青铜时代

时代三部曲 #3

by Wang Xiaobo

《王小波小说全集:青铜时代》内容简介：《王小波小说全集》收录王小波的所有小说，包括早期作品、唐人故事、似水柔情；黄金时代；白银时代、2010、黑铁时代；青铜时代。小说出入于历史、现实、未来，在不同时空中反思了权力和乌托邦带给人的伤害，小说奇特的想象和反讽的使用带有作者独特的印记。

Genres: Chinese Literature, Literature, China

551 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1997

About the author

Wang Xiaobo (Chinese: 王小波) was a Chinese writer who became famous after his death.

Wang Xiaobo on paper-republic.org.

Wang was born in an intellectual family in Beijing in 1952. He was sent to a farm in Yunnan province as an "intellectual youth" at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1968. In 1971, he was sent to the countryside of Shandong province, and became a teacher. In 1972, he was allowed to return to Beijing, and he got a job as a working in a local factory. He met Li Yinhe in 1977, who was working as an editor for "Guangming Daily", and she later became his wife. He was accepted by Renmin University of China in 1978 where he studied economics and trade and got his Bachelor's Degree. He received his Master's Degree at the University of Pittsburgh in 1988. After he returned to China, he began to teach at Peking University and Renmin University of China. He quit his job as a college lecturer in 1992, and became a freelance writer. On April 11, 1997 he died suddenly of heart disease at his apartment.

Reviews

[Zhijing Jin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wang Xiaobo's books are very highly rated. In his series of novels that reflects the political situations, including the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age, he depicts different contexts of history, ancient, 1900s, future, but makes a call that authoritarianism will cause all kinds of harms to society. In this book, he composes three stories in the context of ancient China.

1) In the preface and the story, the escape of Lady Hongfu 红拂夜奔, my main takeaway is that due to the political pressure, talents
- are not cultivated enough to do more creative things, and their mindsets get interfered with other ideology that they are forced to pick up
- cannot write what they want, and their publications cannot be rewarded or spread
- do not have the time because they are forced to do other things.

In terms of good thought exercise, I really like how sad but real this story is. It forms a sharp contrast between the story of Leonardo da Vinci [My Review] and the story of the General Li Jing who has no way to go when he was a creative scientist, due to the political system. It also reminds me of the points Xiaobo makes in The Silent Majority (沉默的大多数) about the suppressed intellectuals (with literally no way to do science, art, or even honestly voice out their opinion) in China from 1949.

Some tips:
- Due to political pressure, many of the best writers are doing translation. So read the translated literature to see their writing, e.g., 王道乾, 查良铮, and do not fully follow what is famous because the reward system is inverse.

2) The other story, the Longevity Template (万寿寺), is more of an artistic play of story. It brings the reader to a journey of a story inside a story inside a story, with many possible branches explored with a depth-first search. The many possible developments and ends of the story also feel like many parallel worlds. It conveys to me a beauty similar to that of the movies Inception, and Memento. It is a beauty that is almost a visual art, or, more precisely, the beauty of geometry.

3) The final story, Searching for my fiancé whose name is the Incomparable (寻找无双), is a bit too complicated. There are some deeply hidden metaphors, and the inspiration to real world things is not very easy to grasp. But still great work!

-----
Below is a poem made for Xiaobo's death:
今天早晨，我为自己
冲了一杯浓浓的咖啡
破天荒地没有加糖
似乎我早有正确的预感
为小波的死准备了悼词
面对你信中的悼亡诗
我满口苦涩
我怀疑自己的眼睛
看到的
是我熟悉的字迹
还是一座陌生的坟墓

[Anran Sun · Rating 4 out of 5]

相較於《黃金時代》那種直面文革的現實主義，這部作品轉向唐代傳奇的改寫，將故事置於古代卻注入現代的疏離感與諷刺，讓讀者在歷史的迴廊中看見永恆的人性困境。

全書收錄三個中篇：《萬壽寺》、《紅拂夜奔》與《尋找無雙》，三者雖各自獨立，卻共享同一種敘事策略：借唐人傳奇的框架，重塑人物的命運與選擇。王小波並不忠實於原傳奇的浪漫，而是注入大量反諷與哲學思辨，讓歷史人物成為當代人內心衝突的投射。

〈紅拂夜奔〉是其中最知名的一篇。故事取材於《虬髯客傳》，講述楊素府中的歌妓紅拂女如何在夜宴上識破李靖的才華，一見鍾情後決然夜奔，與李靖及虬髯客結為摯友，三人共同經歷一連串奇遇。王小波的版本卻大異其趣：紅拂女不再是傳統的俠女形象，而是一個極度聰明、厭倦權力遊戲的現代女性；李靖則是個數學天才，滿腦子方程式與邏輯，卻在感情上笨拙得可愛；虬髯客則成為一個豪邁卻帶著悲劇性的俠客。三人逃離長安後，隱居扶風，過著近乎烏托邦的自由生活——紅拂與李靖的性愛被寫得直白而熱烈，虬髯客則在旁邊大談「偉大友誼」。然而，這份自由終被現實打破：虬髯客遠走海外，李靖最終入仕，紅拂晚年孤獨。王小波用大量篇幅描寫三人之間的對話與性愛細節，不僅是為了情慾的解放，更是用來對比權力結構對個體的吞噬——在那個時代，真正的自由只能短暫存在於邊緣。

〈尋找無雙〉改編自《無雙傳》，講述書生王仙客奉師命尋找魚玄機的轉世無雙，歷經重重波折，最終在洛陽找到她，卻發現無雙已被賣入青樓。王小波將這段尋找寫得充滿黑色幽默：王仙客的執著近乎偏執，無雙的命運則充滿荒誕轉折。故事中穿插大量對官僚體系的諷刺，如王仙客為了贖出無雙而四處奔走，卻屢屢碰壁於官場的冷漠與腐敗。最終的團圓並不浪漫，而是帶著一種宿命的諷刺，讓讀者感受到愛情在權力面前的脆弱。

〈萬壽寺〉則更為奇幻，講述一位現代人穿越到唐代，成為萬壽寺的僧人，與寺中人物糾纏出一段段情愛與權鬥的故事。這篇相對鬆散，充滿作者對宗教、權力與慾望的哲學隨筆，讀來像一場智性的遊戲。

王小波的語言風格在《青銅時代》中更趨成熟：他依舊保持那種冷靜、遊戲般的幽默，卻多了幾分歷史的蒼凉。情慾描寫依然直白，甚至比《黃金時代》更為細膩與重複，這既是對禁忌的挑戰，也是對人性本能的肯定。