ABSTRACT

The prevailing tendency among critics is to read the fiction of Hari Kunzru through a postcolonial lens, emphasizing either his themes of fluidity and hybridity, or his cosmopolitan resistance to national boundaries. This essay takes a different approach by examining how Kunzru engages notions of political theology. Kunzru uses computer programming, for instance, as a metaphor for divine creation, so that in works like Transmission and Gods Without Men his protagonists, both programmers, confront the notion of hacking the divine “code.” In Gods Without Men, this process is achieved through a computer program named Walter that is able to predict first the stock market, and then the course of historical events. Walter is named after Walter Benjamin, who argued that a concealed political theology underlies the logic of modern society. Following similar clues in Kunzru’s fiction, this essay explores his diagnosis, on the one hand, of political theology’s responsibility for the creation of a modern society of control, and the revolutionary potential of being able to subvert and manipulate that divine code, on the other. In a world where the hegemony of modern capitalism feels increasingly stifling, Kunzru offers a means of escape and resistance by turning society’s code against itself.

摘要

评论家的普遍倾向是通过后殖民视角来阅读 Hari Kunzru 的小说，要么强调他的流动性和混合性主题，要么强调他对国界的国际化抵抗。这篇文章通过研究昆兹鲁如何参与政治神学的概念，采用了不同的方法。Kunzru采用电脑编程，例如，作为神的创造一个比喻，让像作品传播和神没有男人自己的主角，无论是程序员，黑客面对神圣的概念“代码”。在没有人的诸神中，这个过程是通过名为 Walter 的计算机程序实现的，该程序能够首先预测股票市场，然后是历史事件的进程。Walter 以 Walter Benjamin 的名字命名，他认为隐蔽的政治神学是现代社会逻辑的基础。遵循昆兹鲁小说中的类似线索，本文探讨了他的诊断，一方面，政治神学对创造现代控制社会的责任，以及能够颠覆和操纵神圣密码的革命潜力，另一方面. 在现代资本主义的霸权越来越令人窒息的世界里，昆兹鲁通过将社会的准则与自己对立起来，提供了一种逃避和抵抗的手段。