作家简介　　

胡学文，男，1967年9月生于河北张家口沽源县的一个小山村。中国作协会员，河北省作协副主席，2005年获河北省第二届“十佳青年作家”称号，为河北文坛“河北四侠”之侠首，2014年8月凭借中篇小说《从正午开始的黄昏》获第六届“鲁迅文学奖”中篇小说奖。

　　著有长篇小说《燃烧的苍白》《天外的歌声》《红月亮》《私人档案》，中篇小说集《极地胭脂》《婚姻穴位》《在路上行走的鱼》《命案高悬》《我们为她做点儿什么吧》等六部。小说曾被《小说月报》《小说选刊》《中篇小说选刊》《新华文摘》《中华文学选刊》《作家文摘》等报刊转载。其中《极地胭脂》获《中国作家》大红鹰杯佳作奖，《秋风绝唱》获《长江文艺》2000年度方圆文学奖、河北作协2000年度优秀作品奖、河北省第九届文艺振兴奖，《飞翔的女人》获2002年河北作协十佳作品奖、河北省第十届文艺振兴奖。

　　胡学文的小说在语言文字上呈现出独特风格，特别是作品表达的对人的深度关怀以及对生存的严肃思考逐渐成为影视导演捕捉的“目标”，其中篇小说《一棵树的生长方式》《飞翔的女人》《极地胭脂》《婚姻穴位》等多部作品被改为影视剧。

　　胡学文的中篇小说《奔跑的月光》最早刊载于《人民文学》2013年第6期，2015年收入由中国电影出版社出版的胡学文中篇作品集《奔跑的月光》。该作品集收录了6则血脉相承的精悍故事，都讲述了跟命运死磕的小人物。2015年，中篇小说《奔跑的月光》被著名演员陈建斌改编成电影《一个勺子》。

作品简介　　

小说中的男主人公宋河是一个名副其实的“小人物”，在社会的底层他有自己的苟且与无奈，但他并不是逆来顺受、毫无抵抗的怯懦者，也不是懂得算计的逐利者。他在残酷、冰冷的现实中仍然坚持着自己朴素的信念，不断追寻着人性的理想，但是这样的坚守最终还是悲剧一场。

　　宋河和黄花是乡村里一对普通的夫妻，儿子犯罪坐牢，被判了六年徒刑。听吴老三说可以花钱减刑，便给吴老三的远房亲戚、镇上开着煤栈与油坊的老板吴多多送了五万元钱，希望能够减刑一年。没想到，这钱却打了水漂。钱花了，刑却没有减。

　　为了讨回这五万元钱，宋河就开始一趟又一趟地跑镇上去找吴老板。就在宋河反复到镇上奔波的过程中，却不知不觉、莫名其妙地被一个不知来历的傻子给缠上了。或许是本能地感觉到宋河夫妇天性善良的缘故，整个过程中，尽管宋河夫妻俩曾经想尽一切办法，试图甩掉这个没有来由的包袱，但就是无法奏效。到最后，傻子与宋河夫妇居然还处出了一丝淡淡的若有若无的亲情。

　　但颇有些一波三折意味的小说故事却并未到此为止，就在宋河夫妇与傻子相处日益和谐的时候，吴老板却非常突然地带着傻子的一个名叫大旺的兄弟找上门来。这大旺不仅带走了不小心走失的傻子老哥，而且还硬是给宋河夫妇留下了一千元钱。一个不愿意背负的包袱，就这样被甩掉了，宋河夫妇反倒多少觉得有些不舍。

　　没想到的是，一种梦魇般的遭遇就此才可谓真正地缠绕上了他们。过了不久，一个五十多岁的男人带着一个女人，以傻子哥哥的名义找上门来。他们不仅带走了那一千元钱，而且还威胁这个事没完，过几天还会来找麻烦。到这个时候，宋河夫妇方才警醒过来：那个带走了傻子的人，未必就是傻子的亲兄弟，自己很可能上当了。

　　但事情到此却并未终止，就在宋河夫妇担惊受怕的时候，又有两个戴头盔的男人找上门来，也自称是傻子的兄弟。两位临走时自然撂下狠话：“限时间把傻子找回来，不然会如何如何。”

　　如此一来，宋河就陷入了噩梦般的现实之中：“宋河的日子很简单，除了吃喝干活，惦记牢里的儿子，再无其他，后来遇见傻子，也只想着尽快把傻子打发掉。可一桩又一桩的事往他脑里塞着一个又一个问题，躲都躲不掉。谁是傻子真正的家人?他们为什么争抢一个傻子?那个叫大旺的把傻子弄到了什么地方?男人和女人、黑头盔和蓝头盔咋约好了似的没了影?这些问题不安分，在他脑里乱搞，生出一窝一窝小问题。”

　　虽然暂时好像还没有另外的人再来找傻子，但谁知道明天会不会呢?就这样，一种未知的厄运如同达摩克利斯之剑一般悬在了宋河夫妇的头上。

作品评论　　

现实主义与现代主义艺术况味同在

　　《奔跑的月光》在关注当下时代急遽变化中的社会现实的同时，又隐隐约约地与现代主义相辅相成。正如评论家王春林所评，此篇小说的根本特色就在于，现实主义与现代主义艺术况味的同时存在，有着对于社会现实真切的批判性思考，比如残疾人的被拐卖问题，比如司法领域的贪腐问题，比如贫富之间的差距问题，都能够在小说的情节中得到明显的印证。而其耐人寻味处却在于，通过对于“重复”艺术手法一次又一次的巧妙运用，把小说的故事情境渐渐地推向了极致，在此过程中，我们可以感觉到，胡学文在超离对于社会现实问题关切的同时，逐渐地趋向于一种存在感的传达。在一部现实主义小说中，能够读出强烈异常的存在感来，其所说明的，正是一种现代主义艺术况味的具备。

　　犹如照妖镜，让社会中的人无从遁形

　　社会上有很多这样的人，有着自己的固执、倔强与信仰，然而却与周围的环境格格不入。他们不算社会的边缘群体，而是最常见的细胞和组成份子，但他们却由于某些突然的事件与诱因逐步被边缘化，直至被逼退到生存的底线。小说《奔跑的月光》在平静地呈现生活对于人性的刻画的同时，又以一种坚韧平实的道德激情与那种撕裂感、无力感相搏，从来没有丧失人性的信念。它充满着发现，发现新富人群或者小康人家之外的边缘部落。而这种发现是在极度低下的生存环境中，发现人物的精神生长方式。曾有一位评论家评论说：“某些时候，你会觉得他们像是鲁迅笔下的人物穿越而来，想要见证百年来这个民族到底发生了多少真正意义上的演变。”

The Running Moon (novella)

Hu Xuewen

Author Profile

Hu Xuewen was born September 1967 in a small mountain village in Guyuan County of Zhangjiakou Prefecture Level City, Hebei Province. He is a member of the China Writers Association and vice chairman of the Hebei Writers Association. In 2005, he was recognized as one of Hebei’s “top ten young writers” on the second year such a ranking was awarded. He is considered the “Head Knight” of the Hebei literary community’s “Four Knights of Hebei.” In August 2014, Hu won the sixth Lu Xun Literary Novella Prize for his book The Dusk That Begins At Noon.

The author’s works include such novels as Burning Gray (《燃烧的苍白》), Extra-Terrestrial Song (《天外的歌声》), Red Moon (《红月亮》), and Private Archive (《私人档案》), as well as such novellas as Polar Rouge (《极地胭脂》), Marriage Acupuncture Point (《婚姻穴位》), The Fish Which Walks (《在路上行走的鱼》), Homicide on High (《命案高悬》), and Let’s Do a Little Something for Her (《我们为她做点儿什么吧》). His works have been reprinted several times by publications that include Novel Monthly, Selected Novels, Selected Novellas, Xinhua Digest, China Literature Selections, and Writers Digest. Of these works, Polar Rouge received the China Writers Scarlet Eagle Cup for Excellent Work, and The Perfect Song of the Autumn Wind was awarded both the Yangtze Literature and Arts Neighborhood Literature Award and the Hebei Writers Association Outstanding Work Award in 2000. It also won Hebei Province’s 9th Developing Literature and Arts Prize. Soaring Woman received both the 2002 Hebei Writers Association Top Ten Works Award and the 10th Hebei Developing Literature and Arts Prize. A great number of his works, including the novellas The Way a Tree Grows (《一棵树的生长方式》), Soaring Woman (《飞翔的女人》), Polar Rouge, and Marriage Acupuncture Point, have been adapted for film and television.

Synopsis

Song He and Huang Hua are an ordinary husband and wife in their country village. Their son committed a crime and has been sentenced to six years in prison. After hearing from Wu Laosan that it is possible to pay to have the sentence reduced, the couple send 50,000 yuan to Wu Laosan’s distant relative, Boss Wu Duoduo, who runs a coal store and oil mill. But their hopes of reducing the sentence by a year are dashed when they realize the money has simply been pocketed. In order to get the 50,000 yuan back, Song He starts making repeated trips to the town to find Boss Wu.

The background of this story may immediately strike readers as the “tales of the lower class” sub-genre popular among literary circles, but it is actually only this story’s starting point. What Hu Xuewen really wants to express is not quite so straightforward.

During the course of Song He’s repeated runs to town, he somehow becomes mixed up in the affairs of a fool whose past is unknown. Perhaps because the fool instinctively felt the couple’s innate kind-heartedness, they are unable to rid themselves of his burden. After trying all possible methods, the fool remains with them. In the end, the fool and the Song He couple unexpectedly begin to form an affection that’s both dull and faintly perceivable.

The novella’s richly intricate story does not end there however. Just when interactions between the husband, wife, and fool are becoming increasingly harmonious, Boss Wu appears on their doorstep out of nowhere, accompanied by one of the fool’s brothers, Da Wang. Apparently, Da Wang’s brother gets lost easily, and so he has come to take him away. He also leaves a thousand yuan for the couple. In this way, the husband and wife are eased of a burden they did not originally sign up for, and yet they still felt somewhat unwilling to part with the fool. Perhaps what they least expected was for a nightmarish experience to come about that would genuinely entwine them all. Not long after the fool leaves, a fifty-plus-year-old man claiming to be the fool’s elder brother arrives at the door with a woman. They not only take the freshly-gained thousand yuan away with them, but also threaten to come back and stir up trouble if the matter isn’t resolved in a few days. It’s then that the couple realizes the person who took the fool away might not have actually been his brother. Perhaps they’d been deceived.

But the plot thickens. The couple already in an anxious state, another two men arrive at their home wearing helmets, claiming to be the fool’s brothers. Since the couple are unable to give them what they want, the two men fiercely threaten them, “Bring the fool back to us, or you might not like what happens! Time is ticking!”

With that, Song He falls into a nightmarish reality. Hu Xuewen writes, “Song He’s days became simple. Besides eating, drinking, working, and worrying about his imprisoned son, he had nothing else on his mind. Later, he met a fool who he wanted to be rid of just as fast as he can, but this new course of events fills his mind with more worry. There was nowhere left to hide. And where is the fool’s real family? Why is everybodyl fighting for him? Where has Da Wang taken him? Are the man and the woman lying, or is it the ones with the helmets? There’s been no sign of them. These pesky questions ran wild through his brain, firmly webbing him in a net of confusion.” For the moment, it seems that no one else is coming to find the fool, but who really knows what tomorrow holds anymore? It’s in this way that an unknown omen forever hangs over the couple’s heads like Damocles’ sword.

Reviews

Hu Xuewen’s novella The Running Moon’s earliest publication was in the sixth issue of People’s Literature in 2013. In 2015, it was added to the author’s novella collection of the same name, which was published by China Film Publishers. The collection includes six stories seemingly of the same genre. Each is a tale of common people whose deaths are tied up in fate.

This novel’s male protagonist Song He is a character worthy of the label “common.” Though helpless and resigned to his fate at the lower strata of society, he is no meek coward who will bear any burden coming his way. He also does not understand the calculating nature of those solely set on material gain. Thus, as the story unfolds, he can only abide by his own “fixed logic,” asking himself “Why would anyone fight over a fool?” as he runs all over town trying to find out. This honest man, foolish at first glance, thus has a shade of tenacity to his straightforwardness. Faced with a cold and ruthless reality, Song He still persists in his naive convictions and endlessly pursues his humanistic ideals. However, such obeisance inevitably ends in tragedy.

For a long time, Hu Xuewen’s literary creations focused vividly on the social realities posed in our era of rapid change. As such, he can be considered a genuine realist author. Throughout The Running Moon, he is similarly concerned with real life; it moves almost undiscernibly from realism to modernism. The critic Wang Chunlin observed that this work’s essential and distinguishing quality lies in how it simultaneously contains both realist and modernist artistic elements. The Running Moon presents vivid, critical reflection on the social issues of today, be it the kidnapping and sale of handicapped persons, corruption within the judicial system, or disparities between the rich and the poor. Each of these issues is clearly criticized within the novella’s plot. Hu Xuewen’s own notable specialty is his skillful, frequent use of the “repetition” artistic technique, applying this method to gradually drive the story towards its climax. It is by this process that we can notice how Hu Xuewen seems to transcend the truly troubling aspects of our society, moving bit by bit towards some transmission of being. With the distinctly unusual existential notions present within this realist novel, we can only read the story as possessing a definite modernist flavor. In Hu Xuewen’s The Running Moon, the couple and the nightmarish environment in which they live are actually strikingly Kafkaesque.

A critic once commented, “At times, you feel like these characters were written by Lu Xun’s pen, serving as witness to the significant changes to our national spirit that have occurred over the past hundred years.”

The renowned director Chen Jianbin released a film adaptation of the novella The Running Moon called A Fool in 2015.

作者：《人民文学》副主编 李东华

译者：Scottian Rainen（美国