元與一元多元。二者是故事創造的兩個面向，使一元論與多元論只是彼此的面向而非對立。本文從這些層面檢視大寫故事的時間如何創造出無根基風景，以討論小說中多元與一元的問題。

The structure of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities corresponds to the two main characters’ views which are reflected by the two parts of the novel’s design. While Kublai Khan initiates the dialogue depicted in the frame to look for a general pattern for his empire, Marco Polo responds with many disparate stories. Between the two, a landscape of Invisible Cities emerges. In accordance with the unfolding of the stories created by the two opposed characters, the landscape is both monist and pluralist. This thesis explores how the landscape links up and recreates monism and pluralism by examining the time of Story in the novel. In the light of Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of time, the novel is read to foreground a time of Story that constantly unveils aspects of itself and unfolds into a multi-layered landscape. The landscape is revealed in several stages in the novel: when Kublai’s totalizing monism is undermined in the dialogue with Polo, the stories of the cities with disparate durations told by the foreign traveler form a landscape of time as a whole. Being the most plural, the whole makes monism and pluralism indistinguishable. Such a landscape is later doubly reflected by Kublai’s atlas containing pure differences and Polo’s stories achieving local consistencies between disparate details; monism and pluralism thus fold each other and become a pluralist monism and a monist pluralism. These two modes reveal two distinct aspects of the time of the self-becoming of stories, making monism and pluralism aspects of each other instead of contraries. This thesis examines these aspects of the groundless landscape of time unfolded by the stories to discuss the problem of monism and pluralism in the novel.