死水微澜 (1936)

《死水微澜》是著名作家李劼人的一部长篇小说，成书于1935年7月。

内容概要

小说通过对清末四川普通小老百姓生活的描写，展现出1894年到1901年间，即甲午年中日第一次战争后到辛丑条约订立这一段时间市井百姓的一连串故事。内容以成都城外一个小乡镇天回镇和成都为主要背景，将当时各阶层百姓的衣食住行和成都繁荣的工商业展现在读者面前。具体写出当时社会上三种势力——当地教民、袍哥和官府之间的激荡、消长，社会的腐朽。就在这如死水一般的社会当中，国际形势的变化和伴随基督教而来的西方启蒙思想却让这死水泛起了一点点微澜。小说具有浓郁的地方特色和老成都气息。

与《暴风雨前》、《大波》合称“大河小说三部曲”。

改编作品

电影

1992年上映(香港)、2004(中国大陆)，导演: 凌子风，主要演员有: 许晴、尤勇、赵军、程希、刘亚津。

电视剧

四川电视台，导演：刘子农，主要演员有：张晓敏、张国立，该电视剧的主要内容则是根据《死水微澜》所写。

Ripple on Stagnant Water (traditional Chinese: 死水微瀾; simplified Chinese: 死水微澜), also translated as Ripples Across Stagnant Water, and Ripples on Dead Water, is a novel by Li Jieren. It was first published in 1935. An updated version appeared in 1955.

Plot

The work follows the married and romantic life of Deng Yaogu, a resident of the town of Tianhui along with her husband, Cai Xingshun. She wants to change the circumstances of her live relocate to Chengdu. She is involved in two affairs and divorces Cai between the first and second. The first is with her cousin, Cambuel Luo, who is in a secretive organization known as Elder Brothers Society. The second is with Gu Tiancheng, a Christian from Chengdu whom she marries.

By describing the lives of commoners, the novel reveals a complex balance of power among the local Christian communities, Elder Brothers Society and the bureaucracy, during the last decade of the 19th century.

According to Yuehtsen Juliette Chung of National Tsing-Hua University, Cambuel Luo and Gu Tiancheng represent both a city-country tension.

Versions

The 1955 version was published by Zuojia Chubanshe. C. T. Hsia stated that according to Li Jieren's statements in the postscript, the 1955 version had "slight" changes.

Translations

An earlier English translation was marketed by Panda Books in 1990, as Ripples Across Stagnant Water. This translation was published in China by the Chinese Literature Press.

An English translation by Bret Starling and Yin Chi, titled Ripple on Stagnant Water: A Novel of Sichuan in the Age of Treaty Ports, was published by University of Hawaii Press in 2013. In this version, the appendix houses the novel's prologue. This version is distributed in Canada by University of British Columbia Press. The basis of the Starling/Chi translation is the Chinese version published in 1935.

Kristin Eileen Stapleton of the University of Buffalo stated that in the Starling/Chi version, the Sichuanese dialect speech in the original novel was translated into "what I gather is a sort of Scottish brogue".

Adaptation

There is a 1988 television adaptation, titled in English as A Woman to Three Men, but with the same Chinese title as the original novel.

There is also a 1992 British Hong Kong-China film, titled in English as Ripples Across Stagnant Water, with the Chinese name being "狂" (kuáng).