ABSTRACT

After being severely injured by a mine explosion in Afghanistan, former British soldier, Harry Parker, wrote about his experiences in his debut novel, Anatomy of a Soldier. Narrated by objects, this ‘novel’ is an innovative and important literary intervention. In this extended review article, I explore the phenomenological and sociological insights of this work. I begin by making two related hermeneutic claims: Firstly, I argue that this work should be understood phenomenologically, exposing how the Self is coextensive with its material world. Secondly, I confront the generic ambiguity of the text and suggest that it should be read as (phenomenologically) autobiographical. Building on this phenomenological interpretation, I then explore three sociological implications of this object narrative method, namely, about motivation, agency, and intersubjectivity: Parker’s narrating objects, I argue, unveil a phenomenologically constituted and temporally elongated form of agency. Overall, I show that this ‘novel’ offers significant insights into experience, behaviour, and Self, both in the context of war and more broadly.

摘要

在阿富汗因地雷爆炸受重伤后，前英国士兵哈里·帕克在他的处女作《士兵解剖》中写下了他的经历。. 通过对象叙述，这部“小说”是一种创新且重要的文学介入。在这篇扩展评论文章中，我探讨了这项工作的现象学和社会学见解。我首先提出两个相关的解释学主张：首先，我认为应该从现象学上理解这项工作，揭示自我如何与其物质世界共同扩展。其次，我面对文本的一般歧义，并建议将其解读为（现象学上的）自传。在这种现象学解释的基础上，我随后探索了这种客体叙事方法的三个社会学含义，即关于动机、能动性和主体间性：我认为，帕克的叙述客体揭示了一种在现象学上构成和时间拉长的能动性形式。全面的，