《秦腔》:贾平凹为故乡“竖了一块碑”

来源:中国文化译研网

作者:中国文化译研网

2019-04-10

编者按为了更好地进行中国文学海外传播工作,让中国作品在海外被发现(Discover)、被理解(Understand)、被传播(Express),中国文化译研网(CCTSS)邀请国内资深文学主编及文学评论家,精选出近两百部短中长篇小说,形成第一期《中国当代文学作品指南》(简称“指南”),从更具权威性、价值性的角度出发,更好地向世界展示中国当代文学精品,传播中国书香。


春读书,兴味长,磨其砚,笔花香。现将“指南”中的精品文学作品以一日一推的方式向读者呈现,让我们不负春日好时光。



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贾平凹丨《秦腔》


推荐理由


《秦腔》以细腻平实的语言,采用“密实的流年式的书写方式”,集中表现了改革开放以来乡村的价值观念、人际关系在传统格局中的深刻变化,字里行间倾注了对故乡的一腔深情和对社会转型期农村现状的思考。书中大部分人和事都有原型。贾平凹曾称“我要以它为故乡竖一块碑”。


《秦腔》是 1949 年以来中国文学创作上一部不可多得的上乘精品,是一部书写当代中国农村具有史诗性意义的重要作品,是贾平凹在创作上所达到的又一高峰。它在两方面获得充分肯定:一是敏感地捕捉到了转型期农村巨变过程中的某种时代情绪,真实而深刻地揭示了极具典型意义的人类精神困境,使小说在象征的层面上具有了普遍的人文关怀,是对正在消逝的千年乡村的一曲挽歌;二是在艺术表现手法上,《秦腔》从细枝末节、鸡毛蒜皮的日常人事入手,用瓷实精到的描写重塑了一个鲜活的世界,细流蔓延,抵达本质的真实。


《秦腔》看似日常、琐碎,实则坚韧、淡定。贾平凹选取中国最古老的剧种之一秦腔,赋予它民间文化载体的意义,利用这一传统文化的表征,讲述农村宿命般地走向衰败萧瑟的趋势,讲述他对“故乡”这块碑的挚诚。《秦腔》所表现的情感冲突,是一种渗透在农民骨子里、渗透在日常生活嬗变中的无奈,一种所有人都被裹挟的身不由己。热爱土地而又无法守住土地、一步步从土地出走的农民带给作家的道义和矛盾、忧患和焦灼、迷惘和悲凉,使贾平凹付出书写挽歌的情感,写下了乡村生活及其文化形态分崩离析的现状,表达出“中国一等伤心人”的酸楚心境。



Reviews


With exquisite and plain language, and adopting a dense, chronological narrative writing style, Qin Opera focuses on the fundamental changes in traditional social structure of rural values and human relations since the reform and opening up, showcasing the author’s deep affections for the hometown and the reflections on the current state of rural society in the era of transformation. Most of the characters and incidents in the novel have their prototypes. Jia Pingwa has once remarked that, “I will use it as a memorial for my hometown.”


Qin Opera is acclaimed as one of the outstanding works in Chinese literature since 1949, it’s an important epic piece about contemporary Chinese rural society and another peak in its creator’s literary career. This novel has won full recognition in two aspects: First, it has captured some emotion characteristic of the era of huge transformation in rural society, unveiled truly and deeply the mental dilemma typical of human world, thus empowering the novel the touch of universal human care in the symbolic level, and constituting an elegy to the disappearing time honored countryside. Second, in terms of artistic expression, the novel has recreated a vivid world by building solidly on the precise description of daily hassles and the minutiae of everyday life. It has managed to grasp the heart of the matter in an elegantly and unhurried pace.


Mundane and trivial as it might seem, Qin Opera is a work of tenacity and composure. Jia Pingwa chooses Qin opera, one of the oldest Chinese operas and renders it the role of folk culture carrier. Drawing upon this traditional culture, he unfolds the inevitable trend of the decline of countryside, and pours out his utmost sincerity for this memorial, his “hometown.” The emotional conflicts as demonstrated by the novel are a kind of hopeless frustration embedded in the bones of the peasants and inherent in the transmutations of daily existence, with a kind of doomed passiveness shrouding over everyone. Loving the land yet incapable of keeping it, the peasants who are caught in such a double bind cannot but escape it. Their moral entanglement, suffering agony and perplexed despair have prompted the author to write out this elegy, in which the portrayal of the disintegration of rural life and cultural being reveals the distress keenly felt by him, China’s saddest griever.


作家简介

Author Profile

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贾平凹,陕西省商洛市丹凤县人,1952 年生。


1975 年毕业于西北大学中文系,1992 年创刊《美文》杂志,2003 年任西安市建筑科技大学人文学院院长,现为中国作家协会主席团委员,陕西省作家协会主席,西安市文联主席。贾平凹 1974 年开始发表作品,出版的主要作品有:《商州初录》《浮躁》《废都》、《白夜》《土门》《高老庄》《天狗》《黑氏》《美穴地》《五魁》《妊娠》《怀念狼》《病相报告》《秦腔》等。


贾平凹著述的《满月儿》获 1979 年首届全国优秀短篇小说奖;《腊月·正月》获第三届全国优秀中篇小说奖;《爱的踪迹》获首届全国优秀散文(集)奖;《贾平凹长篇散文选》获第四届鲁迅文学奖;《废都》获 1997 年法国费米那文学奖;《浮躁》获 1987 年美国美孚飞马文学奖;《秦腔》获 2008 年第七届茅盾文学奖和 2006 年香港首届“红楼梦·世界华文长篇小说奖”。其作品已经翻译出版了英、法、德、俄、日、韩、越等文字二十多种版本。


Jia Pingwa, born in 1952, is a native of Danfeng County, Shangluo City in Shaanxi Province.


Having graduated from the Chinese Department of Northwest University in 1975, Jia Pingwa founded the Literary Journal Essay in 1992, and assumed the position of Dean of School of Humanities at Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology in 2003. He is, now, a member of the Presidium of the Chinese Writers’ Association, Chairman of Shaanxi branch of the organization, and Chairman of Xi’an Literary Federation of Literary and Art Circles. Jia Pingwa started publishing literary works in 1974, First Records of Shangzhou, Turbulence, Ruined City, White Nights, Earth Gate, Old Gao Village, Heavenly Dog, Black Clan, The Good Fortune Grave, The Regrets of a Bride Carrier, Pregnancy, Wolves of Yesterday, Health Report, and Qin Opera are but some of his major pieces.


In 1979, Jia Pingwa won the 1st National Best Short Story of the Year for his short story Full Moon. His novella Lunar December, Lunar January won the 3rd National Best Novella of the Year. Traces of Love won the 1st National Best Prose (Collection), and Jia Pingwa’s Lengthy Prose Selection won the 4th Lu Xun Literature Prize of excellent prose and essays. In 1997, Ruined City was awarded French Prix Femina étranger, and in 1987 Turbulence was recognized by the Pegasus Prize For Literature. Qin Opera won both the 7th Mao Dun Literature Prize in 2008 and 1st HongKong The Dream of the Red Chamber Award: The World’s Distinguished Novel in Chinese In 2006. His works have been translated into over 20 languages including English, French, German, Russian, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese.



中文概要

Synopsis


《秦腔》的主要故事情节以两条线索同时展开,一条线是秦腔戏曲,一条线是农民与土地的关系。贾平凹以自己的家乡陕西省丹凤县棣花镇为原型,在两条故事线索相互交织相互推动的进程中,讲述了一个叫清风街的村庄里近三十年的演变史。以现代化、城市化进程中不断衰微的传统艺术为切入点,管窥改革时期底层乡村社会生活形态和风俗民情,呈现传统乡村世界在时代变迁之中,人伦观念和文化心理不断被挑战进而破碎的现状。

小说以清风街村民张引生作为故事讲述者。张引生无父、无母、无妻、无子,苦恋白家女儿白雪,被清风街村民视为疯子,因为偷白雪的内衣被打,恼羞自残。清风街有白家和夏家两大户,白家早已衰败,却出了一个著名的秦腔戏曲演员白雪。“台柱子”白雪嫁给了夏家的儿子夏风,离婚后拜退休小学校长夏天智为爹。夏天智是夏家四兄弟中最小的一个,其余三位哥哥分别叫夏天仁、夏天义、夏天礼,四兄弟的名字合在一起便是“仁义礼智”,象征着乡村社会对中国传统伦理观念和道德信条的绝对敬仰。

夏家家族两代人主宰着清风街,而两代人在坚守土地与逃离土地的变迁中充满了对抗和斗争。伴随着社会环境和时代条件的不断变迁,清风街上夏、白两个家族两代人的命运也经历了生老病死、悲欢离合的种种波折,当市场经济的春风开始吹拂三秦大地,随之而来的是清风街贫富差距的极速拉大、土地与财富恒久价值杠杆的轰然崩塌、传统人伦观念和道德尺度的破碎与颠覆。村里的黑娥原为卖豆腐的武林的妻子,却嫌弃家贫,不守妇道,公开和庆玉调情,最终抛弃武林,也破坏了菊娃的婚姻;白娥为了钱,给三踅当起了地下情妇,却还与疯子引生发生不伦的性关系;清风街的年轻姑娘们跟随马大中去外闯荡,从事不良职业,甚至于清风街也出现了赌博、嫖娼的事情,村干部曾因嫖赌而被抓;翠翠公开在村里从事卖身活动;夏家的儿子们不孝顺父母,推脱责任,等夏天义死后,没有抬棺木的人,儿子们只好亲自上阵,还为了立碑的事情相互争吵……“在清风街,天天都有致气打架的,常常是父子们翻了脸,兄弟们成了仇人”,清风街上传统的父子关系、夫妻关系、农民与土地的关系等等都在悄然发生着变化。

在这个过程中,秦腔作为小说的重要线索,逐渐由盛转衰,清风街上的人们对秦腔的态度和秦腔演员的命运也随之跌宕起伏。千百代秦地人的重要传统艺术与这片土地上的人们一样,面临现代社会的巨大冲击。小说中那只叫来生的狗所吼出的秦腔,便是作者内心对于古老文明现代困境的呐喊。


The main storyline of Qin Opera develops along two strands, one is the operatic form per se, and the other is the relationship between peasants and the land, the two being interwoven and pushing against each other. Taking as its prototype his own hometown Dihua Village, Danfeng County in Shaanxi Province, Jia Pingwa gives a vivid account of the evolutions of a village by the name of Qingfeng Street over the past thirty years. With traditional art declining in the course of modernization and urbanization as the entry point, the story takes a close look at the myriads of life and custom of a grassroots society during the reform era, with a view that manifests how human ethics and cultural psychology get constantly challenged and scattered in the vicissitudes of traditional rural world.


The story is narrated by Zhang Yinsheng, a local resident, who is a fatherless, motherless, wifeless, sonless loner in bitter love with Bai Xue from the Bai family. He is treated as a lunatic by the fellow villagers and is greatly disgraced for being beaten after stealing Bai Xue’s underwear. Qingfeng Street has two prestigious families, the Bai family and the Xia family. The Bai family has long lost its prestige, but has raised Bai Xue, a famous Qin opera actress known as “the leading light”. Bai Xue is married to Xia Feng, son of the Xia family. After their divorce, she took Xia Tianzhi, a retired primary school headmaster as her godfather. Mr. Xia is the youngest among his siblings, his three elder brothers are called Xia Tianren, Xia Tianyi and Xia Tianli respectively, which collectively mean “ren (benevolence), yi (righteousness), li (propriety), and zhi (wisdom)”, symbolizing the absolute reverence for traditional Chinese ethics and morals in rural society.


While ruling over Qingfeng Street, the two generations of the Xia family have fought and struggled arduously in keeping and escaping the land. Along with the transformations in social environment and historical circumstances, the older and younger generations of the Xia and the Bai families have witnessed twists and turns in life and death, separation and reunion. As the market economy began to sweep through the whole province, what follows is the yawning gap between the rich and the poor, the sudden collapse of lasting value system resting on land and fortune, as well as the shattering and subversion of conventional ethics and morals. Hei E, one of the village dwellers, despised poverty and curried favor with the rich. Heedless of her womanly virtues, she made no effort to hide her affair with Qinyu and deserted her husband Wu Lin, a bean curd monger, which finally ruined Qingyu and Juwa’s marriage. Bai E, for another, became Li Sanxue’s secret mistress for money but was sexually promiscuous with Yinsheng, the lunatic, at the same time. The girls in Qingfeng Street followed Ma Dazhong out of the village to seek indecent profession. Gambling, whoring and the like emerged in the village, some village carder was even arrested for involvement in this business. Cuicui engaged herself in prostituting openly in the village. The sons of the Xia family all shunned the duty of caring for their parents. Having to carry the coffin of Xia Tianyi themselves when no coffin-carriers could be found, they quarreled bitterly about the tombstone. “In Qingfeng Street, quarreling and fighting is a daily occurrence. It is often the case that father and son turn against each other and brothers end up being enemies.” The traditional relationships between father and son, husband and wife, peasants and the land have changed subtly and imperceptibly.


Throughout this process, Qin opera, the main thread of the novel, is declining; the locals’ attitude towards the opera and its performers is also undergoing ups and downs. This important traditional art, which has endured for hundreds of generations in the land of Shaanxi, is confronted with daunting challenges of the modern society. The shout of Qin opera from the dog called Lai Sheng (Next Life) in the novel is the very cry from the inner heart of the writer for the modern dilemma faced by ancient civilization. 

责任编辑:编辑 / 罗雨静 英文审校 / 沙孟维