Reviewed by:

• Remembering Absence: The Sense of Life in Island Greece by Nicolas Argenti
• Charles Stewart (bio)

Nicolas Argenti conducted doctoral research in the Grassfields of Cameroon, and that led him to consider memories of violence, a subject on which he co-edited an insightful volume (Argenti and Schramm 2010). Then his surname caught up with him. He turned his attention to his family’s former homeland, Chios, the site of a horrific massacre in 1822. The argument of this book is that such an event does not settle in a receding past. Argenti makes the case for a particular “Aegean temporality,” a qualitative, tempestuous time (kairós, καιρός) of eternal returns as in the Orthodox refrain, nun kai aeí (νῦν καὶ ἀεὶ). The past remains accessible through intentional remembering, but it also bursts in via spontaneous reminiscences that overtake one in raptures of transcendence. Aegean temporality contrasts with standard Western time (khrónos, χρόνος), measured out quantitatively in units of seconds, days, and years held together by ideas of linearity and causation. For the denizens of Chios, everyday historical thought proceeds from the emotions and devotions of life in the present.

Argenti begins his journey (back) to Chios by reflecting on the photographs of family members dispersed around the globe that he saw as a child in his family home in Paris. After 1822, the island itself never again became a center of trade, and being in the diaspora would always contain an overtone of tragic loss. The pictures thus emitted melancholic signals beyond the comprehension of a child, but readily intelligible to adults. The 1822 massacre is the gravitational center of Chiot historicity, holding everything else in its orbit, yet so powerful that no one dares look straight at it. As Flaubert, quoted in the epigraph of this book, wrote: “Few will suspect how sad one had to be to undertake the resuscitation of Carthage.” Chiots live the aftermath of the massacre silently in a subliminal, collective tristesse. “We don’t remember the massacres,” people would say in response to Argenti’s inquries (18). “Ask us about the slaughter that is taking place now—then we will have something to talk about,” they continued, referring to the economic crisis besetting Greece at the time of Argenti’s research. In this solar system of tragedy, subsequent sufferings enter the gravitational pull of 1822, absorbing its energy, refracting its light, and relaying its message.

Perhaps the idea of trauma might capture the situation? Argenti rejects such a suggestion, believing that the term trauma threatens to pathologize the islanders. The trauma paradigm is rooted in a Western chrono-logic that assumes the past is over and can be left behind. Freud subscribed to this temporal ontology in his recommendation, for example, that proper mourning enables [End Page 264] one to “move on” rather than dwell in pathological melancholy. Argenti contends that melancholia performs important existential work. In his words, periodic “topological transformations of collective memory” are not atavisms, but “a form of memory that is active, alive, and orientated to the future—the very opposite of anachronism” (93). The memory of trauma may indicate resilience rather than debilitating fixation (94). The Chiots are “mariners of time” (73), voyaging on the sea of their past, interpreting the present while anticipating the future.

In this book, Argenti presents a series of eclectic, well-observed case studies of people on Chios who bridge past and present in various ways. Fotis, the boat builder charged with sawing caiques in half to put them out of commission for fishermen seeking EU subsidies, expresses his horror at this new “crime against memory” (120). A joiner of planks to create the hulls that have insured the safety and livelihood of an island society, this articulator of tradition and memory is repelled by the disarticulation of the Chiot story. In another chapter, Argenti takes the reader to Anavatos, site of a legendary mass suicide when the villagers jumped over the side of the cliff rather than endure capture by the Ottomans in 1822. Today, an Asia Minor civic group...

审核人：

• 回忆缺席：尼古拉斯·阿根蒂（Nicolas Argenti）的希腊小岛生活感
• 查尔斯·斯图尔特（生物）

尼古拉斯·阿根提（Nicolas Argenti）在喀麦隆的格拉斯菲尔德（Grassfields）进行了博士研究，这使他考虑了对暴力的记忆，他与他合着了该书，撰写了有见地的著作（Argenti and Schramm 2010）。然后他的姓氏跟上了他。他将注意力转向了家人的故乡希俄斯（Chios），这是1822年一场可怕的大屠杀的地点。这本书的论点是，这样的事件不会在后退时期解决。Argenti为特定的“爱琴海时间性”辩护，这是永恒回报的定性，暴风雨时间（kairós，καιρός），如正统派，尼姑凯艾伊（νῦνκαὶἀεὶ）。过去可以通过有意的记忆来获取，但也可以通过自发的怀念而爆发，而自发的怀念在超越中被超越。爱琴海的时间性与标准的西方时间（khrónos，χρόνος）形成对比，后者通过线性和因果关系的思想以秒，天和年为单位进行定量测量。对于希俄斯的居民而言，日常历史思想源于当下生活的情感和奉献。

Argenti通过回想他分散在全球各地的家庭成员的照片开始他的（回到）希俄斯的旅程，这些照片是他小时候在巴黎的家中看到的。1822年之后，该岛本身再也没有成为贸易中心，而在散居国外的人们总是会感到悲惨的损失。因此，这些图片发出的忧郁信号超出了儿童的理解范围，但成年人容易理解。1822年的大屠杀是基乌特（Chiot）历史性的引力中心，它将一切都保持在轨道上，但如此强大，以至于没人敢直视它。正如弗劳伯特（Flaubert）在这本书的题词中所引述的那样：“很少有人会怀疑对迦太基进行复苏是多么的可悲。” Chiots默默地生活在大屠杀之后的潜意识，集体TRISTESSE。人们在回应Argenti的询问时会说：“我们不记得大屠杀了”（18）。他们继续说道：“向我们询问现在正在发生的屠杀，然后我们将有话要说。”他指的是在阿根蒂研究之时困扰希腊的经济危机。在这个悲剧的太阳系中，随后的苦难进入了1822年的引力，吸收了它的能量，折射了它的光，并传达了它的信息。

也许外伤的想法可能抓住了情况？Argenti拒绝了这一建议，认为“创伤”一词有可能使岛民病态化。创伤范式植根于西方的时间逻辑，它假设过去已经过去并且可以被抛在后面。弗洛伊德在他的建议中赞成这种时空本体论，例如，适当的哀悼可以使人[End Page 264]一个“继续前进”而不是沉迷于病态的忧郁。Argenti认为忧郁症是一项重要的生存工作。用他的话说，周期性的“集体记忆的拓扑转换”不是虚假主义，而是“一种活跃，活跃且面向未来的记忆形式，与时代错误是截然相反的”（93）。创伤的记忆可能表明韧性，而不是使固定衰弱（94）。Chiots是“时间的航海者”（73），在过去的海洋中航行，在解释未来的同时诠释现在。

在这本书中，Argenti提供了一系列折衷的，经过充分观察的案例研究，这些案例研究了希俄斯人以各种方式桥接过去和现在的情况。造船者福蒂斯（Fotis）负责锯切半开帆船，以免他们因寻求欧盟补贴的渔民而受到委托。他对这种新的“反对记忆犯罪”表示震惊（120）。木工拼凑而成的船壳确保了岛上社会的安全和生计，这种传统和记忆的表达被Chiot故事的不清晰所击退。在另一章中，阿甘蒂（Argenti）将读者带到阿纳瓦托斯（Anavatos），这是一个传奇的集体自杀之地，当村民跳过悬崖的一侧而不是在1822年忍受奥斯曼帝国的占领时。今天，一个亚洲小公民团体...