디지털 모더니즘 시대의 문학: 러쉬디의 『플로렌스의 여자 마법사』의 경우

Abstract

The most prominent cultural trend since the supposed decline of postmodernism is digimodernism. Digimodernism, grounded in the technological and material change, and the mode of production, is not just a passing trend, but a movement comparable to postmodernism in its groundedness in material life and in its wide cultural repercussions. Development of digital technology is fundamentally changing the cultural torpography of our time. The main consumers of digital gadgets are children and young adults, and it is not strange that their taste decides the cultural trend of our time. Prominence of fantasy and mythology, regression to primal forms of narrative, retraction of complex postmodern cognitive questioning of reality are some of the features that dominate contemporary cultural products. Interestingly, digimodernism is not only instrumental in guaranteeing literary popularity of infantilized literature such as the <Harry Potter> series or <The Lord of the Rings> series, but is actually affecting the form of serious adult literature as well. Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence is examined as a case in point in this paper. Several aspects of digimodernist culture such as digimodernist textuality, infantilized digimodernist aesthetics, as well as digimodernist cultural practices are woven into the novel. However, it is free from some of the pitfalls of digimodernist culture that Alan Kirby, the author of Digimodernism, is worried about, such as supremacy of consumerism, indifference to knowledge and competence, autism, and blind commitment to blatant forms of grand narratives. As a writer, who has been known to apply film techniques in fiction, as well as involvement in a wide range of media activities, it is not surprising that Rushdie displays such adaptability to digital media. In the hands of this virtuoso, digital cultural features lure the contemporary readers into the novelistic world, and enriches the imaginative possibilities of the novel, and provides creative insight into history and revaluation of humanism. Digimodernism as adopted by Rushdie seems to surmount its negative implications and actually provide an outlet from the impasse the novel genre is trapped in.