乡绅之治及其东山再起——小说《黄泥地》《人心不古》和《山雨》之间的坎

The Order by Gentry and Its Revival——Studies of Contemporary Chinese Rural Society Through Three Regional Novels

近年来,面对城乡二元结构的社会发展瓶颈,呼唤新乡绅的提议日益高涨,至2014年达到高峰。支持者自不乏其人,反对者也来势汹汹,竟将问题的发端归咎于费孝通的'就地城镇化'思路,这显然是不能成立的。问题的关键是,在对新乡绅的美好期待背后,培育的难度不容小觑。当代的两部长篇小说——刘庆邦的《黄土地》和贺享雍的《人心不古》,在这个问题上作出了先见性的探索与思考。房国春和贺世普两个人物形象的塑造,通过他们高昂的雄心和悲惨的结局间形成的鲜明对照,呈现出新乡绅与农村现实之间的脱节与隔膜,从而走向村民的对立面。而80年前王统照的长篇小说《山雨》所塑造的陈宜斋这一位传统乡绅形象,则在盖棺定论时赢得了村民们一致的崇高敬仰。房国春、贺世普和陈宜斋之间的坎,时代的新与旧不是最主要的,关键在于他们愿不愿意与乡村人民同甘共苦,如何培育他们在乡村人民中的群众基础。这一问题,在韩丁(William Hinton)的纪实文学名著《翻身》(1966)中已被深刻地揭示。

As we are hitting the bottleneck of urban and rural development in recent years,the voice of recalling the new gentries is getting louder and louder.This active voice reached the peak in 2014.However the passive voice also comes aggressively.Objectors blame the cause of the problem onself-urbanization practices among the local villages raised by Fei Xiaotong,which was obviously untenable,but we also have to admit that the training difficulties behind the vision of an order produced by new gentries is still very high.Liu Qingbang and He Xiangyong made the foresighted exploration in this area by creating the characters Fang Guochun and He Shipu in their novels,Yellow Mud,and The Changed Public Morality.They point out the gap between new gentries and villagers,and how they have finally turned to the opposites of villagers through comparing their ideals from start and unlucky ending at last.However,Chen Yizhai,another gentry but an old one,in Wang Tongzhao’s novel Mountain Rain published 80 years ago,gained respect from the villagers when he was dead.It is not mainly about the age of old and new in this problem.The difference between Fang Guochun,He Shipu and Chen Yizhai is whether they could stand by the villagers and go through thick and thin with them or not,which is deeply revealed by William Hinton in his documentary book Fanshen:A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village(1966).