[Book] [2001.04.12]Crouching pen, hidden talent 卧笔藏才
[size=2][color=#ff0000][b][url=http://www.ecocn.org/thread-47295-1-1.html]http://www.ecocn.org/thread-47295-1-1.html[/url][/b][/color][/size][size=2][color=#ff0000][b]Recent Chinese fiction
近期中国小说
[/b][/color][/size][b][size=4]Crouching pen, hidden talent
卧笔藏才[/b][/size]
[i][color=gray]Apr 12th 2001 | from the print edition[/color][/i]
PLEASE DON’T CALL ME HUMAN.
《千万别把我当人》
By Wang Shuo (translated by Howard Goldblatt).
王朔著（Howard Goldblatt翻译）
Hyperion; 289 pages; $23.95.
亥伯神龙 出版社，289页，23.95美元
No Exit; ￡6.99.
No Exit出版社，6.99英镑
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THE REPUBLIC OF WINE.
《酒国》
By Mo Yan (translated by Howard Goldblatt).
莫言著（Howard Goldblatt翻译）
Arcade; 364 pages; $26.95 ($13.95 paperback).
Arcade出版社，364页，26.95美元（平装本13.95美元）
Hamish Hamilton; ￡16.99 (￡5.99 paperback).
Hamish Hamilton出版社，16.99英镑（平装本5.99英镑）
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WILD KIDS: TWO NOVELS ABOUT GROWING UP.
《野孩子：关于成长的两部小说》
By Chang Ta-Chun (translated by Michael Berry).
张大春著（Michael Berry翻译）
Columbia University Press; 272 pages; $22.95.
哥伦比亚大学出版社，272页，22.95美元
John Wiley; ￡14.95.
John Wiley出版社，14.95英镑。
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THE DEER&THE CAULDRON.
《鹿鼎记》
By Louis Cha (translated by John Minford).
金庸著（John Minford翻译）
OUP; volume one: 512 pages; volume two: 596 pages; $35 and ￡29 each
牛津大学出版社，卷一，512页；卷二，596页；分别为35美元和29英镑。
THE award of the first Nobel prize for literature to a Chinese writer last year brought down a storm of controversy. Few westerners had heard of Gao Xingjian. Was his work really Nobel-worthy? At the time of the award, the only English version of “Soul Mountain”, Mr Gao’s winning novel (see article “Soul man”, December 9th), was published in Australia. Given, too, that the author had lived in France since 1987, how far could he be thought to know or represent present-day China?
去年，诺贝尔文学奖首次被颁发给一位华裔作家，舆论一片大哗。此前，很少有西方人听说过高行健。他的大作真的名副其实吗？在颁奖期间，唯一的英文版《灵山》——高行健的获奖小说（参观12月9日的文章《灵人》）在澳大利亚出版。然而，考虑到作者自1987年就在法国生活，他能在多大程度上了解并描绘当下的中国呢？
The fuss surrounding Mr Gao’s Nobel success points to a larger difficulty. A tremendous amount of fiction is currently being produced in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and by expatriates and exiles. It was surely a mistake in the first place to expect any one writer to reflect this diversity and range. The following selection, though limited to works in English translation, aims to give some taste of the contemporary scene.
对高行健获诺奖一事的大惊小怪则表明更大的尴尬。在大陆、台湾、香港，移居国外者和被放逐者们创作出大量的小说。指望任何一位作家来反映出这种差异和范围，这无疑是个错误。[color=blue]以下文选，尽管局限在有英译版的作品中[/color]，旨在传递出当代风味。
Wang Shuo, dubbed “China’s Kerouac”, has been a best selling author of zeitgeisty hooligan fiction since the late 1980s, breaking with the sense of serious responsibility that has long made modern Chinese fiction unpalatable to western readers. He is famous for his mockery of everything that moves—intellectuals, politicians, the masses, nationalism—all in savvy Beijing slang.
自80年代末期以来，被称为“中国的凯鲁亚克”的王朔是一位关于流氓精神小说的畅销书作家。他打破了那种导致中国现代小说长期以来让西方读者不以为然的严肃责任感。他之所以出名，是因为他用北京俚语嘲弄一切——知识分子、政治家、群众、民族主义，概莫能外。
In “Please Don’t Call Me Human”, originally published in Chinese in 1989, in the aftermath of the Tiananmen massacre, Mr Wang wheels out all his favourite targets for lampooning. The National Mobilisation Committee (MobCom for short), a farcical cross between the Politburo and a disorganised bunch of entrepreneurs, is searching for a martial-arts hero to avenge China’s loss of face following defeat at a recent international sports competition. Tang Yuanbao, a slacker pedi-cab driver, is selected for a rigorous training programme in order to “beat the shit” out of the opposition and restore glory to China. Along the way, he’s electrocuted, castrated and cuts off his own face—to save China’s—before finally winning the gold medal. The China in-jokes fly thick and fast, but the surreal farce carries through to an apocalyptic close.
在他1989年（天安门屠杀后）首次中文出版的不朽大作《千万别把我当人》中，王朔老调重弹，冷嘲热讽。在国家近期一次国际体育比赛败北之后，介于政治局和无组织的一群企业家之间的滑稽结合点——全国动员委员会（简称动委），寻找一位武术英雄来为中国挽回颜面。唐元豹是一位懒散的人力三轮师傅，为了将敌手“打成油酱铺”，重振华夏雄风，他被选中参加严格的训练项目。在最终赢得金牌的路上，他被电击、被去势、被毁容。[color=blue]全书只有中国人才听得懂的笑话俯拾皆是[/color]。不过，超现实的怪诞滑稽最终却有一个[color=blue]惨烈的[/color]结局。
Written by China’s leading magical realist, “The Republic of Wine” is a debauched romp through an invented Chinese province called Liquorland. Special Investigator Ding Gou’er is dispatched from Beijing to investigate rumours that baby boys are being bred to be eaten as delicacies in the metropolis of culinary and alcoholic excess that is Liquorland. Ding loses consciousness in a drinking duel with his prime suspect, Diamond Jin, and the rest of the novel staggers bewilderingly through Ding’s hangover. The narrative is interspersed with letters between the author, Mo Yan, and Li Yidou, a doctoral candidate in Liquor Studies, each of Li’s letters containing details of Liquorland’s bizarre and cannibalistic practices. As the tales grow ever more fantastic—and similar in their chaos to Ding’s adventures—the line between fiction and reality is increasingly blurred. Mr Mo’s virtuoso prose whips up a frenzied polemic against contemporary Chinese society and politics. He satirises many of the same things as Mr Wang but his superior command of style and plot confirms him as the better novelist.
《酒国》由中国顶尖的魔幻现实主义作家写成，讲述了一个放浪形骸的人在一个虚构的中国省份——酒国轻易获得成功的故事。特级侦察员丁钩儿奉命从北京去酒国调查一个谣言：该省婴儿被饲养，用以作为政府官员们佐酒的美味佳肴。在与重要嫌疑人“金刚钻”拼酒时，丁不省人事。整个小说的剩余部分都充满着丁钩儿悠悠荡荡的宿醉。小说点缀着作者莫言和白酒研究博士生李一斗的信件。李的每一封信件都包含酒国光怪陆离种种以及吃人事宜。故事愈发荒诞不经——与丁钩儿的历险在混乱这一点上十分相似——虚幻和现实的界限几近模糊。莫言颇有技巧的写作激起了关于当代中国社会和政治的激烈论战。他讽刺了许多王朔讽刺的东西，不过他更精于形式和情节的铺设，因此在写小说方面，他显然略胜一筹。
Like Mr Wang in mainland China, Chang Ta-Chun is a cultural phenomenon in Taiwan, both as a popular TV host and a bestselling writer. His two short novels, “My Kid Sister” and “Wild Child”, now translated into English and published in one volume as “Wild Kids”, feature members of Taiwan’s cynical younger generation. “My Kid Sister” runs through the narrator’s adolescence, from the birth of his little sister to her pregnancy at the age of 19. Their family is dysfunctional in a uniquely Taiwanese, East-meets-West way, combining Freudian angst (children and parents) with comic walk-on parts for the bearers of Chinese tradition (grandparents). “Wild Child” is a darker episode, in which 14-year-old Hou Shichun drops out of school and runs away from home. After falling into the Taiwanese underworld, he encounters other confused youngsters: Old Bull, Little Horse and Apricot. Although not unlike Holden Caulfield’s lonesome voice in J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”, Mr Hou’s narrative is a more brutal depiction of the spiritual vacuum of Taiwanese youth.
与大陆的王朔相似，在台湾张大春是一种文化现象，他既是一位受欢迎的电视主持，又是一位畅销书作家。他的两部短篇小说，《我妹妹》和《野孩子》，现在已经被翻译为英文，并出版为一卷本的《野孩子》，该书将视角投向台湾愤世嫉俗的年轻一代身上。《我妹妹》贯穿于叙述者的青春期——从他妹妹的出生到19岁开始怀孕。他们的家庭在一种独一无二的台湾人的、东西方交汇的方式下显得不太正常，糅杂着弗洛伊德忧虑（孩子和父母）、滑稽的跑龙套的中国传统部分（祖父母）。《野孩子》是一部黑色情景剧，在书中，14岁的[color=red]houshichun[/color]辍学并离家出走。在坠入台湾下层社会后，他遇到了其他迷茫的年轻人：老牛，小马和杏子。尽管不像在杰罗姆·大卫·塞林格的《麦田守望者》中，霍尔顿·考尔菲德发出孤独的声音，[color=red]houshichun[/color]的叙述对台湾年轻人精神世界的一个更加直白的描述。
“The Deer & the Cauldron” was published before these other translations, but the Hong Kong-based writer Louis Cha (or Jin Yong as he is known to his millions of Chinese fans) deserves mention. His epic historical kung-fu yarns have made him a household name in every Chinese-speaking community; the success of Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning film, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, may help to steer the western reading public towards this most Chinese of literary genres.
《鹿鼎记》比其他作品的翻译都早，不过在香港的查良镛 （或无数中国粉丝熟悉的金庸）值得一提。他的融合历史的功夫故事使其在讲汉语的社会里家喻户晓。李安的获奥斯卡奖电影《卧虎藏龙》，或许能够引导西方阅读公众到这种最中国化的文学风格。
“The Deer & the Cauldron” is set in the mid-17th century, some 20 years after the Chinese Ming dynasty has fallen to fearsome Tartar invaders, the Manchus. Pockets of Chinese resistance survive, however, as the secret Triads plot to expel the foreign oppressor. Mr Cha’s hero is Trinket Wei, who, by dint of dirty tricks and friendship with Whiskers Mao, rises to the position of top palace eunuch, best friend to the emperor and triad master. Intrigue and dazzling fights abound, as Trinket wrangles with eunuchs, Manchu warlords and a kung-fu queen mother, crying out with frequent exclamations in the style of Captain Haddock in “Tintin”, “Great balls of sizzling bean curd! Excellent kung-fu!”
《鹿鼎记》以17世纪中叶为背景，在中国明朝落于可怕的鞑靼入侵者、满族人手中20多年后，零星的中国起义死灰复燃。见首不见尾的神龙教密谋推翻外来的压制者。金庸笔下的英雄叫韦小宝，他投机取巧，与茅十八建立友谊，升到宫中太监的最高位置，是皇帝和江湖大佬最好的朋友。书中满是阴谋诡计和让人目眩的打斗，与太监、满族第一勇士、会功夫的太后的唇枪舌剑，经常性的像哈多克船长在《丁丁历险记》中那样的大呼小叫：“[color=red]好大一块热豆腐[/color]！绝顶的功夫！”
New developments in Chinese literature mirror the explosive changes taking place in Chinese society itself and writers work hard to keep pace with market fashions. These four authors are significant figures, but much more writing remains untranslated and unread in the West. Hopefully, 2001 will see English translations of more works that reflect the variety of fiction coming from both within China itself and without.
中国文学的新发展是中国社会发生的巨大变更、作家们使出浑身解数跟上市场潮流的一个映照。这四位作家都是响当当的人物，不过还有更多的作品并未翻译，也未被西方了解。希望在2001年，出现更多的来自中国境内和境外的表现不同种类小说的英语翻译作品。
from the print edition | Books and Arts
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