铁凝:开掘“善”在这个时代中两难的处境

来源:中国文化译研网

作者:中国文化译研网

2018-11-06

  编者按


  近年来,中华文化“走出去”的影响力不断扩大,在全球文化多元化发展日益兴盛的背景下,中国文化译研网(CCTSS)联合中国作家协会《小说选刊》杂志社,启动“新世纪中国当代作家、作品海外传播数据库”项目,将100位中国当代优秀作家的简介、代表作品以及展示作家风采的短视频翻译为10种语言,集结成1000张中国作家名片向全球推介。千张“作家名片”将鲜明地向世界宣告:我是中国作家,我在进行中国创作。


  此种形式和规模是中国故事走向世界的一大创新,会让世界更加全面、客观、公正地了解中国优秀作家作品,同时也是打通中国文化走向世界的“最后一公里”。


  铁凝,女,1957年9月生于北京,原籍河北赵县。中国作家协会主席,中国文联主席。主要著作有长篇小说《玫瑰门》《大浴女》《笨花》等四部,中、短篇小说《永远有多远》《哦,香雪》等一百余部,以及散文、随笔等共四百余万字。散文集《女人的白夜》获中国首届鲁迅文学奖,中篇小说《永远有多远》获第二届鲁迅文学奖。根据小说改编的电影《哦,香雪》获第41届柏林国际电影节青春片最高奖。2015年5月获法国文学艺术骑士勋章。部分作品译成英、法、德、日、俄、丹麦、西班牙等文字。2012年伦敦书展期间,国际知名出版集团哈珀·柯林斯通过竞拍获得长篇小说《大浴女》英文版的欧洲版权。


  初登文坛的铁凝是以她那清新高远、晶莹剔透的天真和善良征服读者的。随着作家眼前的现实社会变得繁复而诡谲,人性的阴暗面暴露于作家眼前,铁凝开始向生活的深处开掘。然而铁凝在关注当下现实的同时,她的独特之处在于擅长细致地展示“善”在这个时代中两难的处境,将其中的尴尬暴露无遗。“时代中写‘恶’的作家很多,但能把‘善’在这个时代所面临的考验写得很好的作家不多,可见作家内心有自己的坚持。”(评论家谢有顺言)


  铁凝凭着《哦,香雪》震动文学界。小说描写了一个农村少女香雪在火车只停留一分钟的火车站用一篮鸡蛋向一个女大学生换来一只渴望已久的铅笔盒,表现了农村少女的纯朴可亲和对现代文明的向往。铁凝以知识分子的角度观照农村,没有启蒙者的优越感,反而以灵动的笔调展现了人性中的至善至美。铁凝在长篇小说《玫瑰门》中将笔触聚焦在司猗纹身上,并通过以司猗纹为代表的庄家几代女性的命运书写,揭示女性生存现状、历史和社会秩序之间的深刻矛盾。司猗纹渴望的是认同——早年渴望获得传统家庭的认同,后来渴望获得政治社会和革命群众的认同。为了这种认同的实现,司猗纹付出了巨大的代价,也使尽各种手段,甚至连身边的亲人都成了她讨好时代的道具。但由于她身上有着过于坚硬的个人特征,她再怎么妥协和委屈自己,终究和时代格格不入。“玫瑰门”是女性之门的象征,通过这扇门和铁凝的“第三性”的视角,作者对主人公司绮纹的整个生命历程进行了细致的描述,深刻剖析了她由一个知书达理的大家闺秀而衍变成典型的“恶母”形象的不幸经历。中篇小说代表作《永远有多远》叙写的是北京人对故乡精神的怀恋,更是对商品大潮中人与人之间的开阔心胸与亲和关系的呼唤。

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  铁凝


  Tie Ning


  Tie Ning was born in Beijing in September 1957 and is originally from Zhao County, Hebei Province. She is the chairwoman of the China Writers Association and of the Chinese Federation of Art and Literature. Her major works include four novels entitled Rose Door, Big-Bath Woman and Clumsy Flower, and more than one hundred short stories and novellas including How Long is Forever? and Ah, Xiangxue, as well as around 4 million Chinese characters of prose works and essays. The collection of essays Women’s White Nights won the first Lu Xun Literature Award in China, and the novella How Long is Forever? won the second. The film Ah, Xiangxue, adapted from the novel of the same name, won the highest prize for youth films at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival. In May 2015, she was awarded the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters). Some of her works have been translated into English, French, German, Japanese, Russian, Danish, Spanish and other languages. During the 2012 London Book Fair, Harper Collins, an internationally renowned publishing group, obtained the European copyright of the English version of the novel Big-Bath Woman at auction.


  When she first appeared in the literary world, Tie Ning conquered the reader with her fresh and lofty, crystal-clear innocence and kindness. As real life society in front of the writer became complicated and strange, the dark side of human nature was exposed to her eyes, and Tie Ning began to dig into the depths of life. However, while she focused on the current reality, she was unique in her ability to carefully display the dilemma of “kindness” in this era and completely exposing the embarrassment within. “There are many writers who write about the ‘evils’ of the times, but there are few who can write well about the tests that ‘kindness’ faces in this era. It can be seen that the writer has her own persistence in her heart.” (Reviewer Xie Youshun)


  Tie Ning shocked the literary world with Ah, Xiangxue. The novel is about a young country girl named Xiang Xue, who swaps a basket of eggs for a pencil box she has been wanting for a long time with a female college student at a train station where the train stops for just one minute. This shows the pure and friendly nature of the young country girl and her yearning for modern civilization. Tie Ning views the rural areas from the perspective of intellectuals. Without the sense of superiority of the enlighteners, she displays the perfection and beauty of human nature in a flexible style.


  Tie Ning focuses her writing on Si Yiwen in the novel Rose Door and through the fate of several generations of female bankers represented by Si Yiwen, reveals the deep contradictions in women’s living conditions, history, and social order.


  What Si Yiwen longs for is approval – in the early years she longed for the approval of the traditional family, and later she was eager to gain approval from the political society and the revolutionary masses. In order to realize this kind of approval, Si Yiwen pays a huge price and makes every effort to use various means. Even her immediate relatives become props for her to ingratiate herself into the times. However, because she has personal characteristics that are too hard, no matter how much she compromises and puts herself out, in the end she is out of step with the times. Rose Door is a symbol for the gateway to womanhood. Through this door and Tie Ning’s “third person” perspective, the author has described the entire life course of the protagonist Si Yiwen in detail, and profoundly analyzed her unfortunate experience of transforming from a cultured girl of a rich and distinguished family into a typical “nasty mother”.


  Her novella masterpiece How Long is Forever? describes the Beijing people’s nostalgia for the spirit of the hometown, and it is also a call for broad-mindedness and affinity between people in the tide of material goods.


责任编辑:王爽