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王安忆丨《小鲍庄》

推荐理由

《小鲍庄》发表于“寻根文学”兴起之时，是作者用小说之笔探讨与表现民族的根文化所作的一次尝试。它表现了我国传统文化中最基本最核心的成分——“仁义”精神，通过对“仁义”神话的书写，展现了乡土中国社会封闭凝滞而又生生不息的生存状态。对于这份“仁义”以及村民们的生活状态，作者采用冷静细致而又客观的笔法。虽是为了寻根而写，但作者对所寻找到的“根”，既不歌颂，也不批判。她只是把对生活与民族的热爱消化成深刻的探索与冷峻的启迪。

在艺术上，受拉美魔幻现实主义的影响，在创作中采用神话结构，而且是多头交错，最后归总，以这种富有弹性的结构包融了丰富的内容。小说没有一以贯之的情节和人物，但很多人物形象却非常鲜活。作者通过对人物内心世界的呈现，以及对日常生活细节的描摹，让人们看到了小鲍庄人的真实生命。著名作家冰心曾评价说，在《小鲍庄》中，“每个人物，如鲍五爷、捞渣以及一对对情侣——小翠和文化子、拾来和二婶，都从纸上站了起来”。小说在整体上的冷漠与静态的叙述，无形中产生了一种陌生化的审美效果。这使得作品于现实主义的底色上，体现出强烈的现代主义叙事风格。

Reviews

Baotown was published during the flourishing of “Root-seeking Literature” in China. This novel is an attempt by the author to probe and also express the roots of the nation’s culture. It expresses the most fundamental element of traditional Chinese culture: a spirit of virtue. Through the writing of virtuous parables, Wang presents the state of existence of her native land: closed-off and stagnating, while still growing and thriving. The author uses a calm, meticulous, and objective writing style to depict the concept of virtue and the living conditions of the villagers. Although this novella was written in an effort to search for cultural roots, the author does not praise the roots that she finds, nor does she condemn them. She simply morphs her passion for life and for her nation into in-depth exploration and stony enlightenment.

Artistically speaking, Wang is influenced by the magical realism of South American literature. She layers the structure with many intersecting plots and characters. Once assembled, this very flexible structure overflows with rich content. The novella has no single primary plot or character, but many of its characters are portrayed extremely vividly. By presenting these characters’ inner worlds and depicting the details of everyday life, she shows her readers the true lives of the villagers of Baotown. The famous writer Bing Xin expressed the following comments regarding Baotown, “Every character, such Fifth Grandfather, Dregs, and even the couples featured in the novel—like Little Jade and Culture, Picked-Up and Second Aunt—leaps out from the page.” The author’s calm, passive narration brings forth defamiliarization, which provides the novella with a strong and modernist narrative style though it is in essence a work of realism.

作家简介

Author Profile

王安忆，女，1954年3月6日生于南京。1978年调入上海中国福利会《儿童时代》杂志社任编辑，1987年调上海作家协会任专业作家。2004年调复旦大学，任中文系教授。现任中国作协副主席，上海市作协主席。

1976年开始发表作品，著有短篇小说集《雨，沙沙沙》《流逝》《小鲍庄》《尾声》《荒山之恋》《海上繁华梦》《乌托邦诗篇》等，长篇小说《黄河故道人》《纪实与虚构》《长恨歌》《遍地枭雄》《启蒙时代》《匿名》等。王安忆的小说曾多次获奖，其中《小鲍庄》获1985-1986年全国中篇小说奖。

王安忆的作品被翻译为英、法、德、日、俄、韩、荷兰、越南、泰国等多种文字。2011年，王安忆获提名布克国际文学奖。2013年，王安忆获颁法兰西文学艺术骑士勋章。

Wang Anyi was born in Nanjing on March 6, 1954. She became an editor at Childhood, a Shanghai-based magazine affiliated with the China Welfare Institute, in 1978. In 1987, she joined the Shanghai Writers Association as a professional writer. She began working at Fudan University in 2004 as a professor in the department of Chinese Language and Literature. She is currently the vice-chairperson of the China Writers Association and the chairperson of the Shanghai Writers Association.

She began publishing her writing in 1976. Among her written works are the short stories and novellas And the Rain Patters On, Lapse of Time, Baotown, Coda, Love on a Barren Mountain, Dreams on the Sea, and Utopian Verses. Her novels include People of the Yellow River, True Reports and Fabrication, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, Heroes in Every Corner, Age of Enlightenment, and Anonymous. Wang’s works have received multiple awards. Among them, Baotown received the 1985-1986 National Novella Prize.

Wang’s works have been translated into many different languages, including English, French, German, Japanese, Russian, Korean, Dutch, Vietnamese, and Thai. In 2011, she was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize. She was admitted to the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2013.

中文概要

Synopsis

小说的背景安排在一个谓之“小鲍庄”的安徽北部小村庄。这个小村庄有着几千年的历史，传说这里的村民原是大禹的后代。村里有个叫鲍彦山的，儿子不少。逃荒到这的小丫头小翠，起初被鲍彦山家收养。本打算给大儿子“建设子”作媳妇，可是小翠却与跟她年龄相仿的鲍彦山的二儿子“文化子”有了感情，在十七岁时出逃了。

鲍彦山家里又生下了第七胎，他为这个小儿子取名为鲍仁平，小名叫“捞渣”。就在“捞渣”降生的那一刻，东头一座小草屋里，传出鲍五爷哼哼唧唧的哭声，挤了一屋老娘们，唏唏溜溜地抹眼泪甩鼻子。鲍五爷唯一的孙子“社会子”直挺挺地躺着，一张脸蜡黄。上年就得了干痨，一个劲儿地吐血，硬是把血呕干死的。

捞渣慢慢长大。他笑起来的模样好，眼睛弯弯的，小嘴甜甜的，亲热人。大人们说他看上去“仁义”。村里人都很喜欢他，但是鲍五爷见了他就来气。鲍五爷觉得，他的独苗孙子之所以在捞渣落地的那一刻咽气，是因为叫捞渣抓了替身。

捞渣歪歪扭扭地能走了，话也能说一些了。鲍彦山家正吃晚饭，鲍五爷拄着拐来了。鲍彦山招呼他：“五爷，来吃。”捞渣学嘴：“来七（吃）。”鲍五爷装没听见，不理会他，在门槛上坐下来，看蚂蚁搬家。过了一会儿，不知什么东西碰了他的嘴，定睛一看，捞渣不知不觉到了跟前，小手里攥着一块煎饼，捏成了团，直送到他嘴边。他看看捞渣，捞渣朝他笑着。鲍五爷的心里不自觉地受到触动。

于是，捞渣与鲍五爷由此慢慢地结下了深厚的感情。鲍五爷老了，连绳头都搓不动了，成天坐在墙根下晒太阳。一直到中午，才懒懒地走回家烧锅。捞渣不让他走，说：“来俺家吃罢!”鲍五爷也不推辞。吃长了，鲍彦山就逗捞渣：“你老叫五爷来家吃，俺家粮食不够吃了，咋办？”捞渣认认真真地回答：“我少吃一张煎饼，少喝一碗稀饭，可管？”

捞渣七岁了，该上学了。可是他的二哥“文化子”已经在公社上中学了。一家供不起两个学生。鲍彦山说，“还是让捞渣读吧，文化子能写个信儿记个帐就算了，回来做活也算是个大半劳力。”文化子不干了，又哭又闹还不吃饭，捞渣便说：“让我二哥念吧，我不念了。”

不上学的捞渣成天下湖割猪菜。一班小孩子都欢喜和他在一起。谁走得慢，捞渣一定等他。谁割少了，不敢回家，捞渣一定把自己的匀给他。谁们打架了，捞渣一定不让打起来。跟着捞渣，大人们都放心。这孩子仁义呢，大家都说。

有一天，家里来人，捞渣就到鲍五爷那里去借宿，和鲍五爷脚对脚挤一床。鲍五爷偎着捞渣暖和的身子，心窝里滚烫，话也多了：“捞渣，你想不想上学，五爷给你付学费。”捞渣上学后，第一学期就得了个“三好学生”奖状。

村子突然发了百年难遇的大水。村长满村跑，拉了一批人上山搭帐逢。正吃晌饭，听到西边轰隆隆的响，不象雷声，象是破坝。“跑吧!”人们放下碗就往山东面跑，鲍彦山一家跑上了石子路，回头一点人头，少了捞渣。文化子想起来了：“捞渣给鲍五爷送煎饼去，人或在他家了。”

寻找捞渣的筏子在水上打转。人们在大柳树树梢上发现了趴着的鲍五爷。鲍五爷用手指着树下，喃喃地说：“捞渣，捞渣!”男人们一个个跳下水去，足足一个时辰，才摸到捞渣，可早已没气了，眼睛闭着，嘴角却翘着，象是还在笑。人们感叹着：“捞渣要自己先上树，死不了的。”“捞渣是为了鲍五爷死的哩！” 

在这场大水中，小鲍庄死了一个疯子、一个老人和一个孩子。这孩子本可以不死，是为了救那老人。可是，这个老人很快也咽气了。全庄的人都去送捞渣。送葬的队伍，足有二百多人。都听说小鲍庄出了个仁义孩子。小鲍庄不敬富，不畏势，就是敬重个仁义。

这场变故给许多人平静的生活多少带来了一些变化。有知识、喜欢文学创作的鲍仁文写稿屡投不中，他缠住老革命鲍彦荣要写他的战斗经历，而鲍彦荣对此不感兴趣。捞渣牺牲后，鲍仁文写了捞渣的报告文学。不久，省报登了，题目是《幼苗新风——记舍己为人小英雄鲍仁平》。鲍仁文为自己的生存价值得到了认可和肯定而高兴。

小冯庄的小慧子外出逃荒几年后带回一个孩子拾来，拾来管小慧子叫“大姑”。两人一直同床就寝。长成青年的拾来逐渐对“大姑”产生了极深的心理依恋，他拒绝了“大姑”的提亲，离家成为走街串巷的货郎。拾来几次来到小鲍庄，结识了四十多岁的寡妇二婶，两人逐渐相爱。但小鲍庄不能容忍外姓人，村民殴打拾来，二婶也受大家歧视。后来，两人虽在乡政府的支持下结了婚，可小鲍庄人仍不接纳他们，在人前始终抬不起头来。在洪水来临时，拾来下水捞上了捞渣的尸体，受到表彰，这之后才在小鲍庄立住脚。

捞渣死后一周年，县上将他的坟迁到小鲍庄正中，墓碑上刻上了“永垂不朽”四个大字。此时，由于县里照顾，鲍彦山家盖起了新房，二十七岁的建设子到农机厂上班，他的婚事也马上解决了。外逃的小翠子也回来了，与文化子悲喜交集。村里的路也开始拓宽……

This novella is set in the eponymous “Baotown,” a small village in northern Anhui. This village’s history traces back several millennia, and legend has it that the residents of this village are the descendants of Yu the Great, the mythical Chinese leader who tamed the floods ravaging the Chinese heartland and founded the Xia Dynasty. In this hamlet is a man by the name of Bao Yanshan, who has no shortage of sons. Little Jade stumbles across this village as she flees the famine that has laid waste to her home, and she is initially taken in and cared for by Bao’s family. At first Bao Yanshan intends to marry Little Jade to his eldest son, Construction, but she later has feelings for the family’s second-oldest son, Culture, who is only slightly older than her. At the age of seventeen, she flees Baotown.

Bao Yanshan’s wife gives birth to the family’s seventh child. Bao names this son Bao Renping; the boy is nicknamed “Dregs” by the family. Just as Dregs is born, Fifth Grandfather’s sobbing can be heard over in a small straw cabin to the east. Packed among a crowd of old women, he wipes his eyes and sniveling nose. Fifth Grandfather’s only grandson, Society, lies stiff as a board, his face sallow. In the previous year, the young man had fallen ill with tuberculosis. He began vomiting blood, and he did not stop until he was dead, his body depleted of blood.

Dregs grows older. He has a pleasant smile, a pair of smiling eyes and warm words. The child is very kind, and adults say that he is a boy with strong morals. All the villagers take a liking to him, but the very sight of him makes Fifth Grandfather’s blood boil. Fifth Grandfather believes that the reason why his only grandson took his final breath at the same moment that Dregs was born is that Dregs took the place of his grandson’s soul.

Dregs is able to totter around, and he is starting to speak. As Bao Yanshan’s family is eating dinner, Fifth Grandfather hobbles into their home. Bao calls out to him: “Come eat with us, Fifth Grandfather.” Dregs mimics his father’s speech: “Come ‘eap.’” Fifth Grandfather pretends not to hear them, and he ignores Dregs. He sits down on the threshold and watches a line of ants scuttling to their new home. A moment later, something bumps his mouth. Fifth Grandfather looks up and sees that Dregs is now standing in front of him. Clutched in his little hands is a jianbing, a thin pancake, which he has rolled into a ball and held up to the old man’s mouth. Fifth Grandfather looks at Dregs, and Dregs smiles at him. The old man feels something stir inside him.

Over time, Dregs and Fifth Grandfather develop a close relationship. Fifth Grandfather is so old, and so weak that he cannot even make strings to sell. He spends each day lounging in the sun, leaning against a wall, only lazily walking home at noon to cook for himself. One day, Dregs does not let him go back home. “Come eat at my house!” he exhorts. Fifth Grandfather does not decline this invitation. This goes on for some time. Eventually Bao Yanshan teases Dregs: “You always ask Fifth Grandfather to come eat with us. What if we start running low on food?” Dregs earnestly answers, “I’ll eat one jianbing and one bowl of porridge less. How about that?”

Dregs is now seven years old, and he is old enough to attend school. However, his brother Culture is already attending high school at the commune. The family simply cannot afford to send two children to school. “Let’s let Dregs go to school instead,” Bao Yanshan says. “Culture just needs to know how to write a letter and keep accounts. If he comes back now, he’ll be able to take care of a lot of the labor that needs to be done around here.” Culture is unwilling to leave school. In between sobbing and throwing tantrums, he refuses to eat. “Let my brother go to school. I won’t go,” Dregs says.

Now that he is not attending school, Dregs spends each day husking herbs down by the lake. A group of children have taken a liking to him, and they enjoy being in his company. Dregs will always wait patiently for anyone who walks more slowly than the others. If one of the children hasn’t husked enough and is afraid to return home, Dregs will definitely give the child some of his own husked herbs. If the other children get in a fight, Dregs will be the first to break it up. The adults can rest easy when the children are with Dregs. Everyone says that Dregs is a very moral boy.

One day a guest comes to stay at the Bao house, so Dregs goes to stay at Fifth Grandfather’s house, and the two of them share the same bed. As Fifth Grandfather snuggles up to Dregs’ warm body,  his heart is warmed as well, and the words bubble out of his mouth: “Do you want to go to school, Dregs? I’ll pay your tuition.” During his first semester of school, Dregs earns himself the honor of a “Merit Student.”

A once-in-a-century flood descends upon Baotown. The villager chief runs about in a hurry, and takes a group of villagers with him to set up tents on a mountain. While eating lunch, they hear a booming noise from the west. It does not sound like thunder, but rather the breaking of a dam. “Run!” the villagers yell. They set down their bowls and run towards the eastern side of the mountain. Bao Yanshan and his family run along a stone road. As Bao Yanshan turns around and counts the people with him, he notices that Dregs has gone missing. Suddenly Culture remembers: “Dregs took some jianbing to Fifth Grandfather. Maybe he’s at Fifth Grandfather’s house.”

Taking a raft to search for Dregs, they find Fifth Grandfather clinging to the branches of a great willow. Fifth Grandfather points down towards the ground. “Dregs! Dregs!” he murmurs. The men all dive into the water. They find Dregs two whole hours later, but the boy has long since breathed his final breath. The boy’s eyes are shut, and his lips are curled as if he is still smiling. “If Dregs climbed onto the tree first, he wouldn’t have died,” they say, sighing. “He died for Fifth Grandfather!”

This flood took the lives of three villagers: a mentally ill person, an old man, and a child. This child did not have to die, but he died in order to save that old man. However, that old man passed away only shortly afterwards. The entire village turns out for Dregs’s funeral; 200 more people attend the event. They had all heard that Baotown had produced a virtuous child. The people of Baotown do not place importance in wealth or status; rather, they value morals.

This tragedy brings some changes to the peaceful lives of Baotown’s villagers. Bao Renwen, an educated aspiring writer, has submitted manuscript after manuscript, but none have been selected for publication. He once pesters Bao Yanrong, the old revolutionist, as he wishes to write about the man’s wartime experiences. However, Bao Yanrong is not interested. After Dregs passes away, however, Bao Renwen writes a report about Dregs’s death. Not long after, the provincial newspaper publishes the article, titling it “A Sprouted Sapling: Remembering Bao Renping, the Young Hero Who Sacrificed His Life for the Sake of Another.” Having received approval and recognition of his self-worth, Bao Renping is overjoyed.

After fleeing the famine that struck her home several years earlier, Little Hui from nearby Fengtown, returns home with a child named Picked-Up. Picked-Up calls Little Hui “aunt.” The two share the same bed at night. Over time, Picked-up, who is now a young adult, develops a deep psychological attachment for his “aunt.” Refusing his aunt’s attempts to find him a wife, he leaves home and wanders the streets and alleys as a peddler. Picked-Up comes to Baotown on several occasions, and he meets a widow in her forties named Second Aunt. The two gradually fall in love. However, the people of Baotown are not tolerant of outsiders, and the villagers attack Picked-Up. Second Aunt is also discriminated. Although the two get married with the support of the township government, the people of Baotown are still unable to accept them, and they are unable to look the other villagers in the eye. When the flood comes, it is Picked-Up who finds Dregs’s body, and he is commended for this. Picked-Up has finally established himself in Baotown.

On the one-year anniversary of Dregs’ death, the county moves his grave to the center of Baotown. The phrase “You Will Never Be Forgotten” is engraved on his tombstone. Around this time, Bao Yanshan’s family has a new home, thanks to the support they have received from the county. Construction, who is twenty-seven, starts working at an agricultural machinery factory, and he is about to be married. Little Jade returns to Baotown, which she had previously fled. When she meets Culture, her joy is intermingled with grief. The village also begins widening its roads…