宗璞:写作对我来说像春蚕到死蜡炬成灰那样自然

来源:中国文化译研网

作者:

2018-12-18

近年来,中国文化“走出去”的影响力不断扩大,在全球文化多元化发展日益兴盛的背景下,中国文化译研网(CCTSS)联合中国作家协会《小说选刊》杂志社,启动“新世纪中国当代作家、作品海外传播数据库”项目,将100位中国当代优秀作家的简介、代表作品以及展示作家风采的短视频翻译为10种语言,集结成1000张中国作家名片向全球推介。千张“作家名片”将鲜明地向世界宣告:我是中国作家,我在进行中国创作。

此种形式和规模是中国故事走向世界的一大创新,会让世界更加全面、客观、公正地了解中国优秀作家作品,同时也是打通中国文化走向世界的“最后一公里”。

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宗璞,女,原名冯钟璞,19287月生于北京,原籍河南省唐河县,著名哲学家冯友兰之女。抗战爆发时,她随父赴昆明,就读于西南联大附属中学,1945年回北京。1946年入南开大学外文系,1948年转入清华大学外文系,同年在《大公报》发表处女作《A.K.C》。1957年发表短篇小说《红豆》,引起文坛的注目。曾在《文艺报》《世界文学》编辑部工作,曾任中国社科院外国文学研究所副研究员。代表作有短篇小说《红豆》《弦上的梦》,中篇小说《三生石》,系列长篇小说《野葫芦引》和散文《紫藤萝瀑布》等。

宗璞承接了中国知识分子“士志于道”的传统,以“道”为己任,以文学来促成“道”的实现。她带着强烈的使命感和责任感进行创作,但作品中也弥漫着平淡、悠远、富有诗意的韵味。宗璞没有为自己的创作预设某种概念化的准则,也从不刻意追逐新潮,完全是一种“本色”写作:她的创作出自她直感化的体验,以她自己的生活体验和美学理念体现她的精神世界,真切而踏实,这种“本色”体现了中华民族源远流长的生命意识和文化传统。

宗璞的成名作短篇小说《红豆》,用灵动细腻的语言描写了大学生江玫与齐虹,由于生活态度和政治立场的分歧而导致的爱情悲剧,讲述了一个在时代巨变面前知识分子选择自己人生道路的故事。小说对人物内心的挣扎表现得相当细腻,整体风格优雅蕴藉,和以往的现实主义作品有很大的区别,它主要侧重的是信念和情感的冲突。近年来,宗璞在病中苦耕,历时7年,《南渡记》的第二部《东藏记》终于面世,荣获第六届茅盾文学奖。随后,《西征记》《北归记》相继出版,宗璞至此完成了《野葫芦引》系列长篇小说。小说以家族关系为主要结构,通过叙写一个家族在抗日战争中的聚散离合,状写了一个中国知识分子家庭在国家危亡时期的生活历程。作家用细密从容的叙述方式,建立起优美温婉的语言风格。众多的人物命运和世相心态,在看似平淡的生活情境和细节中缓缓展开,文章同时具有大气磅礴的布局。宗璞笔下的战争没有刀光剑影,却烙刻了深重的精神创痕,并具有一种柔性的书卷气息,那种浸入骨髓的文化质感,在阅读中竟令人有如置身于《红楼梦》的语境之中。

宗璞受其父冯友兰的影响很大,她说:“我想写父兄辈的历史······不然对不起沸腾过随即凝聚在身边的历史。”宗璞显然是将小说作为自己生活和精神历史的记录和表现方式,因而她的性格特征和家庭所属的思想和感情得以在她的小说中“本色”化地表现。

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Zong Pu, real name Feng Zhongpu, was born in Beijing in 1928. Her ancestral home is in Tanghe County, in Henan Province. She is the daughter of the renowned philosopher Feng Youlan. When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out, she fled with her father to Kunming, where she studied at the Affiliated Secondary School of the National Southwestern Associated University. She returned to Beijing in 1945. In 1946, she was accepted into the Foreign Languages Department at Nankai University. She then transferred to the Foreign Languages Department of Tsinghua University in 1948. In that same year, her first work, A.K.C, was published in Ta Kung Pao, the longest running newspaper of the People's Republic. In 1957, the publication of her short story, Red Bean, created a stir in the literary world. In the past, she has worked as an editor for the China Literature and Art Gazette and World Literature, as well as working as an associate researcher at the Foreign Literature Institute of the China Academy of Social Sciences. Her representative works include the short stories Red Bean and Dream on the Strings; the novella Everlasting Stone; the series of novels The Wild Gourd Prelude; and the essay Cascading Wisteria.

 

Zong Pu has carried on the Chinese intellectual viewpoint that "scholars should be devoted to moral justice". She uses her writing as a means of encouraging just behavior. Although Zong Pu exerts her role as a writer with great purpose and responsibility, a sense of romance and poetic simplicity nonetheless pervades her work. Zong Pu does not base her writing on a set of predefined principles, nor does she emulate new trends. In this sense, her work is organic: her writing results from her intuitive experiences. She represents her inner world by infusing her writing with her life experiences and aesthetic principles. This kind of authentic and organic writing demonstrates the wisdom and cultural traditions that the Chinese people have developed over the long course of history.

 

The short story that launched Zong Pu's career, Red Bean, evokes in vivid and delicate language the love affair between university students Jiang Mei and Qi Hong, which turns sour due to their different attitudes and political stances. The story tells the story of how two intellectuals choose their fate during a time of great change. Red Bean describes its characters inner turmoil in minute detail and has an elegant, subtle style. It differs greatly from previous modernist works, in that it largely focuses on conflict between principles and emotions. In recent years, Zong Pu has continued to work in spite of illness. After seven years, she finished the sequel to Southbound Journey, Chronicles of East Tibet, for which she won the 6th Mao Dun Literature Prize. Since then, she has published Conquest of the West and Return to the North, thus completing the The Wild Gourd Prelude series of novels. The series largely revolves around familial relations. It describes the separations and reunions of a family of intellectuals amid the turmoil and destruction of the Sino-Japanese War. The author's narrative style is detailed yet understated, while her use of language is elegant without being ornate. In this sprawling, ambitious series, individual fates and collective mentalities are slowly revealed through the seemingly banal details of everyday life. While Zong Pu doesn't speak in direct terms of the violence of war, psychological trauma is nonetheless ever-present throughout the series. Zong Pu artfully crafts a historical atmosphere and infuses her work with a palpable sense of culture. The reader is wholly immersed in a literary mood not unlike The Dream of the Red Chamber.

 

Zong Pu is greatly influenced by her father, Feng Youlan. She says, "I want to record the history of my father's generation... I couldn't bear it if the course of history rushed and surged, only to stop still next to me." Zong Pu uses fiction as a means of recording her life experiences and spiritual journey. Her works are therefore an authentic and organic representation of her personality, as well as her family's personal philosophy. 

责任编辑:罗雨静