智性叙述下的人性欲望——评严前海的文学新作《绝美时代》

Human Desire in the Intellectual Narration:Comments on Yan Qianhai's The Age of Great Beauty

《绝美时代》最显著的特征在于其思辨性的、从容舒缓的智性叙述风格,让人有陌生感、距离感但又魅力无限;其思辨性叙述不同于五四时期《狂人日记》、《沉沦》的直陈式语言,其选取的人物视角也不同于当代文学中以莫言等为代表的农民视角,而是当前我们所处的消费主义时代的孤独个体。小说中,"我"既是当前时代的成功参与者又是时代规则运作下的牺牲品,因此小说所提供的批判和思考显得更加成熟和深刻。小说的外层讲述的是一个吸引人心的情欲故事,其内层则是通过和伟人的沟通来寻求个体和历史的某种气质同构,进而伸拓到对人类历史、社会、时代的叩问上,这才是《绝美时代》最大的精神效能。

The most impressive feature of The Age of Great Beauty lies in its speculative, calm and soothing intellectual nar- rative style, showing an unfamiliar sense but an infinite charming. Its speculative narration is different from the straightforward nar- rative language, such as A Madman＇ s Diary and Degradation of May Fourth period ; the character perspective of this novel is a lone- ly individual who lives in our current age of consumerism, which is also different from the folk perspective on contemporary literature such as Mo Yan＇s works. In the novel, the character ＂I＂ is a successful participant of our society as well as the victim under the operation of the rules. Therefore, it can provide more mature and profound critical thinking. The novel looks like an attractive erotic story, but it actually shows that the individual tries to seek for identification from the history through writing to the great people of the past, and further extends the inquiry into the whole human history, the society and the era, which is the biggest spiritual effective- ness of the novel.