Abstract:

The "sentimental" narrator of Hari Kunzru's Red Pill is starting to feel like a self-described "waster."1 Away on fellowship in Berlin at the interdisciplinary Deuter Center for Social and Cultural Research, our writer-in-residence narrator ingests the eponymous capsule and "wakes up" to the obsolescence of literary humanism, a historical "period that was drawing to a close" (RP 46).2 Instead of using the time afforded by the fellowship to work on his grant winning project––notunironically titled "The Lyric I," and which aims to achieve poetic transcendence through a better understanding of "the construction of the self in lyric poetry" (RP 15)––the narrator whiles away his days on violent police procedurals and social media doom-scrolling.3 "I was like a miser, fretting about his emotional hoard," he confesses: "I frequently found myself hunched over my laptop, my eyes welling with tears … If the world changed, would I be able to protect my family?" (RP 6-7). Alternating between sentimental musings and apocalyptic fantasies, he slides into a "mad" state of internet-fueled paranoia and begins to see signs and symbols of "red pill" and Alt-Right ideology everywhere he looks (RP 280). The "sleepy-eyed cartoon frog" on a stranger's tee shirt slyly signals right-wing in-group belonging, while the OK sign made by the right hand of Carl Spitzweg's "Poor Poet" is reinterpreted as an allusion to contemporary fascist iconography, a cryptic communication from the not-so distant past (RP 27; 9-10).

摘要：

哈里·昆兹鲁 (Hari Kunzru) 的《红色药丸》中的“感性”叙述者开始感觉自己是一个自称为“浪费者”的人。1 在柏林跨学科的多特社会和文化研究中心获得奖学金后，我们的驻场作家叙述者吸收了同名的胶囊并“唤醒”了文学人文主义的过时，这是一个历史性的“即将结束的时期”（RP 46）。2而不是利用奖学金提供的时间来从事他的获奖项目——并非讽刺性的标题《抒情诗一》旨在通过更好地理解“抒情诗中的自我建构”来实现诗性超越（RP15)––叙述者在暴力的警察程序和社交媒体上的末日卷轴上打发时间。3“我就像一个守财奴，为自己的情感宝藏而烦恼，”他承认：“我经常发现自己弯腰伏在我的笔记本电脑上，我的眼睛里充满了泪水……如果世界改变了，我能保护我的家人吗？” （RP 6-7）。在感伤的沉思和世界末日的幻想之间交替，他陷入了一种由互联网引发的偏执狂的“疯狂”状态，并开始在他所看到的任何地方看到“红色药丸”和另类右翼意识形态的标志和符号（RP280）。陌生人 T 恤上的“睡眼卡通青蛙”巧妙地表明了右翼团体归属，而卡尔·斯皮茨威格（Carl Spitzweg）的“可怜诗人”右手做出的 OK 手势被重新解释为对当代法西斯肖像的暗示，来自不远的过去的神秘通信（RP 27；9-10）。