赛珍珠小说对乡土中国的发现

Chinese Culture and Peasantry in Pearl S. Buck′s Novels

19世纪以来,作为一种文化幻象的“中国形象”在欧美人当中早已根深蒂固,中国只是作为一个“他者”被注视、被制作,由此导致了生活画面的失真。美国作家赛珍珠在中国度过了近40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,她能以相对超然的心态,运用两套参照系去观察人类社会,将东西方文化互补融合的理想贯串到小说创作中。她是中国之美的发现者和捍卫者,同时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。当今多元文化时代,赛珍珠其人其作给了我们丰富的启示。

Since the 19th century, “the image of China” as a kind of cultural mirage has been deep-rooted among the western people. China has been gazed upon and made as “the other”, leaving a distorted picture of Chinese life. American writer Pearl S. Buck had been living in China for about forty years. Her bilingual background, bi-focused perspective and peculiar cross-cultural experience brought her unexpected superiority——with relatively detached attitude, she used two systems of reference to observe the human society. Her novels were permeated with the ideal that eastern and western cultures mutually complement and mix together. She was the discoverer and defender of the beauty in China as well as the merciless critic of Chinese society and national character. She neither repeated those stereotyped sayings that distorted China, nor created myths to beautify China. In the current multicultural times, Pearl S. Buck and her novels give us abundant enlightenment.