餘華解讀當代中國
Walking through the capital's university district, Yu Hua looks more like a migrant worker than one of China's best-selling authors. His hair short and spiky, his clothes simple and plain, he does not fit in -- and clearly doesn't make much of an effort to do so.
餘華走在北京的大學區裏，看上去更像是一個農民工，而不像是中國一流的暢銷書作家。他短短的頭髮直豎起來，衣服簡單而樸素，而且不大合身──很顯然，他也沒在這方面下什麼功夫。
That attitude extends to his view of contemporary society, which he says is so sick that a writer can't pretend to be a doctor. Instead, the best one can do is admit that one is ill and try to describe the symptoms. This ethos underpins 'Brothers,' a sprawling, two-part novel that has just come out in an English translation in the U.S. and will be published in April in Britain.
這種態度延伸到了他對當代社會的看法。他說，這個社會已經無藥可救，作家也不能再扮作社會的醫生。一個人所能做的就是承認自己有病，並且盡力去描述病情。這一思想貫穿着《兄弟》，一部分爲上下兩部的長篇鉅製。這部小說的英文版剛剛在美國問世，今年四月該書還將在英國上市。
The book is a manic, hyperactive account of two brothers whose stories span the past 50 years of hardcore communism and today's no-holds-barred capitalism. 'At times the novel is grotesque and crude, but there's nothing I write about that is more absurd than what goes on in society,' he says as we rush past crowds of university students en route to a restaurant that serves the cuisine of Mr. Yu's native Zhejiang province.
餘華以一種瘋狂而亢奮的筆觸敘述了兩兄弟的故事。整個小說從過去純粹的共產主義寫到今天不折不扣的資本主義，橫跨了五十年。餘華在我們匆匆穿過一羣羣大學生，去往一家經營浙江菜的餐廳途中說，這部小說有時候顯得怪誕而粗俗，但社會上真實發生的事情比我筆下所有的故事更爲荒誕不經。浙江是餘華的老家。
Politics is one of the 46-year-old's main interests. His most famous work, 'To Live,' is a brutal, mythic tale of a man who loses all to the political movements that tore across China during the first three decades of Communist Party rule, but manages to keep going through his sheer will to live. The book, which was filmed by the star director Zhang Yimou, remains a bestseller in China. His other works are symbolic almost to the point of caricature. His 1995 'Chronicles of a Blood Merchant' tells the story of a man who sells his blood to get by. 'Cries in the Drizzle,' published in 2003, is about a boy who seems to bring bad luck to everyone he touches.
政治是46歲的餘華最感興趣的領域之一。他最知名的作品《活着》講述的是一個虛構的殘忍故事。在共產黨執政的頭三十年裏，故事的主人公在席捲中國的政治運動中失去了自己的所有，但他憑着活下去的決心生存了下來。這部小說至今在中國還是本暢銷書，這個故事還被著名導演張藝謀搬上了大熒幕。他的其他作品很有象徵意味，簡直和漫畫有異曲同工之妙。他1995年的小說《許三觀賣血記》講述了一個男人爲維持生計而賣血的故事。2003年出版的《在細雨中呼喊》是關於一個男孩的故事。這個男孩碰誰一下，誰似乎就會倒黴。
'Brothers' is strongly in that vein. It follows two half-brothers whose lives are almost a parody of reform-era China: one a crass, vulgar businessman who succeeds through corruption and brutality, and fetishizes virgins; the other a meek man who ends up victimized by higher economic forces. When it came out in 2005 and 2006, it elicited protests from literary critics across the country, who said the novel makes heroes of villains and descends to the level of fart jokes for humor. There was even a collection of essays published by a group of critics called 'Pulling Yu Hua's Teeth,' a play on his first profession of dentistry.
《兄弟》延續了這樣的風格。小說中那對異父異母兄弟的生活簡直就是對改革時期中國戲劇式的再現：弟弟是個粗魯、邋遢的生意人，靠着鑽空子和一股子狠勁兒發家，內心還有處女情結；老實的哥哥則最終成爲經濟大轉型時代的犧牲品。這本小說的上下兩部分別在2005年和2006年問世後，遭到了全國上下文學批評家們的反對聲浪。他們認爲，這部小說把無賴歌頌成英雄，而且爲了搏人一笑小說淪落到了粗俗的地步。一些文學批評家甚至還出版了一本名爲《給餘華拔牙》的評論集，嘲弄餘華的第一份職業是牙醫。
Mr. Yu shrugs off the disapproval. Most of his critics, he says, are young people who are either ashamed he's airing China's dirty linen, or don't even realize that the corrupt backwaters he describes still exist in modern China. 'This generation that grew up in the 1980s only experienced a China that was getting better and better,' he says. 'They thought their lives represented all of China. But this is a mistake. China has over 100 million people earning less than 800 yuan ($125) a year.'
餘華對這些批評並不在意。他說，大多數批評他的人是年輕人，他們或者不喜歡看到他揭露中國黑暗的一面，或者根本沒有意識到他在書中描寫的那些陰暗面依然存在於現代的中國。他說，80後的這一代人只感受到了一個越變越好的中國。他們認爲全中國人都過着和他們一樣的生活。但那是錯誤的。中國有超過1億人的年收入不足人民幣800元（合125美元）。
Mr. Yu is concerned that his critics are no more independent thinkers than their counterparts in the Cultural Revolution, which ran from 1966 to 1976 -- while Mr. Yu was growing up. In those days, China turned into a totalitarian madhouse focused on the personality cult of leader Mao Zedong. Now, over the past three decades, China has embraced capitalism with the same level of fervor. 'China has these huge bubbles,' he says. 'The Cultural Revolution was the world's biggest revolutionary bubble and now we have the world's biggest capitalist bubble.'
餘華擔心，這些年輕人和文革時的那些年輕人一樣，也缺少獨立思考的能力。餘華正是成長在1966年至1976年的文革時期。那時候，中國的極權統治登峯造極，對毛澤東大搞個人崇拜。而在過去的這三十年裏，中國以同樣的熱情擁抱了資本主義。餘華說，中國有這些巨大的泡沫，文化大革命是世界上最大的革命泡沫，而現在我們有世界上最大的資本主義泡沫。
The problem with writing about today's China, he says, is that change is so rapid it's almost impossible to do it justice. 'China's changes are like hundreds of years of European history compressed together,' he says 'The Cultural Revolution was like our dark ages. Now we're in the 21st century, just like the West. From one era to the other, it's almost too fast.'
他說，描寫當代中國的困難在於，中國的變化太快了，人們難以做出公正的評判。中國的變化就好像是把歐洲幾百年的歷史濃縮到了一起，文化大革命就像是我們的黑暗時代。現在我們和西方一樣進入了21世紀。我們從一個時代跳到了另一個時代，變化太快了。
Western critics have been surprised that 'Brothers' was not banned. But Mr. Yu notes that pointing out the country's impoverished countryside or corruption are themes that the state-run press harps on daily. Mr. Yu thinks that some of the West's surprise at the topics in 'Brothers' is because so much of contemporary Chinese fiction sold in the West is written by exiles. That's led to an assumption that current-day topics are out of bounds.
西方的批評家一直對《兄弟》未遭禁感到驚訝。餘華表示，指出中國農村的貧困和腐敗問題也是官方媒體每天喋喋不休的話題。餘華認爲，一些西方人之所以對《兄弟》一書的主題感到奇怪，是因爲在西方，很多關於當代中國的小說都是流亡海外的作家創作的。這就促使人們認爲當代的主題都是不可觸碰的禁區。
Whether this is true or not, it is remarkable how much Chinese living abroad have shaped Westerners' perceptions of China. Indeed, almost all Chinese authors who are famous in the West also live in the West, among them: Gao Xingjian (2000 Nobel Prize for Literature), Ha Jin (1999 National Book Award), Ma Jian, Li Yiyun and Dai Sijie. Most deal with China in the 1960s, '70s or '80s.
不論這是不是事實，居住在海外的中國人都在十分明顯地影響着西方人對中國的看法。事實上，幾乎所有在西方知名的中國作家都生活在西方，其中包括：高行健（2000年諾貝爾文學獎得主）、哈金（1999年美國國家圖書獎得主）、馬建、李翊雲和戴思傑。他們中的大多數描寫的都是60、70或80年代的中國。
'I think it's hard for them to write about China nowadays,' Mr. Yu says carefully. He doesn't believe in bashing exiled writers for pandering to Western tastes -- an accusation that some have made about him as well. But he does feel almost left alone; only the author Mo Yan has a serious body of work published in the West. 'Western critics don't realize something: The most critical authors are in China, not overseas. Look, there's me, there's Mo Yan -- we criticize a lot. Anyone can criticize the Cultural Revolution nowadays. We criticize the current society.'
餘華小心翼翼地說，我想，讓這些作家描寫當代中國有些困難。餘華不想抨擊流亡作家，說他們是在迎合西方趣味──有些人已經對他做出了這樣的指責。但是，他的確覺得自己是隻身一人。除他以外，只有作家莫言在西方出版過嚴肅作品。餘華說，西方批評家沒有意識到：最具批判眼光的作家在中國，不在海外。他說，你瞧，有我，還有莫言──我們經常批評。現在任何人都可以批評文化大革命。而我們批評當代社會。
Since Mr. Yu wrote his book, China's economy has joined the rest of the world in slowing down dramatically. That might make 'Brothers' seem like a description of a past era -- the go-go years of the early 21st century. But in other ways, China's slowdown has brought to the surface issues that Mr. Yu dealt with in 'Brothers,' such as corruption and rootlessness.
自從餘華的這部小說問世以後，中國的經濟增長就和其他國家一樣急劇放緩。這可能會讓《兄弟》看起來像是在描述一個過去的時代──21世紀初的那個奔騰年代。但是從另外的角度看，中國經濟的放緩讓餘華在《兄弟》中描寫的問題浮出了水面，比如腐敗和無所寄託的狀態。
But what bothers Mr. Yu more about these obvious problems is a lack of trust in society. The book trade itself is good example of this, he says. 'It's really hard for a young author to break in because there are few reputable critics. It's corrupt. People pay critics to write all sorts of nonsense.' He says reviewers charge 3,000 to 5,000 yuan for a review. The accusation is impossible to prove but it is true that China has a weak scene of literary criticism. He contrasts the situation to a western publication like France's Le Monde. He says that newspaper gave him a two-page spread, resulting in a huge spike in sales -- because French people could trust the newspaper's judgment, not as infallible but as an honest effort at reviewing a book.
然而，在這些凸顯的問題中，最讓餘華感到困擾的是社會缺乏信任。他說，圖書貿易本身就是一個很好的例子。因爲幾乎沒有知名的文學批評家，所以年輕作家想要躋身文學圈非常困難。這就是腐敗。人們花錢僱批評家寫出各種毫無價值的東西。他說，批評家寫一篇評論要收3,000至5,000元不等。餘華的這種評論不可能得到證實，但中國的文學批評的確盡顯頹象。他將這種情形和西方的出版物，比如法國的《世界報》(Le Monde)來做比較。他說，《世界報》用兩個版面的篇幅爲他做宣傳，結果圖書銷量大幅增加──因爲法國民衆可以相信報紙上的判斷，不是因爲它一貫正確，而是因爲它誠實地評論了這本書。
This is why, he says, literature in China is so troubled. Young talented writers have a hard time finding readers and there is almost no serious criticism to help guide readers and writers. At the heart of the issue is a dysfunctional civil society -- which takes Mr. Yu back to his favorite topic of society as a patient. 'What China lacks is public trust,' he says. 'It's what is missing the most in China right now.'
他說，這就是爲什麼文學在中國會面臨如此多的問題。有才華的年輕作家難以找到讀者，而中國幾乎沒有嚴肅的文學批評去引導讀者和作家。問題的癥結是一個功能紊亂的市民社會──這再次把餘華帶回到他喜愛的命題：一個疾病纏身的社會。他說，中國缺乏的是公衆信任，這是中國當下最缺失的東西。
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