我们为什么恐惧形式——传统、创新与现代小说经验

Why We Fear Forms:Tradition,Innovation and Modern Novel Experience

中国当代文学理论和批评往往贬抑形式探索,在把小说形式视为外在之物时,又担心它所携带的"西方的"、"外来的"影响(这说明形式根本就不是外在的)。我们一直赞赏那些"看不出"形式意味的、回归传统的作品。与20世纪80年代颇为不同,90年代以来,中国小说确实有一个恢复传统的趋势,也因此取得了实绩。但久而久之,中国当代小说与世界(尤其是西方)的现代小说经验愈离愈远。今天的汉语小说要突破自身的局限性,要有新的创造,可能还是要最大可能地汲取西方现代小说的优质经验。对《繁花》、《老生》等作品的探讨表明,虽然西方小说早已成熟,但中国的汉语小说还未获得现代形式,对此中国作家还有一种不肯罢休的劲头;考察当代小说让我们对传统与创新的关系有更深刻的认识,汉语小说创作不只是要从旧传统里翻出新形式,也能在与世界文学的碰撞中获得自己的新存在,从而介入现代小说的经验。

Contemporary Chinese literary theories and criticism often depreciate the exploration of forms,viewing the forms of novels as something external while worrying about their Western or alien influence(this is precisely an evidence that the form is not external at all).This is demonstrated in the fact that we appreciate works that return to tradition with less sense of form exploration.Quite different from Chinese novels in the 1980 s,those published since the 1990 s have shown a trend of returning to tradition.This,despite some achievements,has gradually distanced themselves from the trends in the world(especially in the West).For today's novels in Chinese language to break their own limitations and make innovation,learning from the good experience of contemporary novels in the West as much as possible is perhaps still a need.The discussions about Flowers(Fan Hua) and Lao Sheng and others suggest that,although novels in the West have matured for a long time in terms of form,those in the Chinese language are from it,for which Chinese writers are still searching.An examination of contemporary novels enables us to have a deeper understanding of the relationship between tradition and innovation:Chinese novels need to not only make innovation from tradition,but also obtain its new existence through interaction with world literature,and thus integrate themselves with the experience of contemporary novels.