探索与争鸣 ›› 2026, Vol. 1 ›› Issue (4): 158-176.

• 人文 • 上一篇    下一篇

城与人:城市地理、百年文脉与城市精神(十)|隐去八十年代的“伤逝”——论《繁花》的叙事时间

夏中义   

  • 出版日期:2026-04-20 发布日期:2026-04-20
  • 作者简介:夏中义,浙江越秀外国语学院教授,上海交通大学人文学院教授。(上海 200240)

Hide the “Mourning” of the 1980s: On the Narrative Time of Blossoms

Xia Zhongyi   

  • Online:2026-04-20 Published:2026-04-20

摘要: 金宇澄的《繁花》以“双线叙事”将 1950—1970 年代与 1990 年代的故事交错编织如沪上女孩脑后的“麻花辫”,却偏将那春光乍现的 1980 年代隐去不表。这一叙事时间的结构性空置,并非单纯的技巧炫示,而是作家为书写魔都文化所独创的史诗框架。细读“阿宝不响”这一核心修辞可见,其“嘴上无语”恰是“心上雷声碾过”,涵泳着沉思型精神贵族的孤寂与矜持。“上海腔调”实为复式构成:既结裹于世俗衣冠,更点睛于脱俗心魂。以蓓蒂(“钢琴公主”)、姝华(“荒寒哲人”)为表征的“繁花”芬芳,本是制衡资本逻辑、护卫都市尊严的诗意防波堤,惜乎被无情摧折,及至 1990年代全民经商浪潮骤起,堤溃泽横,遂有汪小姐式的价值坠落。《繁花》借助“隐去八十年代”所强化的对照,完成了一种对当代文化的史诗书写。作家以沪语说书人的姿态,将小说提升为兼具文学史与心灵史价值的“记忆”经典,“阿宝不响”背后亦折射出创作主体在双重悲怆中的沪语唏嘘。

关键词: 《繁花》, 叙事时间, 不响, 上海腔调, 伤逝

Abstract: Jin Yucheng’s Blossoms employs a dual narrative line, interweaving stories from the 1950s to 1970s and the post-1990s era like a young Shanghainese girl’s braid, while conspicuously omitting the 1980s—that decade of sudden springtime radiance. This structural vacancy in narrative time is not a mere display of technique, but rather an epic framework uniquely devised by the writer to inscribe the contemporary erosion of Shanghai’s urban culture. A close reading of the core rhetorical figure “Abao remains silent” reveals that his “speechless mouth” precisely harbors “thunder rolling in the heart”, embodying the solitude and self-possession of a contemplative spiritual aristocrat. “Shanghai style” (Shanghai qiangdiao) is in fact a compound formation: It is both embedded in secular attire and illuminated by a transcendent soul. Represented by Beiti (the “piano princess”) and Shuhua (the “philosopher of desolation”), the fragrance of “blossoms” originally served as a poetic breakwater to counterbalance capitalist logic and safeguard urban dignity. Sadly, it was mercilessly destroyed. When the tidal wave of “everyone goes into business” surged abruptly in the 1990s, the dyke collapsed and the waters ran wild, leading to the value fall of figures like Mrs. Wang. Through the contrast sharpened by the omission of the 1980s, Blossoms accomplishes its elegy for the fate of Shanghai’s culture. The writer, in the posture of a Shanghai vernacular storyteller, elevates the novel into a classic of memory that possesses both literary and spiritual-historical value. Behind “Abao remains silent” also glimmers the creator’s double sorrow, expressed in the whispered sigh of Shanghainese dialect.

Key words: Blossoms, narrative time, remain silent (buxiang), Shanghai qiangdiao