叙事中探索图像文化—詹妮弗·伊根小说《恶棍来访》叙事研究

聂宝玉

摘 要：詹妮弗·伊根的《恶棍来访》从20世纪70年代着笔，跨度近半个世纪，描述了人们与摇滚音乐相关的生活。该书2011年获普利策小说奖。在该书中，伊根通过采用非传统叙事策略，其中包括多主线的狂欢化叙事，时序倒置，PPT叙事等，充分展示出自己对当今社会的冷酷无情和道德丧失的感知。通过丰富的叙事技巧和人物刻画，伊根成功探索与图像文化紧密相关的主题，试图捕捉当下高科技新媒体迅猛发展的同时，每个人心底的自我毁灭的暗流和渴望救赎的人性本能，探讨人们在艺术与音乐里逃避时光的无情流逝，从而挖掘时间、记忆、爱、失落、与断裂等诸多主题。

关键词：《恶棍来访》;多主线的狂欢化叙事;时序倒置;PPT叙事;图像文化

一、Introduction

Jennifer Egan （1963- ）， winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize， is a contemporary American fiction writer with popular appeal and a novelist of ideas noted for the elegance of her style. Egan is the author of The Invisible Circus （1995）， a fiction that became a feature film starring Cameron Diaz; Emerald City and Other Stories （1997）; Look at Me， a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction in 2001; The Keep （2006）， a national bestseller after its publication; and A Visit From the Goon Squad （2010）， the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Consisting of thirteen pieces， with three of which were published separately in The New Yorker before the publication of the book， A Visit From the Goon Squad can be viewed as a collection of novellas or linked short stories or a sculpted， uniform collection of disparate parts. Each of the chapters can be read as individual stories， and does not focus on any single central character or narrative arena. Central characters in one story become background characters in others， peripheral characters from one story into the center of their own stories.

In Part A， Sasha， the 35-year-old kleptomaniac and assistant to Bennie， appears first in Chapter One “Found Objects”. Told from the third-person narrative， this chapter focuses on Sasha in 2008. Encouraged by her therapist， Sasha confesses her embarrassing experience when she stole a womans wallet and returned it later in the bathroom of the Lassimo Hotel， New York city， where she was having a blind date with Alex. Chapter Two “The Gold Cure”， also narrated from the third-person narrative， is about Bennie in 2006. Bennie， a music industry executive， spends boatloads of money on gold flakes that he sprinkles into his coffee， attempting to quell his shame-based memories and cure his sex incompetence. Chapter Three “Ask Me If I Care” is narrated by one of Bennies high schoolmates Rhea， from the first-person narrative， to tell stories of their high school time. As teenagers in 1979， Bennie and another boy Scotty played in a school band， The Flaming Dildos， with their schoolmates Jocelyn， Rhea and Alice as loyal followers. While Scotty clearly possessed more talent， Bennie was taken under the wing of Lou， a womanizing music producer who convinced under-aged Jocelyn to follow him to Los Angeles.

Chapter Four “Safari”， told from the third-person narrative， is about Lous trip to Africa in 1973， with his young mistress Mindy and his two young children， Rolph and Charlie. During the trip， Lou imparts his venomous theories about women to his eleven-year-old son Rolph. The story in Chapter Five “You （Plural）” takes place in the year 2005. Narrated from the first-person narrative of Jocelyn， this chapter describes the scene， when after knowing Lou for more than twenty years， Jocelyn and Rhea， now two middle aged women， visit the dying Lou at his house. The year of Chapter Six “Xs and Os” is 1997. Narrated by Scotty from the third persons voice， this chapter is about Scottys visit to Bennie. After reading about Bennies success as a music producer in Spin magazine， Scotty， now a divorced and disappointed school gatekeeper， pays a visit to Bennies grand and gorgeous office to find out the difference between Bennie and him during the past years. He goes to Bennies office with a striped bass he caught in the East River that morning.

Part B begins with Chapter Seven， “A to B”， which moves fast forward to years 2002 and 2004. From the third-person narrative， this chapter focuses on Bennie and his wife Stephanie， an assistant to publicity director La Doll. The couple struggle to fit in at the elite country club in their new neighborhood. While Stephanie struggles to save the comeback career of an outdated overweight rock star Bosco， her recently paroled brother Jules accompanies her and attempts to take the job to overcome his gone-awry celebrity that ruined by the interview of the starlet Kitty Jackson. Narrated from the third-person narrator， Chapter Eight， “Selling the General”， tells the story of Dolly in 2008. Dolly， formerly New Yorks top personal relationship agent who transformed her clients reputations overnight for her misdeed， is now forced to take on a genocidal dictator as a client to support herself and her nine-year-old daughter， Lulu. Dolly employs Kitty Jackson to assist her in performing the task. Chapter Nine “Forty Minute Lunch： Kitty Jackson Opens Up About Love， Fame， and Nixon！” is told from the first persons perspective. Written as a celebrity profile piece with large numbers of footnotes， this chapter consists of Jules Jones interview with young actress Kitty Jackson in 1999 which caused Jones imprisonment because of his reckless behavior during the interview.

By using second-person narrative， Chapter Ten “Out of Body” mainly portrays Rob. Back in college in 1993， Sashas best friend Rob is drowned after getting caught in a rivers current while hanging out with Sashas new boyfriend， Drew. Chapter Eleven， “Goodbye， My Love” goes back to the year 1991. Narrated by the third-person narrator， it tells the story of Sashas Uncle Ted， an art history professor， who travels to Naples， Italy in search of sasha. At the same time， we have also known Sashas past and future. When she was a teenager， she fled to Naples as an escape from her family， in Naples she worked as a part-time prostitute.

Chapter Twelve “Great Rock and Roll Pauses” happens years later in the future of 2025. Told by Alison from first-person narrative， it is about Sasha and her husband Drew and their two children， thirteen-year-old autistic boy Lincoln Blake and his younger sister Alison Blake， in a quiet place of the California high desert. Beyond her years compilation of Venn diagrams， twelve-year-old Alison strives to make sense of her familys melancholic relationship and her parents lingering grief for the death of a mutual friend， Rob， in a form of PowerPoint presentation. And in the final chapter “Pure Language”， not too long in the future， Alex， the guy Sasha was dating in the first chapter， reappears. He is now a husband and father， working as a “parrot” of Bennie who is now near sixty years old. Alex， along with Lulu， the daughter of La Doll， employs more than fifty people who broadcasts and advertises a product or person， whether or not they believe in it. In this case， its Bennies friend Scotty， whose resurrection as a one-man band for “kids and adults” has electrified New York City.

A particularly poignant moment at the end of the book is a moment that links the chapters of the entire book up and makes the book a wonderful circle. Interestingly Sashas apartment opens and closes the book. In the first chapter Alex takes a bath in Sashas kitchen bathtub during their date. In the last chapter， years later， after the success of Scottys solo concert， Alex and Bennie walk together on the Lower East Side and reminisce over their friend Sasha when standing outside an old tenement building where Sasha lived twenty years earlier. Both men have a positive emotional moment recalling Sasha. “I hope she found a good life，” says Bennie. “She deserves it.”（Egan， 378） Alex wishes she were there， he closes his eyes and listens; he hears a storefront gate go down， a dog bark， a truck rumble and a hum. Time has passed and both men have grown up and are becoming aged men. But time has a habit of circling around， like a turntable.

“Goon squads” originally referred to groups of violent thugs who would beat up anyone opposed to certain labor unions or corrupt political machines. Gradually the term “goon” came to refer more generally to any violent thug， and this is where the book draws its central metaphor. The phrase “Times a goon” intends to prove the idea that you can avoid all the dangers in the world， and you can try to keep up with changes in technology and pop culture， but time is the most stealing assailant that creeps upon you without your realizing it. In one story， a character named Bosco declares： “Times a goon， right？” （Egan， 145） referring to the way that time and fate cruelly robs most of the characters youth， innocence and success. Some of the characters in the book do end up finding happiness， but it is always a limited happiness， and it is rarely in the form that they intended.

Whether it reminds us of a collection of short stories or a novel-in-stories or a novel just does not matter， A Visit From the Goon Squad is a fresh genre-bending form that works. It is actually structured like an old-fashioned record album， with a side A and a side B. Though postmodern as it appears to be， Egan claims that the book is inspired， not so much by any post-modern theories of writing， as by good old-fashioned fictions written back especially in the 19th century when the experimental writers were not afraid to test the boundaries of their genre. By tactically employing narrative devices including multi-linear narrative， polyphonic narrative， anachrony， parody， black humor， PowerPoint narrative and so on， Egan successfully fulfills the themes in and around image culture， especially in the sense of new-media culture and celebrity culture in A Visit From the Goon Squad， such as losses and regrets as people change with time as well as some kind of personal reinvestment， redemption and transformation， fear of change and cultural irrelevance， change of technology and music， memory， pauses and so on.

二、Multi-lineared Polyphonic Narrative in Goon Squad

Frequently used by modernist and postmodernist writers， non-linear narrative completely subverts the traditional pattern. It pieces up the story with the arrangement of different themes， experiences or thoughts gathered together from various sources. In modern and postmodern narratives， in terms of the types of narrative plot and structure， non-linear narrative breaks the traditional narrative whose structure is in accordance with the strict relation of the sequence of events therefore it often manifests a disordered plot. “The basic features of the nonlinear are to dismiss the strict time sequences and causality， and make the characters and plots fade-out.” （Hu Yamin， 132） Writers often employ non-linear narrative to divide the story into fragments or pieces， thus making the plot loosely constructed and the story uneasy to comprehend. They believe that the ideal representation of the unreasonable and illogical modern world should be the non-linear narrative， as the modern world is always filled with countless fragments.

Polyphony is basically “a new theory of authorial point of view” propounded by Mikhail Bakhtin， which literally means “multi-voicedness”. Polyphony arises in fiction when the special position of the author allows great freedom of interaction to the characters. The characters in a polyphonic fiction are allowed maximum freedom so that they could argue with each other and even with their author. That is， in polyphonic fictions， different centers of consciousness are allowed to interact on the plane of the fiction.

Bakhtin makes a crucial connection between a “polyphonic” fiction and a “dialogic” fiction. He claims： “The polyphonic novel is dialogic through and through” （Bakhtin， 18）. David Lodge adds the synonymity between the two terms， “In Bakhtins theory， ‘polyphonic is virtually synonymous with ‘dialogic” （Lodge， 86）. Lynne Pearce makes a subtle distinction between the two terms even though she also suggests the interrelatedness of the two terms. She puts forward that “polyphony” is associated with the macrocosmic structure of the text （literally， its “many voices”） and “dialogue” is associated with reciprocating mechanisms within the smaller units of exchange， down to the individual word. As is agreed by critics， the peculiarity of a polyphonic fiction is that characters are absolutely free from authorial control. The voice of the author is here never dominant and the characters “answer back” with great freedom. The hero occupies a unique position in a polyphonic fiction. His or her position is as important as that of the author. He or she stands along the side of the author， and as another individual human being he or she listens to the author， responds to him， agrees or disagrees with him.

A Visit From the Goon Squad defies the traditional narrative structure and Egan has mentioned in several interviews that she fluctuates between calling this book a novel or a short story collection — it could be either of the two. Or shes rather call the book a fiction. The book is divided into thirteen chapters and two sections： A and B. As if the author has taken an epic novel covering five decades and expertly cut them into pieces， getting rid of excess characters and years to form a narrative that is wide-ranging but remarkably focused. The remains， a set of short stories tactically assembled in nonchronological order， forming vibrant but wonderful coherence and combine perfectly with each other. There is no beginning， no middle and no ending in the book. The first impression of the book is that there are a mess of characters and stories without coherence or origination. Each chapter offers a new perspective， each character appears and disappears， though each one “recurs” as a supporting cast member， from Sasha to her boss Bennie， to Bennies mentor Lou， to Bennies poor former bandmate Scotty， to Bennies former wife Stephanie and the former guitarist of the Conduits Bosco， to Stephanies boss Dolly， a famous PR， to Stephanies paroled brother Jules Jones， to Sashas college friend Rob， to Sashas uncle Ted Hollander， to an entire chapter laid out as a PowerPoint presentation by Sashas daughter， Alison Blake， and finally to almost all the characters in the last chapter. Every piece has a different story and every piece seems like a different world and has a different feeling from all of the others. The main plot has been cut into lots of pieces and fragments， all the events and characters seem like broken mirror and broken threads that need efforts to put them together again to get an intact frame.

Yet the explosive combination of all these separate sounding units is very powerful. Egan invites readers to glimpse as well as observe them through the stories of family， friends and some of past acquaintances. The time period ranges from 1979， with a nostalgically retrospective look at the punk scene in San Francisco， to a disturbing but entirely imaginable future set in Manhattan and the California desert in 2025. Each chapter could stand alone and is at the highest level individually and each one fulfills its own intentions completely but also ideally. The book zooms around time but it completely defies linearity. Each chapter is like an independent timeline， better understood vertically than horizontally. The book shows how every encounters， whether its a one-time acquaintance or a lifelong friend， has the potential to change the direction of ones life， but no matter what you do， time is the one goon you can never avoid.

Apart from the non-linear narrative， the narrative in A Visit From the Goon Squad alternates between different person accounts. Among the thirteen chapters， Chapters One， Two， Four， Seven， Eight， Eleven and Thirteen adopt the third-person omniscient narrative; Chapters Three， Five， Six， Nine and Twelve employ first-person limited narrative. And， it is maybe only Egan who can throw in a virtuosic second-person story in her fiction. In Chapter Ten， a suicidal young man tells his tale from the perspective of “you”. With various perspectives， shifting narrators and different sounds combine into a unified entity as an independent voice， the book reads more like a polyphonically carnival dialogue. In the polyphonic fiction， many characters have equal or similar position. They and the world they represent are combined together by a certain event in which they keep individual independence. Just as Egan states “I wanted to avoid centrality. I wanted polyphony. I wanted a lateral feeling， not a forward feeling. My ground rules were： every piece has to be very different， from a different point of view”， （Julavits， 84） the multi-voiced structure of A Visit From the Goon Squad is partly a bid to show that the golden era， the lost world that you search for， looks different depending on who you are and where you stand. The non-lineared polyphonic narratives also establish， without any doubt， that Egan is one of the most significant living practitioners of the contemporary fiction writing.

三、Anachrony in Goon Squad

According to Genette， “Narrative is a doubly temporal sequence…： There is the time of the thing told and the time of the narrative.” （Genette， 1980： 33） So attention should be paid to compare “the order in which events or temporal sections is arranged in the narrative discourse with the order of succession these same events or temporal sections have in the story， to the extent that story order is explicitly indicated by the narrative itself or inferable from one or another indirect clue.”（Ibid.， 35） “Anachrony” refers to the discordance between the order of the story which is narrated and narration. When the anachrony is employed， the time sequence of the narrating differs greatly from the original order of the story itself. The order is deployed freely or even optionally by the author. In some cases， this kind of discrepancy is usually designed by the author to the extreme. It occurs frequently in the modernist literature and the post-modernist literature， especially in the works of stream of consciousness.

According to narratologists， there are generally two kinds of anachrony. “The one is the known as ‘flashback or ‘retrospection and the other one is ‘foreshadowing or ‘anticipation.” （Rimmon-Kenan， 2005： 46） In Narrative Discourse， Genette gives them other names： “prolepsis” and “analepsis”. He designates the prolepsis as “an narrative maneuver that consists of narrating or evoking in advance an event that will take place later” （Genette， 1980： 40）， the analepsis “any evocation after the fact of an event that took place earlier than the point in the story where we are at any given moment” （Ibid.） and anachronies “all forms of discordance between the two temporal orders of story and narrative” （Ibid.， 41）.

In A Visit From the Goon Squad， Egan experiments with narratives. When first appears， Sasha is a thirty-five-year-old and single. She is living in Manhattan and suffering from a kind of kleptomania. The pilfering has caused her to lose her job， after twelve years employment during which Sasha functioned as her boss Bennies secretary who had been “like the other half of my （Bennies） brain. Three-quarters， really.”（Egan， 376） But the next chapter， Bennie takes us back to the day when Sasha was still in his employment. During which many elements of the story， including some happy endings and unpleasant events， are presented as a way of either analepsis or prolepsis. It is as if Egan is slowly filling in the overlapping forms of a mathematical Venn Diagram， showing readers where and how these people and time frames connect and intersect as well. She occasionally steps outside her own blueprint and several times prophesies events that will happen much later.

In the “Safari” chapter， Charlie， a fourteen-year-old white American girl on an African vacation with her father Lou and his girlfriend， dances in front of some young African warriors. At that moment， Charlie is attracted by a nineteen-year-old handsome drummer who “has sung for enough American tourists to recognize that in her world， Charlie is a child.”（Egan， 71） And at that moment Egan brings us to an epic prolepsis of the young warrior and even his familys future： He is fated to be a tribal chief. One of his grandsons will become an engineer in America and marry Lulu， a character in the later chapters and also the protagonist in Egans next fiction Black Box.

Thirty-five years from now， in 2008， this warrior will be caught in the tribal violence between the Kikuyu and the Luo and will die in a fire. Hell have had four wives and sixty-three grandchildren by then， one of whom， a boy named Joe， will inherit his lalema： ... Hell marry an American named Lulu ... He and Lulu will buy a loft in Tribeca， where his grandfathers hunting dagger will be displayed inside a cube of Plexiglas， directly under a skylight. （GS， 71）

The seemingly random and unrelated prolepses not only foreshadow the future story of Lulu which functions as an intertextual narrative between A Visit From the Goon Squad and Egans next fiction Black Box， but also bring readers to participate into the story， to trace the history as well as the future fate of the characters.

Besides the tale of the young warrior， Egan deploys prolepses when narrating other characters in the same chapter. When talking about Charlie， Egan also predicts her future：

Four years from now， at eighteen， shell join a cult across the Mexican border whose charismatic leader promotes a diet of raw eggs; shell nearly die from salmonella poisoning before Lou rescues her. A cocaine habit will require partial reconstruction of her nose， changing her appearance， and a series of feckless， domineering men will leave her solitary in her late twenties， trying broker peace between Rolph and Lou， who will have slopped speaking. （Egan， 93）

Further on， Egan tells the future of the marriage between Lou and Mindy： they will have two children， then they will divorce， Mindy will end up working as a travel agent to support her little girls. For a time her life will be joyless; the girls will seem to cry too much， and shell think longingly of this trip to Africa as the last happy moment of her life， eventually she will resume her study and complete her Ph.D. study， her youngest daughter will go to work for Lou， becoming his protégée， and inheriting his business. Then back suddenly in the African present to the dance， Charlie imagines her brother Rolphs future suicide and something more about her future life， and there is one more leap forward：

Charlie feels it too. In fact， this particular memory is one shell return to again and again， for the rest of her life， long after Rolph has shot himself in the head in their fathers house at twenty eight： her brother as a boy， hair slicked flat， eyes sparkling， shyly learning to dance. But the woman who remembers wont be Charlie; after Rolph dies， shell revert to her real name—Charlene—unlatching herself forever from the girl who danced with her brother in Africa. Charlene will cut her hair short and go to law school. When she gives birth to a son shell want to name him Rolph， but her parents will still be too shattered. So shell call him that privately， just in her mind， and years later， shell stand with her mother among a crowd of cheering parents beside a field， watching him play， a dreamy look on his face as he glances at the sky. （Egan， 95）

Apart from the “Safari” chapter， we find Sasha and her family living in a future in the PowerPoint chapter， in which solar panels have replaced lawns. In this chapter， Sasha autistic son Lincoln is obsessed with the pauses he finds in music. Lincolns desire to catalog these musical silences is confusing and annoying his father. At a crucial point， Sasha concisely explains it to her husband： “The pause makes you think the song will end. And then the song is not really over， so youre relieved. But then the song does actually end， because every song ends， obviously， and THAT. TIME. THE. END. IS. FOR. REAL” （Egan， 315）

The scene of the last chapter “Pure Language” is also set in the near future of 2020s with almost all the characters incorporated. Egan anticipates that marketing people will manipulate Facebook and Twitter by hiring teams of paid “parrots” to spread the word just as digital press agents. Babies， called “pointers，” also use handsets and touches screens to play and download music freely：

Now that Starfish， or kiddie handsets， were ubiquitous， any child who could point was able to download music—the youngest buyer on record being a three-month-old in Atlanta， whod purchased a song by Nine Inch Nails called “Ga-ga.” Fifteen years of war had ended with a baby boom， and these babies had not only revived a dead industry but become the arbiters of musical success…（Egan， 347-348）

As to the prolepsis， it is an allusion or anticipation to the events in the future and is a narrative activity of the reminding or narrating the things which will happen for the time to come. The “anachronic” narrative technique in A Visit From the Goon Squad decomposes the narrative time of traditional fiction writing. As to the analepsis， the best example in the fiction should be Chapter Three， “Ask Me If I Care，” in which Bennies narrative switches to an earlier timeline. This chapter is narrated by Bennies high school friend Rhea， who tells her high school time when playing rock together with her school mates Jocelyn， Alice， Scotty and Bennie. Its this analepsis that shows us the punk rock lifestyle Bennie used to live， a time when “he irons his hair in a Mohawk as shiny black as a virgin record.” （Egan， 48） This analepsis chapter also reveals the complicated relationship between the five buddies which causes their later different life and work traits.

By deploying anachrony， particularly the rarely used prolepses， Egan not only tactically explores the new mode of literary creation but also exposes the theme of confusion and uncertainty of people changing with time， her deep concern on the issue of how the highly advanced technology effects the way we live. Egans way of narrative is her own pauses， prolonging and at the same time preparing for the end. In the fiction， Bennie， one of the two rock stars who made Bennies career， Bosco， remarks at two different points that “Time is a goon， right？”（GS， 145） Time is a goon in the fiction， time is a violent thug that pays periodic visits to remind us we are all slowly dying. But that lilting， questioning “right？” is crucial， which reminds that some of the characters are always fighting with the goon of the time and they eventually achieve what they have always wished to do.

四、PowerPoint Narrative in Goon Squad

One much-discussed and highly praised chapter in Goon Squad， Chapter Twelve， “Great Rock and Roll Pauses”， is written in the unconventional form of seventy-six Microsoft PowerPoint slides. Amazingly， it is the books most touching and probably most memorable section. PowerPoint， a program included in the popular “Microsoft Office” suite of software， allows users to create visual presentations using slide templates and the image. It has the special function of being projected from a computer onto a larger screen for an audiences benefit. The ease of use has made PowerPoint a reliable and ubiquitous presence at board meetings and conferences worldwide. In recent years， PowerPoint has reached beyond business office. People have used PowerPoint slides almost every where. They employ PowerPoint slides at their wedding reception to depict a series of “priority points” and pictures of their courtship. Teachers are using the software in the classrooms to make their class more interesting and much more information abundant. Students are using PowerPoint software to craft wonderful class presentations.

As the tool of consultants and communication， PowerPoint seems an unlikely literary device. No one expects to find this format in a persuasive and imaginative fiction. But Egan deploys it with great delicacy. When talking about the adoption of Point Power narrative in this chapter， Egan emphasizes that she has a few ground rules for the stories in the book from the beginning. One of them is that each piece should be different from the others. Each story has to stand on its own and be readable， comprehensible and ideally excellent without help from those around it. But it also has to match with others to create a whole. The impetus of writing a chapter in the form of PowerPoint in A Visit From the Goon Squad， according to Egan， comes from a sense that PowerPoint has become a true literary genre in Obamas election campaign：

I remember reading the summer before the last election that the Obama campaigns turnaround had happened in response to a seminal PowerPoint presentation， and thinking， it wasnt referred to as a “presentation” or a “memo，” or a “paper，” but a “PowerPoint presentation.” And if PowerPoint has become that basic a form of communication， then I have to write some fiction in it. （Julavits， 85）

When she sold the book to the publisher， there were twelve stories. The one that was not there was the PowerPoint chapter. Egan explains that she wanted to have thirteen stories， but she did not want to write another traditional story. “It had to be radical， or it wasnt going in. I really wanted to write a chapter in epic verse， because I thought epic verse and PowerPoint in one novel， come on. Irresistible！”（Brockes， 1） Then， all of a sudden， she had the idea of how to deal with the thirteenth chapter that also adhered to her rules of little overlap and lots of connectedness. The chapter was going to be narrated by Sashas daughter， and it would be told in a really different way. Egan had to teach herself how to compose the PowerPoint slides first. It is not merely a gimmick， although it looks startling on the page and she has no confidence that her publisher would accept it. “I thought they might say， no， this is too expensive， or too far out. And I was perfectly prepared to have the chapter be an url （that is， to be deleted）.”（Brockes， 5） She filed the first draft of the book without that chapter， then slipped it into the final version she sent to the publisher， crossing her fingers that they would not stop it. “I did it sneakily. They were expecting light revisions. But I thought， all Im going to do is make everyone frightened by telling them Im writing in PowerPoint. And I was really possessed by the need to make it work.” （Brockes， 5） Inevitably， when she sent it to her agent and editor， neither of them could open the attachment so she had to print it out and fax it to them. “They did not follow my instructions. My agent immediately called for technological support.” （Ibid.）

The PowerPoint chapter is told from the viewpoint of a twelve-year-old girl， and as the title “Great Rock and Roll Pauses” implies， there are many things left unsaid and the pauses between things that are said in the chapter. As it eventually turns out， PowerPoint is an ideal narrative method for conveying that concept. Egan explained her views on the method in an interview：

I think （PowerPoint） ended up being the format in which I could lay bare the deep， underlying ideas of the whole book. I think it breaks down a narrative into a sequence of moments that basically hang in the air， and then give up their place to the next moment. Conventional fiction is all about giving this impression of continuity. In PowerPoint， the connective stuff falls away， and that was really different from what I normally do. （Kim， http：//cwebpro.com/database_webdesign/10-tips-for-great- storytelling-from-a-Powerpoint-novelist.html）

The slides， designed by a tech-savvy adolescent character， Alison Blake， call to mind “not the colorful multimedia aesthetic of Web 2.0， as we would expect of the character， but rather the grayscale， text-heavy style of nineties-era management consulting presentations and web browsers.”（Carruth， 355） By means of PowerPoint in， Alison describes a multifaceted story of her family and the desert landscape surrounding them： Drew， father of the family， a surgeon adored by colleagues， remains rather a mystery to his wife Sasha and their two children. The parents share guilty knowledge of a long ago accidental death of their mutual friend Rob that they do not discuss with each other， much less with the children. Alisons thirteen-year-old brother Lincoln， the center of the story， suffers from Aspergers syndrome that he expresses his feelings and thoughts mainly through an obsessive interest in the length of pauses on records. He uses digital recording and looping technologies to catalog the silent pauses in iconic rock songs.

The chapter is structured with so many hyperlinks， radiating out from the desert landscape and nuclear family to a much wider world， which invokes the many characters and plots that occupy Egans tale of the music industry before and after digitization. In this aspect， the PowerPoint chapter mirrors the fiction as a whole， which Egan thinks of as a “tentacled” narrative whose multiple storylines mimic the “lateral curiosity” that web surfing promotes. In the chapter， Alison resorts to PowerPoint because it is her native idiom; but the author is obviously delighted in overcoming the artificial constraints of the format in order to tell the story of a girls relationship with her autistic brother and his pathetic obsession with musical pauses. Just outside the Blake familys house is an enormous solar array sited at the edge of a desert community. One evening， as the PowerPoint slides tells us， Alison and her father walk out to the array together：

After a Long Time， We Reach the Solar Panels

（Egan， 325）

The graphic narrative here is not only a way to show how isolated the modern human beings are， but also a way to reflect Egans deep concerns with the contemporary issues. It ultimately counters current notions of renewable energy by painting an ominous picture of the solar panels as “oily black things.” The desert energy grid Egan describes through the medium of a graphical software program also enforces her deep exploration into the contemporary image culture， especially peoples connection with the Internet， corporate networks and highly-advanced mobile devices that the reader encounters in the books last chapter， which is set in the near future. As Mishra points out：

Several interlocking developments specific to this period form the political and cultural background to the books diversely alienated characters： the neutralisation of the counterculture， the decline of family capitalism， the rise of corporate political and economic power， and of credit-fuelled high-end consumption， which together lead to a state of mass depoliticisation where even the obsession with personal identity that had previously overlaid the reality of class conflict turns into competition between consumer status groups （iPhone v. Blackberry – that kind of thing）. （Mishra， 28）

The digital， Internet-based narrative form is surely a brave departure from the traditional literary narrative. Egan， therefore， is called “one of the most recent and successful examples of a trend that has been steadily seeping into the world of contemporary literature.” （Bastian， http：//www.npr.org/2011/04/19/135546674/goon-squad-ushers-in-an-era-of-new-perspectives） PowerPoint， as a visual medium， has become re-fashionable and would be used more frequently in the near future. Such a kind of narrative in A Visit From the Goon Squad not only offers the book an opportunity to concretize Egans interests in the widely used webs hyperlinked structure and the cognitive and social behaviors it cultivates， but also provides us with a structure of loose associations rather than the logic of chronology or thematic connection. It is through the PowerPoint narrative that A Visit From the Goon Squad not only mimics the web but also visualizes the present image culture of “the throbbing heart of the Internet”. Portraying part of the energy infrastructure and ecological foot print in the format of high-tech-based narrative， this chapter tactically uncovers the isolation and estrangement between ordinary people， husband and wife， parents and children. Yet at the same time， by deploying PowerPoint narrative， Egan probably want to convince the reader that the future is also full of hope. The future that we glimpse in this chapter is actually very hopeful： the solar panels in the desert are a means of forestalling or avoiding the catastrophes of global warming. And also in Chapter Thirteen， certain measures seem to have been taken to slow down the effects of global warming， for instance， the flood wall along the Hudson River. We cannot say with certainty that this future is utopian， but it is at least tending in a hopeful direction; at least it is not dystopian.

As PowerPoint has caused criticism almost from the beginning of its appearance， it has been widely called as assistance and a disaster or virus at the same time. Some claim that this kind of software program aids sophistry， others have argued that it usually hides the presenters ignorance with constantly flashing images and bullet points instead of words and discussion. Rather than simply a tool that aids thought， PowerPoint changes the way we think， forcing us to express ourselves in the form of its unique function. Therefore， as one of the boldest challenges and departures from the traditional narrative format， will this internet-based narrative form truly reach critical mass and survive the future literary creation and criticism， is still a matter of time. Anyway， “only that which can be said using PowerPoint is worth saying at all.” （Rosen， 44）

五、Conclusion

“Time is a goon，” Marcel Proust talks about time by proposing that what we see as time changing is really our memory changing at different times in our lives. To remember things accurately， our minds have to go back to that particular time in order to truly capture who we once were. Our current self cannot see our past self in a true way. Egan takes this into account in her fiction， by showing her characters as they once were， and then， as they see themselves now. With thirteen discrete， overlapping narratives set on three continents and in at least four different decades， each with its own central figure and variations of style or mode， A Visit From the Goon Squad is a book about how things unfold over time， about the questions of who perseveres and who drops out. Twice in the book one character says “time is a goon，” （Egan， 145 and 370） to which another character says， “Ive never heard that.”（Egan， 145） Since the 1930s American English has used “goon squad” to mean hoodlums sent to beat up someone， often in a labor dispute. In this case， time-the-goon-squad beats up the vigorous， ambitious young people in Egans story， surprising them with its power. Time is always the biggest issue in the book， almost all characters in the book seem to battle with time. Time keeps hitting them until they stop breathing. Yet there is hope， many characters successfully survive childhood， survive accidents， survive other peoples expectations， and eventually get what they want.

Egan makes good use of experimental narrative techniques in the book. With multi-lineared polyphonic narrative， anachrony， parody， black humor， PowerPoint narrative and so on， A Visit From the Goon Squad focuses on the points in and around image culture including the issues of the counterculture， fear of aging and cultural irrelevance， shame， redemption and survival， changing technology and music， memory， pauses and so on. With the application of experimental narrative techniques， the book interrupts the traditional developments of storytelling. It is one of the best tricky books. Egans aim is “not so much to explode traditional storytelling as to explore how it responds to the pressures and opportunities of the digital age.” （Yabroff， 2010. http：//www. newsweek.com/jennifer-egan-likes-73021） It is such an unusual book that its not easy to categorize. The rode from A to B is not always in a straight line， it curves around， zigzags madly， loops back， runs into life itself， and is a path connecting the kaleidoscope snapshots of our beings that somehow will eventually fall into the beautiful but ever-changing patterns， which before you know it will fall apart into another snapshot. Time passes， and with it we change slowly and subtly but unavoidably until one day， we stop being ourselves without recognizing it.

References：

[1] Bakhtin， Mikhail. Emerson， Caryl ed. and trans. Problems of Dostoevskys Poetics [M].Minneapolis： University of Minnesota Press， 1984.

[2] Bastian， Jonathan. “Goon Squad Ushers In An Era Of New Perspectives” [OL]. Page by Page， a syndicated literary program on Aspen Public Radio. April 19， 2011. http：//www.npr.org/2011/04/19/135546674/goon-squad-ushers-in-an-era-of-new-perspectives.

[3] Brockes， Emma. “A Life in Writing： Jennifer Egan” [J]. The Guardian， May 7， （2011）：1-6.

[4] Carruth， Allison. “The Digital Cloud and the Micropolitics of Energy” [J]. Public Culture 26： 2. Copyright 2014 by Duke University Press： 339-364.

[5] Egan， Jennifer. A Visit from the Goon Squad [M]. New York： Anchor Books. 2010.

[6] Genette， Gerard. Narrative Discourse： An Essay in Method [M]. Ithaca， New York： Cornell University Press， 1980.

[7] Julavits， Heidi. “Jennifer Egan” [J]. BOMB， No.112. （2010）：82-87.

[8] Kim， Doug. “10 tips for great storytelling from a PowerPoint novelist” [OL]. Certified Web Pro. Aug18， 2011. http：//cwebpro.com/database_webdesign/10-tips-for-great-storytelling-from-a-powerpoint-novelist.html

[9] Lodge， David. After Bakhtin： Essays on Fiction and Criticism[M]. London： Routledge， 1990.

[10] Mishra， Pankaj. “Modernitys Undoing. Review of A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan” [J].London Review of Books， No.7. March 31（2011）： 27-30.

[11] Rimmon-Kenan， Shlomith. Narrative Fiction[M]. London and New York： Taylor&Francis e-Library， 2005.

[12] Rosen， Christine. “The Image Culture” [J]. The New Atlantics， No.10， Fall （2005）： 27-46.

[13] Yabroff， Jennie.“Jennifer Egan Likes This” [OL]. Newsweek. June 3， 2010.http：//www.newsweek.com/jennifer -egan-likes-73021

[14] 胡亚敏，《叙事学》[M].武汉：华中师范大学出版社， 2004年。

（Hu Yamin. Narratology[M]. Wuhan： Huzhong Normal University Press， 2004.）