胡同不老：北岛散文重构的北京岁月

Hutongs Unaged: Beidao’s Prose Reconstruction of Beijing’s Historical Experience

Abstract

本文以北岛散文集《青灯》、《城门开》、《蓝房子》为中心，探讨北岛在散文 里重新建构的北京图象。离纠多年后返京的北岛，感觉到前半辈子的所有生活记 忆随着老北京城一起消逝，他决定用自己的旧北京去否认如今的新北京，于是有 了《城门开》，它象征着北岛“开城门”，进入昔年北京记忆的深处，取出属于自 己喜欢的部分。有些文字链接到诗歌史中的北岛，有些则是铭刻在少年赵振开内 心的旧事。散文虽然是非虚构文类，但写作本身具有一定的建构性本质，在细节 上难免有所取舍；至于回忆，也有不可避免的变异性。本文借由杜威·德拉伊斯 玛对回忆或怀旧写作的真实性和可靠性，探讨了北岛笔下重现的老北京故事。

关键词：北岛，散文，北京，胡同，怀旧

This article centers on Bei Dao’s prose collections Blue Lamp, City Gates, Open Up!, and The Blue House to examine the image of Beijing as reconstructed in his prose writing. Returning to Beijing after many years of displacement, Bei Dao experiences a profound sense of loss, as the memories of his earlier life appear to have disappeared along with the old city itself. In response, he turns to his remembered, “old Beijing” as a means of negating the contemporary, transformed metropolis. This impulse culminates in City Gates, Open Up!, a work that metaphorically enacts the opening of the city gates, allowing Bei Dao to descend into the depths of his memories of past Beijing and to retrieve those fragments he chooses to preserve. Some of these prose pieces resonate with the Bei Dao known from the history of modern Chinese poetry, while others are deeply inscribed with the personal recollections of Zhao Zhenkai’s youth. Although prose is a nonfictional genre, the act of writing itself entails an inherent process of construction, which inevitably involves selection and omission at the level of detail; memory, likewise, is subject to unavoidable variability. Drawing on Douwe Draaisma’s reflections on the authenticity and reliability of memory and nostalgic writing, this article examines the stories of old Beijing as reconstituted in Bei Dao’s prose.

Keywords: Bei Dao, prose, Beijing, hutong, nostalgic memory