现实百态 》 根 Roots: The Saga of an American Family 》
前言
艾裏剋斯·哈利 Alex Haley
亞歷剋斯·哈利（Alex·Haley）：美國黑人作傢，1921年生於紐約州的伊薩卡，1939-1959年在海岸警衛隊服役，其間當過記者。1965 年與人合寫了黑人領袖馬爾科姆·艾剋斯的傳記。在要找出黑人傳統的欲望驅使下，他對岡比亞有關口頭傳說進行了調查研究，發現自己傢族可追溯到七代之前的一個非洲人，他被作為奴隸於1767年運到安納波利斯。哈利以大量史實為基礎，增補一些細節，於1976年寫出了長篇傢史小說《根》。該書獲1977年普利策特別奬，改編成電視連續劇上演後轟動全國。
前言
二十年前，當《根》風靡美國的時候，它是被列在“非小說類暢銷書”中的。1977年4月，美國國傢書籍奬金委員會把歷史特等奬授予了《根》，以表彰這部“非虛構的歷史作品”。但是它二十年來在全世界的流傳表明，讀者們通常並不是把《根》當作一般意義的歷史來閱讀，他們更多的是沉浸在對《根》所描述的傢族命運的關切之中，為它深刻的主題、活生生的形象和豐富的情感所打動。《根》更應該是一部文學作品，是一部優秀的歷史小說。雖然作者信誓旦旦地說他怎樣在塵封的故紙堆中尋找歷史的綫索、書中的人物怎樣是他的爺娘祖奶奶，這些都並不重要，重要的是它的歷史真實性是融合在它的藝術價值之中的。
因此《根》應該進入世界文學名著的行列。
強調《根》是文學作品，並不意味我們貶低它的歷史含量和認識價值，恰恰相反，形象大於思想，正是它的藝術再現，使讀者們更深刻地認識了美國黑人乃至美國的一段歷史。
回顧美國文學，以最敏感的黑人問題為題材的作品已形成了一個專門的類別，據說其中是《湯姆大伯的小屋》、《飄》和《根》影響最大，最有代表性。其實，前兩部作品還不能和《根》相比，完全以黑人的生活為主要情節且以黑人為主人公的作品，《根》是有開創意義的。尤其它的獨特的敘述方式，“從頭道來”，從“根”挖起，以一代一代黑人的命運，以他們的苦難和追求，雄辯地展示了主題，賦予了《根》以史詩的光輝。
《根》挖掘了一條美國黑人之根。這條根開始在1750年早春，西非岡比亞河上的嘉福村。這是作者所稱由他上推七代的祖先降生之地，這條根也是所有美國黑人之根的代表和象徵。請看康達·金特從出世到被白人奴販即“土霸”擄掠去之前，那一段非洲部落的生活是多麽淳樸和諧。那播種和豐收季節的歌舞與祈禱、篝火前的長老議事會、森林中的男子成年典禮……這一切都顯示着他們人與人之間的關係是優雅自如的，是和諧的；而那晨霧蕩漾的肯必·波隆河上，獨木舟劃破了平靜的水面，驚醒了狒狒，驚散了野豬，林間百鳥鳴囀，河上蒼鷺齊飛……這又是一個多麽和諧的自然環境！人們常說應該以人與人的關係、人與自然的關係如何來檢測一個民族的文明程度，應該看到，康達·金特的民族决不是野蠻的。野蠻的是把他們當獵物擄掠去的白人“土霸”。這個後來成為美國黑人的傢族的苦難史就是從康達·金特被捕捉開始的，他們的非洲之根就從此處斷了。
曾有人批評《根》所描繪的非洲生活情景過於理想化和浪漫化了，不夠真實。這樣的指摘其實還是一個歷史小說中“歷史”和“小說”之間關係的老問題。《根》不是功能學派的社會人類學考察報告，它的細節應該服從它的主題和更深刻的歷史真實。當第一代黑奴在遙遠的異鄉受盡又孤苦無告時，那衹能在夢中相見的故土自然也就顯得和天堂一樣美好。作者所寫的是一個民族的象徵的歷史，那非洲的根已被註入了深層的含義，是終極追求的代稱。
儘管已經有很多作品記錄了美國黑人所遭受的苦難，但讀一讀《根》仍然會使我們的心為他們的苦難而震顫。從越洋運奴船上那些“土霸”們種種令人發指的暴行，到美國南方種植園裏無窮無盡的苦役，黑人們是生活在血淚之中。讀者不會忘記這樣一個情節：在黑奴拍賣臺上，一位黑人母親當衆摔死了自己親生的嬰兒，為的是“你們對我所做的一切，休想再做到我孩子身上”。白人們對她做了什麽？不必細說我們就可以想象這位母親所蒙受的必然比死亡還要慘烈可怕，以致他不惜摧毀女兒剛剛獲得的生命，免得她再經歷母親的苦難。然而《根》更突出了美國黑人精神上所受的，那種失去了人的尊嚴而給心靈帶來的痛苦。書中反復地指出：人最寶貴的東西，是知道自己是什麽人，是從哪兒來的；而“土霸”們最惡毒之處就是不讓黑人有自己的語言、自己的風俗，讓他們不知道自己的“根”。因此，黑人們無法真正得到解放。用書中的話來說：“就是為白人工作一千年後，你還是黑奴。”沒有了來歷，沒有了歸屬感，黑人們衹能世世代代被賣來賣去，即使在廢奴以後，也衹能是茫然的漂泊者。“我漂泊，我徬徨，蘭斯頓·休斯之語也正是代表了這種心態。《根》就是把這種歸屬感的尋求作為己任，在一個黑人家庭七代的歷史中開闢艱苦的探訪之路。
經過十二年的探索，作者終於找到了自己的“根”。他把這一過程寫在了小說的最後部分，增加了此書的紀實色彩。他通過祖祖輩輩口耳相傳的片言衹語的非洲話，終於找到了岡比亞河畔祖先的村落，找到了他的黑奴第一代祖先康達·金特的來歷。
掘到這條“根”是很了不起的，也使全書的主題完成了自己的樂章。受此鼓舞，事實上七十年代末許多美國黑人也掀起了一股尋根熱潮。但是，是不是找到了自己祖先的村落也就真正找到了自己的尊嚴和價值了呢？恐怕不盡如此。美國的黑人問題是一個社會問題，而種族問題衹是這個問題的標簽。找到了種族意義上的根，並不等於找到瞭解决這個社會問題的根。割斷黑人的民族傳統，以蒙昧壓製他們，並不是白人統治者肆虐的主要手段，至少不是唯一手段。即使到今天，即使在一些方面的境遇得到了不同程度的改善，即使尋到了根，美國黑人要想獲得真正的平等、自由與解放，他們也還有許多事情要做。不過那是《根》以外的事情了。
其實《根》不僅挖掘了美國黑人之根，它也必然觸及美國白人之根。
美國是白人統治的國傢，黑人是以奴隸的身份被強製送到美洲大陸的。因此白人是主人。書中就描寫了幾位不同的主人：買下康達的約翰主人冷酷殘暴，他的哥哥華勒主人“富有同情心而仁慈”，買下濟茜的李主人下流無恥，是十足的人渣，墨瑞主人又似乎分外開通。然而所有這些主人--“好”主人和壞主人，都有一個共同處，那就是一切必須按照白人的規則行事，黑人永遠衹能聽任宰割，在主人面前衹能說“是”。在這個黑白分明的世界裏，就白色主人整體而言，偽善和殘暴衹是對黑人交替使用的手段。對這一點，《根》揭露得很清楚。幾個不同面目的白人主人其實都有這一根靠奴隸制度以自肥的根。
美國的白人來自何處？他們不用探尋也知道，來自歐洲。到“新大陸”來尋發財夢的人，大多數是走投無路而背井離鄉。他們當中冒險傢、受者、破産者和賭徒有的是。在美洲這塊“充分自由”的土地上，他們的劣根性在對待有色人種時便不再受倫理道德乃至法律的約束而得以自由地表現。因為他們的意志就是法律，他們的欲望就是倫理。正如書中的黑人所說：“在他們成立一個新殖民地後，首先就蓋一座法院，以通過更多的法律，然後再蓋一間教堂來證明他們是徒。”魯濱孫靠火槍和《聖經》徵服了星期五，美國的白人徵服者也是靠這兩樣役使他們的奴隸。當他們靠剝削黑人致富了，甚至當他們的孩子吃黑人奶媽的奶長大了，他們仍然沒有忘記給黑人奴隸多加一條鎖鏈。書中不止一次藉鰐魚和小男孩的故事嘆道：這是一個思將仇報、弱肉強食的世界。白人對黑人是有太多的歷史欠賬，時至今日也沒有真正解决的美國黑人問題就是蓄奴製和種族歧視的後果，也是美國的一條病根。
美國常常以“最、最自由、最講”自詡，而《根》正是嚮世人揭示了最沒有、最沒有自由、最沒有的黑人傢族的歷史，它的社會認識意義與《美國的悲劇》、《憤怒的葡萄》等美國文學史上的名篇是一致的。
《根》當然不是一部完美的作品，在它問世之初就有頗多爭議。但是經過了二十年時間的衝刷，它沒有淹沒在無數過眼即逝的暢銷書中，說明它具有名著的生命力。也正因為此，它值得我們進一步指出它的不足之處。
作者把主題建立在“尋到根就尋到一切”這一觀念上，他希望黑人尋到根就尋到了尊嚴；白人尋到根就能瞭解和理解黑人；天下所有人都來尋根，就能相容相通。這衹能是一個善良的願望。我們尊重這個願望，希望這個願望能促進人類的和睦相處；但是從思想意義上說，與前人的作品相比，《根》的主題並沒有本質的突破。所以書中的黑人們大多是在忍耐、順從和對劇變的恐懼中度過一生。當他們得到自由，經營有成以後，自建的教堂、草地上野餐便成了他們莫大的快樂。
《根》在藝術上的成功顯而易見。它塑造的人物各有特色，即使身份相似，性格也决不雷同。最為人難忘的自然是康達·金特和雞仔喬治。前者的剛強堅毅、後者的聰明善良和乖巧浮浪莫不躍然紙上。幾個白人主人也描寫得栩栩如生不落俗套。尤其是華勒主人，他有教養。仁慈、寬容，作為醫生四處救死扶傷，可是一旦他覺得自己的規矩被侵犯就立刻變得冷酷殘忍。這個白人形象很有代表性。
作者是以寫傢史的心態來創作，因此這部作品沒有小說傳統的結構方式。它大體按照二百多年的時間順序安排情節，詳略得當，衹是有關鬥雞的描寫，雖然精彩但有些衝淡主題。它的敘事質樸自如，引人入勝。它以飽滿的感情、豐富的想象力和優美細膩的筆觸撥動讀者的心弦，使我們讀完這本書掩捲沉思之時，會想到更多的東西--關於“根”
艾柯
Roots: The Saga of an American Family is a novel written by Alex Haley and first published in 1976. It was adapted into a hugely popular, 12-hour television miniseries, Roots, in 1977, and a 14-hour sequel, Roots: The Next Generations, in 1979.
Plot introduction
Brought up on the stories of his elderly female relatives—including his Grandmother Cynthia, whose father was emancipated from slavery in 1865—Alex Haley purported to have traced his family history back to "the African," Kunta Kinte, captured by slave traders in 1767. For generations, each of Kunta's enslaved descendants passed down an oral history of Kunta's experiences as a free man in Gambia, along with the African words he taught them. Haley researched African village customs, slave-trading and the history of African Americans in America—including a visit to the griot (oral historian) of his ancestor's African village—to produce this colourful and imaginative recreation of his family's history from the mid-eighteenth century through the mid-twentieth century which led him back to his heartland, Africa.
Characters in "Roots"
* Kunta Kinte – original protagonist: a young man of the Mandinka people, grows up in the Gambia in a small village called Juffure and is raised as a practising Muslim before being captured and enslaved. Renamed "Toby"
* Master Lord Calvert – plantation owner who buys Kunta (called John Reynolds in the TV series)
* Dr. William Waller – doctor of medicine and John's brother: buys Kunta from him (called William Reynolds in the TV series)
* Belle Waller – cook to the doctor who Kinte marries (called Belle Reynolds in the TV series)
* Kizzy Waller – daughter of Kinte and Belle (called Kizzy Reynolds in the TV series)
* Missy Anne – Dr. Waller's niece, who lives on his brother's plantation but visits Dr Waller regularly. She befriends Kizzy and teaches her the basics of reading/writing by playing "school".
* Tom Lea – slave owner in North Carolina to whom Kizzy is sold (called Tom Moore in the TV series)
* George Lea – son to Kizzy and Tom Lea, he is called "Chicken George"
* Matilda – who George marries
* Tom Murray – son of Chicken George and Matilda (called Tom Harvey in the TV series)
* Cynthia – the youngest of Tom and Irene's eight children (grand daughter of Chicken George)
* Bertha – one of Cynthia's children; mother of Alex Haley
* Simon Alexander Haley – professor and husband of Bertha; father of Alex Haley
* Alex Haley – author of the book and central character for last 30 pages; great-great-great-great-grandson (7 generations) of Kunta Kinte.
Literary significance and criticism
Historical marker in front of Alex Haley's boyhood home in Henning, Tennessee (2007)
Haley earned a Pulitzer Prize special award in 1977 for Roots and the television miniseries garnered many awards, including nine Emmys and a Peabody.
Haley's fame was marred, however, by charges of plagiarism. After one trial, in which he admitted that passages of Roots were copied from The African by Harold Courlander, Haley settled out-of-court for $650,000. Haley claimed that the appropriation of Courlander's passages had been unintentional. In 1988, Margaret Walker also sued Haley, claiming that Roots violated the copyright for her novel Jubilee. Walker's case was dismissed by the court.
Additionally, the veracity of those aspects of the story which Haley claimed to be true have been challenged. Although Haley acknowledged the novel was primarily a work of fiction, he did claim that his actual ancestor was Kunta Kinte, an African taken from the village of Juffure in what is now The Gambia. According to Haley, Kunta Kinte was sold into slavery where he was given the name Toby and, while in the service of a slavemaster named John Waller, went on to have a daughter named Kizzy, Haley's great-great-great grandmother. Haley also claimed to have identified the specific slave ship and its specific voyage that transported Kunta Kinte from Africa to North America in 1767.
In the concluding chapter of Roots Alex Haley stated:
“ To the best of my knowledge and of my effort, every lineage statement within Roots is from either my African or American families' carefully preserved oral history, much of which I have been able conventionally to corroborate with documents. Those documents, along with the myriad textural details of what were contemporary indigenous lifestyles, cultural history, and such that give Roots flesh have come from years of intensive research in fifty-odd libraries, archives, and other repositories on three continents. ”
Haley goes on to say that most of the dialogue and necessary incidents are novelized, based on what he knew took place and what the research led him to feel took place.
Genealogist Elizabeth Shown Mills and historian Gary B. Mills revisited Haley's research and concluded that his claims were not true. According to the Millses, the slave named Toby who was owned by John Waller could be definitively shown to have been in North America as early as 1762. They further said that Toby died years before the supposed date of birth of Kizzy.
There have been suggestions that the griot in Juffure, who, during Haley's visit there, confirmed the tale of the disappearance of Kunta Kinte, had been coached to relate such a story.
Although a friend of Haley's, Harvard University professor Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., one of the general editors the Norton Anthology of African-American Literature, has acknowledged the doubts about Haley's claims, saying, "Most of us feel it's highly unlikely that Alex actually found the village whence his ancestors sprang. Roots is a work of the imagination rather than strict historical scholarship. It was an important event because it captured everyone's imagination."
There is no doubt, however, that Roots led to a surge of interest in family genealogy across the country.
Scholarship
* Gerber, David A. “Haley’s Roots and Our Own: An Inquiry Into the Nature of a Popular Phenomenon.” Journal of Ethnic Studies 5.3 (Fall 1977): 87-111.
* Hudson, Michelle. "The Effect of 'Roots' and the Bicentennial on Genealogical Interest among Patrons of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History," Journal of Mississippi History 1991 53(4): 321-336
* Ryan, Tim A. Calls and Responses: The American Novel of Slavery since Gone with the Wind. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2008.
* Skaggs, Merrill Maguire. “Roots: A New Black Myth.” Southern Quarterly 17. 1 (Fall 1978): 42-50.
* Taylor, Helen. “‘The Griot from Tennessee’: The Saga of Alex Haley’s Roots.” Critical Quarterly 37.2 (Summer 1995): 46-62.
Television and audio adaptations
Roots was made into a hugely popular television miniseries that aired over eight consecutive nights in January 1977. ABC network television executives chose to "dump" the series into a string of airings rather than space out the broadcasts, because they were uncertain how the public would respond to the controversial, racially-charged themes of the show. However, the series garnered enormous ratings and became an overnight sensation. Approximately 130 million Americans tuned in at some time during the eight broadcasts. The concluding episode on January 30, 1977 has been ranked as the fourth most watched telecast of all time by the Nielsen corporation.
The cast of the miniseries included LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte, Leslie Uggams as Kizzy and Ben Vereen as Chicken George. A 14-hour sequel, Roots: The Next Generations, aired in 1979, featuring the leading African-American actors of the day. In December 1988, ABC aired a two-hour made-for-TV movie: Roots: The Gift. Based on characters from the book, it starred LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte, Avery Brooks as Cletus Moyer, Kate Mulgrew as bounty hunter Hattie Carraway, and Tim Russ as house slave Marcellus (Coincidentally, all four actors have become prominent as leading actors in the Star Trek franchise).
In August 2006, author Ilyasah Shabazz, (daughter of Malcolm X) recorded a public service announcement for Deejay Ra's 'Hip-Hop Literacy' campaign encouraging reading of Alex Haley's books to commemorate Haley's 85th birthday.
In May 2007, BBC America released Roots as an audiobook narrated by Avery Brooks. The release coincided with Vanguard Press's publication of a new paperback edition of the book, which had gone out of print in 2004, and with Warner Home Video's release of a 30th anniversary DVD boxed set of the mini-series.
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请给我换一个看看！ 拜托，快把噪音停掉！我读累了，想听点音乐或者请来支歌曲！
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