幻象与真相——论赛珍珠小说《同胞》中的中国形象

Mirage and Truth——On the Image of China in Kinfolk by Pearl S. Buck

美国作家赛珍珠在中国度过了30多年的时间,其双语背景、双焦透视、跨文化的独特经历给她带来意想不到的优势,那就是,她能摆脱任何一种文化传统的束缚,以相对超然的心态,运用两套参照系去观察社会,将东西方文化互补融合的理想贯串到创作中。《同胞》中主人公的边际文化人身份、经历与情感体验和赛珍珠本人最为接近。在这篇小说中赛珍珠采用主体性写作策略和言说方式,从中国人的视角去阐释美国和中国。她是中国之美的发现者和捍卫者。同时,她对中国社会现实与民族性格又进行了直言不讳的批评,既不重复那些歪曲中国本来面目的套话,也不刻意制造美化中国的神话。在当今多元文化时代,赛珍珠其人其作给了我们丰富的启示。

American writer Pearl S. Buck lived in China for more than thirty years. Her bilingual background, bifocal perspective and peculiar cross-cultural experience brought her unexpected superiority, viz., with relatively detached attitude, she extricated herself from either cultural tradition and used two systems of reference to observe human society. Her novels were permeated with the ideal that eastern culture and western culture mutually complement and mix together. The hero's cultural marginal identity, experience and feeling in Kinfolk are closest to the writer's. In the novel, Pearl S. Buck, using subject writing tactics and narration mode, tries to explain China and America from Chinese perspective. She is the discoverer and defender of China's beauty. At the same time, she bluntly criticizes Chinese society and national nature. She neither repeats those stereotyped expressions which distorts original China, nor goes all out to create a myth to beautify China. In this multicultural era, Pearl S. Buck and her novels will give us abundant enlightenment.