待得团圆是几时?——张爱玲,晚期风格与世界文学

Belated Reunion? Eileen Chang, Late Style and World Literature

学界对张爱玲作品的评价,因《小团圆》延搁多年的出版状况,变得悬而未决。2009年中文版本的《小团圆》面世后,"张迷"以及张爱玲研究者在震惊之下产生尖锐分歧。如今,《小团圆》的英译本也于2018年出版。对张爱玲全部作品的解读,目前被划分为两类:一类认为张爱玲的创作生命短暂、璀璨如流星,起步于1940年代,也很快终结于此;另一类认为《小团圆》是其漫长、复杂而多面的写作生涯的巅峰之作。本文将集中讨论这部小说被压制的原因,以及其作为文学作品的特性和品质。如某些中国的文学批评家所提出,爱德华·萨义德(Edward Said)对"晚期风格"的思考,是否可以在此提供洞见?我们又该如何在世界文学的语境下阅读张爱玲?

Aesthetic assessments of Chang’s work have been complicated by the long-delayed publication of a late novel, Little Reunions, which has dismayed and divided her admirers in China since its Chinese publication in 2009. An English translation has now appeared. Readings of her oeuvre are divided between those who regard it as a brief, meteoric flight that ended almost as soon as it began in the 1940 s, and others who see it as the broad and complex product of a long career, to which Little Reunions stands as a powerful experimental capstone. This essay will concentrate on this last novel,the reasons for its suppression and its character and qualities as a work of literature. Can Edward Said’s considerations on‘late style’ offer insights here, as some Chinese critics have suggested? How should Chang’s work be contextualized within world literature?