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莫言丨《蛙》

推荐理由

小说通过讲述从事妇产科工作50多年的乡村女医生姑姑的人生经历，反映新中国近60年波澜起伏的农村生育史，剖析以蝌蚪为代表的知识分子的卑微而矛盾的心理，人物灵魂深处极致的痛苦。

莫言酝酿十余年、笔耕四载、三易其稿。小说由剧作家蝌蚪写给日本作家杉谷义人的四封长信和一部话剧构成。第一封信提到杉谷义人的《文学与生命》，或许由此成了写作这部作品的由头。而杉谷义人的父亲是一名侵华日军。杉谷义人对他指导、鼓励之助。从书信带出故事，从故事牵出话剧。

小说以解放初期、“文革”、改革开放、新世纪这四个不同的历史空间作背景，围绕“计划生育”的不同叙事，努力使这四个时空的“计划生育故事”形成互文参照性，从而达到历史反思和人性高度的统一。

《蛙》里的一切无不指向“生命”，主要人物的名字、故事情节，甚至刊物名称都和人体器官有关。如万心、陈眉、陈鼻、肖上唇、肖下唇、五官、袁腮、王肝、王胆、李手、王脚、郝大手等等，强化着“人和生育”这个主题。同时民间工艺大师秦河、郝大手大量生产、无处不有的泥娃娃，以及袁腮的牛蛙养殖场的蛙与蝌蚪，更给人无处不是“人”的印象。这种寓言和象征式的经营手法，把小说推向一个更高的层面，即关照生命、敬畏生命。

Reviews

The novel reflects on a turbulent history of human reproduction over six decades in Chinese countryside through relating the life of Auntie, a country doctor with more than fifty years of experience in obstetrics.

The author spent more than a decade gestating the novel, four years writing and completing the final draft following three rounds of revision. It consists of four long letters addressed by Kedou, a Chinese playwright, to Sugiya Yoshihito, a Japanese writer, and a drama script. The first letter introduces the theme by mentioning Literature and Life by Sugiya, whose father was an officer in the Japanese army that invaded China. Sugiya guides and encourages Kedou. The letter gives rise to the story, which culminates in the drama.

Against the backdrop of early PRC era, the Cultural Revolution, Reform Era and the 21st century, chronologically, this book, through relating the impact of policy shift during these four periods in family planning on the society, deeply reflects on history and human nature.

The story is all about dignity and the respect for human life. The names of the characters, such as Wan Xin (heart), Chen Mei (eyebrow), Chen Bi (nose), Xiao Shangchun (upper lip), Xiao Xiachun (lower lip), Wu Guan (features), Yun Sai (cheek), Wang Gan (liver), Wang Dan (gallbladder), Li Shou (hand), Wang Jiao (foot), Hao Dashou (big hand), all reference the human body and echo the theme of fertility. The images of the ubiquitous clay baby mass-produced by master craftsmen Qin He and Hao Dashou and the frogs and tadpoles of the bullfrog farm of Yuan Sai also reinforce the theme of human life. Such symbolic and allegorical devices elevate the novel to new heights of respect and awe for human life.

作家简介

Author Profile

莫言，山东高密人，1955年生。著有《红高粱家族》《酒国》《丰乳肥臀》《檀香刑》《生死疲劳》等长篇小说，《透明的红萝卜》《司令的女人》等中短篇小说一百余部，并有剧作、散文多部。

其中许多作品已被翻译成英、法、德、意、日、西、俄、韩、荷兰、瑞典、挪威、波兰、阿拉伯、越南等多种语言，在国内外文坛上具有广泛影响。

2012年10月11日获得诺贝尔文学奖，成为首位获诺贝尔文学奖的中国籍作家。

Mo Yan was born in 1955 in Gaomi County, Shandong Province. Some of his notable works include Red Sorghum, The Republic of Wine, Big Breasts and Wide Hips, Sandalwood Death, and Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. Notable novellas include A Transparent Radish and Women of the Commander. In addition to more than 100 short stories and novellas, he has also written a number of plays and prose essays.

His works have been translated into many languages, such as English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Russian, Korean, Danish, Swedish, Polish, Arabic, and Vietnamese. Mo Yan has a considerable influence in both Chinese and international literary world. On October 11, 2012, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature, being the first Chinese national to have received the distinguished honor.

中文概要

Synopsis

主人公万心“姑姑”本是一位抗日军医的女儿，因此她卫校毕业继承衣钵，在1970年代，她是接生员，无论多么困难的分娩，只要经她接手，就会转危为安，就连母牛难产，大家都请万心出马，那时候，她是四里八村妇女的大救星，活菩萨。“姑姑”是妇女们心中非常神圣的“送子娘娘”。

1980年代，“姑姑”成为计划生育的推手，一下子由天使变成魔鬼，专门开展引产、结扎、惩罚超生、打击偷生之类的事情，原来为人接生的主业变成了副业，原来“送子娘娘”的光环变成了扼杀婴儿的“杀人魔王”，原来的抗日英雄因为恋人叛逃而成了特务、内奸和反革命，原来处处受人尊敬的待遇落到了现在处处被人讨厌甚至追杀的境地，原来连日军司令都不怕，现在反而被一只青蛙吓晕。张拳的老婆因她溺死水中，她侄子万足的老婆王仁美被她大义灭亲引产失败大出血死了，袖珍美人王胆在被她追赶的途中所幸生下女孩陈眉，但王胆的命也没保住。万心是计生工作的推土机，开到哪儿都压死一片。

后来她途经芦苇地，被无数的蛙围攻，撕碎衣服，咬破耳朵，喷射黏液甚至是精液，再后来，她夜夜失眠，猫头鹰的叫声被她幻化成蛙的惨叫，她觉得这是那些无辜的生灵来讨债了。“蛙”，就是“娃”啊，万心的这双手，接生了上万个娃，又残害了多少个娃啊！如果她不仅仅是一个妇女工作者，如果她能在当嫁的年纪嫁掉，在该生的年纪生产，她的心就不会这么硬，这么冷。可惜她年轻的时候与那个英俊的飞行员擦肩而过，后来在她徐娘半老的年纪里，戏剧性地嫁给了郝大手，一辈子接生了上万个孩子，却没有一个属于她，这也许就是报应吧？

姑姑解放后成为一个人见人爱、花见花开的专事接生的妇科医生，并被人们神化成但是这个“送子娘娘”后来却而且更为矛盾的是，专门从事接生和计划生育的姑姑和小狮子，竟然双双失去生育能力。一生致力于计生事业的姑姑和小狮子，老年时竟身体力行地支持超生偷生，小狮子甚至知法犯法地偷偷花了5万块钱找被毁容的陈眉为自己代孕。

小说结尾出现的九幕剧《蛙》,再现了小说中陈眉和陈鼻的悲惨遭遇:陈眉是陈鼻的女儿，有倾国倾城之貌，本该有一个极为美好的未来，然而她拒绝靠姿色而坚持靠体力吃饭，结果被工厂的一场火灾烧得面目全非、惨不忍睹，成了神秘的蒙面疯子，并被穿越到民国县衙大堂打输了为人代孕的官司。陈眉的老爹陈鼻本是乡里第一个万元户和一个生存能力极强的暴发户，因为超生偷生几经折腾，晚年沦为一个遭人唾弃的乞丐。

Ms. Wan Xin, nicknamed the “Auntie”, is the heroine of the book. She is the daughter of an army doctor in the war against the Japanese Aggression. She follows her father’s path in the medical profession and becomes a nurse. As a midwife in the 1970s, she could handle all challenging tasks, capable of turning around any dangerous situations and on one occasion, even, helping a cow through a difficult labor. She was considered as the goddess of fertility, the savior of mothers and babies.

In 1980s, however, Auntie, becomes an active promoter of family planning and starts working on abortion, sterilization etc. She draws hatred and terror rather than love and admiration, even receiving death threats. Once undaunted by senior Japanese officers, she now faints at the sight of a frog. Mrs. Zhang drowned while trying to escape from her clutch. Her nephew’s wife dies of hemorrhage after the abortion she performed. Ms. Wang Dan, though managing to give birth to her daughter Chen Mei on her escape, nevertheless dies during labor. Like a bulldozer, she leaves a pile of crushed bodies in her wake.

On one occasion, passing by a reed field, she is encircled by numerous frogs, which tear apart her clothes, bite at her ears, spraying her with mucous and even semen. After that, she has trouble falling asleep at night. She takes the hoot of the owls as the cries of the frogs. In Chinese, frog is pronounced the same as baby. She believes that all those babies whose lives she terminated through family planning are now calling on her to demand revenge. How many babies has she delivered and killed during her life! If she had married that handsome pilot and given birth at the ‘proper’ age, maybe she would have turned out to be a much more tender and loving woman. Perhaps it is a retribution that she married Mr. Hao Dashou late in life and has no children of her own. Auntie is once deified as the godness of fertility, ironically, she can’t bear a baby herself. So does her apprentice, Xiao Shizi. They both devote their lifes in birth control but break the law intentionally in the end. Xiao Shizi even pays Chen Mei, now disfigured, fifty thousand Yuan for surrogacy.

The nine-act drama, Frog, towards the end of the book relates the tragedy of father Chen Bi and daughter Chen Mei: Chen Mei, the famous beauty, instead of living on her looks, decides to work to support herself. Tragically, she is disfigured by a fire in the plant where she works for and then turns into a mysterious masked lunatic. During time travel back to the Republic of China era, she even loses the surrogacy litigation. Chen Bi, once a prosperous local businessman, loses all his fortune due to defiance of family planning and is reduced to beggary in his old age.