重读《钟鼓楼》:时空装置、空间焦虑及伦理困境

On Bell and Tower:Time-space Device,Spatial Anxiety,and Ethical Dilemmas

刘心武的第一部长篇小说《钟鼓楼》主要通过钟鼓楼和四合院等时空叙事装置,使时间与空间、传统与现代、历史与未来的“合金”意义凸显,而小说聚焦北京某四合院一天内的婚宴活动所呈现出的现代性空间焦虑,使之有别于同时期的其他京味小说。同时,作者基于其“合金”文学理论,给予四合院这个身处现代化进程中的市民社会生态群落以更多的宽容和承认,但宽容克己并不是平等的承认。此外,小说已然显示出的从启蒙到承认、从同一到多元的日常生活叙事转向及其深层次的伦理困境,在当时的批评界并没有引起广泛的关注,而是很快淹没在接续下来的寻根和先锋文学主潮中。

As Liu Xinwu's first long novel,Bell and Drum Tower combines space and time,tradition and modernity,history and future by using Bell and Drum Tower and Si He Yuan as the spatiotemporal narrative device.The novel focus on the modern spatial anxiety,revealed in a wedding feast in a Si He Yuan,which differentiates itself from other“Characteristic Beijing novels”of the same period.Based on his“alloy”theory,Liu Xinwu gives more tolerance and recognition to Si He Yuan as a community in civil society in the process of modernization,though that tolerance is not based on the recognition of true equality.In addition,the novel has already shown the ethical dilemmas and narrative transition from enlightenment to recognition,from unity to diversity.Contemporary critics did not pay attention to these elements,which were soon drowned in the“Root-seeking literature”and“Pioneering literature”.