残雪论文学

作者 ： 残雪

我心目中的伟大作品，是那些具有永恒性的作品。即，这类作家的作品无论经历多少个世纪的轮回，依然不断地得到后人的解释，使后人产生新感受。这样的作家身上具有“神性”，有点类似于先知。就读者的数量来说，这类作品不能以某段时间里的空间范围来衡量，有时甚至由于条件的限制，一开始竟被埋没。但终究，他们的读者远远超出那些通俗作家。人类拥有一条隐秘的文学史的长河，这条河在最深最黑暗的地底，她就是由这些描写本质的作家构成的。她是人类多少个世纪以来进行纯精神追求的镜子。

我不喜欢“伟大的中国小说”这个提法，其内涵显得小里小气。如果作家的作品能够反映出人的最深刻、最普遍的本质（这种东西既像粮食、天空，又像岩石和大海），那么无论哪个种族的人都会承认她是伟大的作品——当然这种承认经常不是以短期效应来衡量的。对于我来说，作品的地域性并不重要，谁又会去注意莎士比亚的英国特色，但丁的意大利特色呢？如果你达到了深层次的欣赏，地域或种族完全可以忽略不计。说到底，文学不就是人作为人为了认识自己而进行的高级活动吗？作家可以从地域的体验起飞（大概任何人都免不了要这样做），但决不应该停留在地域这个表面的经验之上，有野心的作家应该有更深、更广的追求。而停留在表面经验正是中国作家（以及当今的美国作家）的致命伤。由于过份推崇自己民族的传统，他们看不到或没有力量进入深层次的精神领域。这就使得作品停留在所谓“民族经验”“写实”的层次上，这样的作品的生命力必然是短暂的，其批判的力度也是可疑的（这只要看看当今中国大陆文化人的普遍倒退和堕落，看看多数美国人民对于伊战的狂热，以及历来对于战争的狂热就可以得出佐证）。

伟大的作品都是内省的、自我批判的。在我的明星列表中，有这样一些作家：荷马、但丁、弥尔顿、莎士比亚、塞万提斯、歌德、卡夫卡、博尔赫斯、卡尔维诺、圣·德克旭贝里、托尔斯泰、果戈里、陀斯妥耶夫斯基等等。这个名单中的主流是西方人和具有西方观念的作家，因为我认为文学的源头就在西方，而中国，从一开始文学就不是作为独立的精神产物而存在。中国文学自古以来缺少文学最基本的特征——人对自身本质的自觉的认识。也就是说，中国文学彻底缺少自相矛盾，并将这矛盾演绎到底的力量和技艺。传统的文学从来都是依附的，向外（即停留在表层）的。即使是《红楼梦》那样的伟大作品，在今天看来也已经很大程度上过时了，因为并不能促使人自省和奋发向上，对于人心的描述也过于浮浅，没有涉及内心矛盾，相当于关于人的幼年的文学。鲁迅先生写过一些伟大的作品（“野草”全部和“故事新编”中的一些），但数量太少太少，文化对于他的压迫使他未来得及发展自己的天才。在这个意义上，大陆的文学始终处在危机之中，探讨深层次人性，提升国民性的作品远没有形成潮流。

在我看来，中国的作家如果不能战胜自己的民族自恋情结，就无法继续追求文学的理想。所以在大陆的文坛，很多作家到了四十来岁就开始退化，要么写不出作品，要么用赝品来敷衍，蒙骗读者。这种现象产生的根源在于民族自大的心理。我们的文化摧毁、毒害了我们的天才。中国文化中精神的缺失导致当今的大陆文学不能生长、发育，就像一些长着娃娃脸的小老头，永远是那么的老于世故，永远能够自圆其说，具有世界上最出色的匠人的精明，却唯独没有内省，没有对于自身的批判。在所有涉及自身的方面，大部分大陆作家都或者用一些白日梦来加以美化，或者用古代文化提倡的虚无主义来化解矛盾。

没有精神追求的文学是伪文学，描写表面的经验的文学则是浅层次的文学。这在当今的文学发展中好像是个世界性的问题。物质世界的飞速发展已经使得大部分作家越来越懒，越来越满足于一些表面经验，而读书的人，也在一天天减少。据说实验小说在日本这样的国家已经很难得到出版了，而集体自杀的事件在这个国家倒屡屡发生；又据说连在德国，这个思想之父的国度里，人们也不看实验小说了。幻灭感如同黑色的幽灵在世界游荡。然而我仍然相信，那条隐秘的长河是不会断流的，尽管历史有高潮也有低谷。任何时代总会有那么一小部分人，以自己默默的劳动为那条河流注入新的活力。延续了几千年的理想还将延续下去，同这个浮躁、浅薄而喧闹的世界对抗。

伟大的作品都是彻底个人化的。因为人只能在真正个人化的写作中达到自由。不在写作的瞬间抛开一切物质的累赘，不同物质划清界线，灵感就无法起飞。而这种活动力图达到的就是个人的人格独立。要做到这一点对于一位中国大陆作家是特别困难、特别需要勇气的事。文学的实践就是这样一种操练。像西方作家但丁或歌德那样来认识、拯救自身，并将其作为最高的目标的人在大陆太少太少。一谈及文学，人们就理所当然的认为只同表面的经验，“共同的”现实有关，接下去自然就只能涉及如何样完善表达的“技巧”，如何样将陈词滥调弄出些“新意”的问题了。文坛上很有一些高调的理论家，提出要肃清纯文学的影响，大力提倡所谓“现实关怀”。且不说此处对于“纯文学”的定义含混滑稽，所谓“现实关怀”这种陈词滥调我们已经听了好几十年，实在是同真正的文学无关。只有个别作家注意到了在我们的经验世界之外，还存在着另一个广大得多的世界等待着我们去遭遇，去开拓。我认为，作为世界上最古老的文明的拥有者，中国作家在这方面本应是得天独厚的。问题只在于你是否能战胜自己的文化的惰性，从另一种文化中去获取这种开拓的工具。我们不去开拓，那个广大无边的领域就根本不属于我们。一位作家，不论他用什么方法写作，只要他有认识自我的好奇心，改造自我的冲动，有开阔的胸怀，就一定会进入人性探索的深层领域，将那个古老的矛盾进行我们历史上从未有过的演绎，在自救的同时影响读者，改造国民性。

伟大的文学并不是高不可攀的，她就属于踏踏实实地追求的作家，她的内核就是人的本质。每一位能在文学创造中将理想尽力发挥的作家在写作的瞬间都是伟大的作家，这样写出的作品则是伟大的作品。当然各人的先天能力有大小，能否成为明星并不重要，只要处在伟大的追求境界中去完成自己，就是最大的幸福。我想用莎士比亚的话来结束这篇文章：

“上帝造我们，给我们这么多智慧／使我们能瞻前顾后，绝不是要我们／把这种智能，把这种神明的理性／霉烂了不用啊。”

残雪 Can Xue   中国 China   现代中国   (1953年5月30日)

残雪

残雪

简介

残雪（1953年5月30日－），本名邓小华，原名邓则梅，女，湖南耒阳人，生于长沙，中国当代作家，被誉为先锋派文学的代表人物。瑞典学院院士马悦然称她为“中国的卡夫卡”[1]，但她本人不喜此称号，认为自己“可以超越卡夫卡”。[2]由于作品在日本大量翻译，亦在日本享有很高的声誉，2009年《残雪研究》期刊在日本东京创刊。残雪的兄长为中国哲学家邓晓芒。


　　Deng Xiaohua (Chinese: 邓小华; pinyin: Dèng Xiǎohuá; born May 30, 1953), better known by her pen name Can Xue (Chinese: 残雪; pinyin: Cán Xuě), is a Chinese avant-garde fiction writer and literary critic. Her family was severely persecuted following her father being labeled a rightist in the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957.[1] Her writing, which consists mostly of short fiction, breaks with the realism of earlier modern Chinese writers. She has also written novels, novellas, and literary criticisms of the work of Dante, Jorge Luis Borges, and Franz Kafka. Can Xue has been described as "China’s most prominent author of experimental fiction",[2] and some of her fiction has been translated and published in English.
　　
　　Life
　　Deng Xiaohua was born in 1953, in Changsha, Hunan, China. Her early life was marked by a series of tragic hardships which influenced the direction of her work. She was one of six children born to a man who was once the editor-in-chief of the New Hunan Daily (Chinese: 新湖南日报; pinyin: Xīn Húnán Rìbào). Her parents, like many intellectuals at the time, were denounced as rightists in the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957. Her father was sent to the countryside for two years in retribution for allegedly leading an anti-Communist Party group at the paper. Two years later, the entire family was evicted from the company housing at the paper and moved to a tiny hut below the Yuelu Mountain, on the rural outskirts of Changsha. In the years that followed, the family suffered greatly under further persecution. Her father was jailed, and her mother was sent along with her two brothers to the countryside for re-education through labor. Deng was allowed to remain in the city because of her poor health. After being forced to leave the small hut, she lived alone in a small, dark room under a staircase. By the time of the Cultural Revolution, Deng was thirteen years old. Her formal education was permanently disrupted after completing primary school.[1][3]
　　
　　Can Xue describes the horrors of her youth in detail in her memoirs titled "A Summer Day in the Beautiful South" which is included as the foreword to her short story collection Dialogues in Paradise. Throughout this period, her entire family “struggled along on the verge of death.” Her grandmother, who raised her while her parents were gone, soon succumbed to hunger and fatigue, dying with severe edema, a grotesque swelling condition. While the family was forced to scavenge food, eventually eating all of the wool clothes in the house, Can Xue contracted a severe case of tuberculosis.[4]
　　
　　Later, she was able to find work as a metalworker. Ten years later, in 1980, after giving birth to her first son, she quit work at the factory. She and her husband then started a small tailoring business at home after teaching themselves to sew.
　　
　　She began writing in 1983, and published her first short story in 1985,[1] at which point she chose the pen name Can Xue. This pen name can be interpreted either as the stubborn, dirty snow left at the end of winter or the remaining snow at the peak of a mountain after the rest has melted. Publishing under a pen name allowed Can Xue to write without revealing her gender. According to Tonglin Lu (a Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Montreal) once critics found out she was a woman, her “subversive voice within the supposedly subversive order [of avant-garde fiction]”[5] made them uncomfortable. (Tonglin Lu coined this "double subversion."[5]) Not only was she writing avant-garde fiction, but she was also a woman—so male writers and critics attempted to analyze her works by psychoanalysis of the author, and some even went so far as to suggest she was certifiably insane.[5] In 2002, she said, "Lots of [the critics] hate me, or at least they just keep silent, hoping I'll disappear. No one discusses my works, either because they disagree or don't understand.”[6]
　　
　　More recently, however, many critics have paid tribute to her work,[5] drawn to the careful precision she uses to create such a strange, unsettling effect on the reader.
　　
　　Work
　　Can Xue's abstract style and unconventional narrative form attracted a lot of attention from critics in the 1990s. A variety of interpretations of her work have been published, but political allegory has been the most popular way of understanding her early short stories. Many of the images in her stories have been linked to the Cultural Revolution, the Anti-rightist Movement and other turbulent political movements of the early People's Republic of China. However, direct references to these events are uncommon.[7] The author herself explicitly denies most forms of political commentary others claim to have found in her work, stating once in an interview, "There is no political cause in my work."[8]
　　
　　On the contrary, Can Xue says she treats each story as a kind of life experiment in which she is the subject.[9] “In very deep layers,” she says, “all of my works are autobiographical.”[6] As for those who struggle to find meaning in her stories, Can Xue has this to say: "If a reader feels that this book is unreadable, then it’s quite clear that he’s not one of my readers.”[10]
　　
　　Can Xue has also written part of the libretto for at least one opera. In 2010, Can Xue and Lin Wang (web) co-wrote the libretto for a contemporary chamber opera Die Quelle (The Source) commissioned to Lin Wang by Münchener Biennale. The opera is based on Can Xue's published short story ″the Double Life″. In this opera, a young artist named Jian Yi was deconstructed into different aspects played by different roles. They crosstalk to each other on stage; drying and bubbling-up of the spring symbolize loss and regain of one's own identity. Lin Wang composed the music for Die Quelle (85' in length). Chinese instruments Sheng, Guzheng and Sanxian were used. An unusual feature is combination of English pronunciation and Chinese intonation in this opera. Die Quelle was premiered on May 9, 2010 in Munich Biennale and broadcast live.[11]
　　
　　Reception
　　Amanda DeMarco stated that the extent to which Can Xue's work is radical is overstated. DeMarco also claims the animals in Frontier "appear in such wild profusion that it would be impossible to assign them a symbology. Can Xue’s writing is not metaphorical in this sense. There is no organized system of correspondence or meaning within it that would allow individual elements to be explained back into the realm of the logical. Often her works are compared to performances, to dance, or to visual art." However, the reviewer still described the experience of reading the author's books as rewarding, explaining that the tools of literature used in experimental writing to chart the human being extend beyond the capacities of language as logic. DeMarco said that at "the sentence level, [Frontier] is a wonderful, carefully hewn thing, lucid and pure".[2]
　　
　　American novelist and editor Bradford Morrow has described her as one of the most "innovative and important" authors in contemporary world literature.[12]
　　
　　Bibliography
　　As of 2009, Can Xue had published a total of three novels, fifty novellas, 120 short stories, and six book-length commentaries.[13] Only a few volumes of fiction, mostly short stories, have been translated into English.
　　
　　Novels
　　
　　突围表演 (1988); later published as 五香街 (2002). Five Spice Street, translated by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping (Yale, 2009).
　　最后的情人 (2005). The Last Lover, translated by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen (Yale, 2014).
　　边疆 (2008). Frontier, translated by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping (Open Letter, 2017).
　　新世纪爱情故事 (2013). Love in the New Millennium, translated by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen (Yale, 2018).
　　Novellas
　　
　　苍老的浮云 (1986). Old Floating Cloud.
　　黄泥街 (1987). Yellow Mud Street.
　　种在走廊上的苹果树 (1987). Apple Tree in the Corridor.
　　Short story collections
　　
　　天堂里的对话 (1988). Dialogues in Paradise, translated by Ronald R. Janssen and Jian Zhang (Northwestern, 1989).
　　Compilations in English
　　
　　Old Floating Cloud: Two Novellas, translated by Ronald R. Janssen and Jian Zhang (Northwestern, 1991). Compiles Yellow Mud Street and Old Floating Cloud.
　　The Embroidered Shoes, translated by Ronald R. Janssen and Jian Zhang (Henry Holt, 1997).
　　Blue Light in the Sky and Other Stories, translated by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping (New Directions, 2006).
　　Vertical Motion, translated by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping (Open Letter, 2011).
　　I Live in the Slums, translated by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping (Yale, 2020).
　　Awards and honors
　　2015 Best Translated Book Award, winner, The Last Lover, translated from the Chinese by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen[14]
　　References
　　 Lilly Xiao Hong Lee & Clara Wing-chung Ho (2003). Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women, Volume 2. M.E. Sharpe. pp. 26–28. ISBN 9780765607980.
　　 DeMarco, Amanda (2017-05-03). "Xue Generis: Can Xue and the Dangers of Literary Exceptionalism". BLARB. Retrieved 2021-01-09. "Critics focusing on Can Xue are often scholars or translators of Chinese literature; they assure us that she is “peerless” as a writer of experimental literature in China"
　　 Rong, Cai (2004). The Subject in Crisis in Contemporary Chinese Literature. University of Hawaii Press. p. 98.
　　 Can Xue (1989). "A Summer Day in the Beautiful South". Dialogues in Paradise. Northwestern University Press.
　　 Lu, Tonglin (1993). Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature and Society. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. p. 176. ISBN 978-0791413722.
　　 McCandlish, Laura. "Stubbornly Illuminating 'the Dirty Snow that Refuses to Melt': A Conversation with Can Xue". Retrieved January 17, 2014.
　　 Tian Ming Li (1994). "A Tormented Soul in a Locked Hut: Can Xue's Short Stories" (Adobe Portable Document Format). University of British Columbia.[permanent dead link]
　　 McCandlish, Laura (2002). "Stubbornly Illuminating "the Dirty Snow that Refuses to Melt": A Conversation with Can Xue". MCLC Resource Center.
　　 "Contemporary Chinese Writers: Can Xue". MIT. Retrieved January 17, 2014.
　　 "Modernist Mystery Street". PRI’S The World. Retrieved October 2010. Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
　　 http://www.muenchener-biennale.de/archiv/2010/programm/events/event/detail/die-quelle/
　　 James, Evan (2017-06-08). "The Mysterious Frontiers of Can Xue". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2021-01-09.
　　 "Can Xue Chronology". Contemporary Chinese Writers. MIT Foreign Languages and Literatures Section. Retrieved 26 December 2012.
　　 Chad Post (May 27, 2015). "BTBA 2015 Winners: Can Xue and Rocío Cerón!". Three Percent. Retrieved May 28, 2015.
0