“现代化”意味着乡土中国的终结，这决定了乡村、农民在这一历史发展进程中必然遭受的“断裂”之痛，然而受各种“现代化”观念的影响，五四以来的乡村叙事在大多数时候并没有直面这一疼痛，反而是一再为其寻求某种“解释”；而20世纪90年代以来，随着现代化转型的加速以及文学对转型期中国发展现实的书写日趋频繁，乡村叙事也开始大规模地转向了对农村现状、农民当下性生存处境的观照，以关注“现实”、表达创作者迷惘和悲哀、以写实为主要艺术表现手法的叙事潮流从90年代后期以来逐渐发展成为乡村叙事的主流。我们认为，乡村叙事的这一“现实转向”，其最大的意义便在于它直面了乡土中国（乡村、农民）在文明更替和社会转型中那种本然性的历史悲剧命运；然而客观地看，这样一种“直面”更多地却不是出于文学对自身的反思，而是受惠于时代现实的动变本身——创作主体的迷惘和困惑更显现出作家一种理性能力的不足，理性之不足唯使其漂浮于现实的表面，无法获致对社会历史的深度认知。这样一种紧贴现实又无法深入现实的表达毕竟能够以其对自我内心的诚实面对而酿成一种独特的诗意，只是它的过于感性却可能将使其无法保持一种持久性罢了。本书题为《“现实”之重与“观念”之轻——论20世纪90年代以来的乡村小说叙事》，即主要围绕对90年代以来乡村叙事“新变”的认识，侧重从文学与社会的关系、作家心理及其文化人格等角度入手，力图对这一“新变”的思想价值和艺术价值进行确认和分析，同时在这种因素分析、价值分析和历史性梳理的基础上，也试图对乡村叙事的总体发展趋势作出预估。本书共分五个部分，内容如下：“绪论”首先对“乡村小说叙事”的概念进行了辨析，即从概念使用者价值取向和文学观念的不同以及概念所指涉的对象的变异两个角度，分析了“乡土小说”、“农村题材小说”、“新乡土小说”等概念出现和使用的背景，并阐明了本书使用“乡村小说叙事”的原因及其内涵；其次从当下乡村叙事与时代现实的关系入手，分析了“新变”的实质，进而阐明论题，也介绍了选择此论题的缘起；最后介绍了选择90年代以来乡村小说叙事“新变”作为研究对象的原因、学界相关的研究成果以及本书的研究方法等。主体部分共分三章。第一章首先从思潮演变的角度对90年代以来的乡村小说叙事作出整体的描述，即认为90年代以来的乡村小说叙事呈现以“观念”消解、“现实”凸显的过程，从格局演变的角度看这则是一个“解体——凝聚”的过程，即90年代之前“现代化”话语占主导的一体化格局进入90年代则演变为一种“观念”表达、关注“现实”相分立的二元形态。而随着社会转型的不断加剧，关注“现实”的表达日渐频繁而普遍，并在新世纪之后“凝聚”成当下乡村叙事的主流。然而因为主要是对于时代动变的一种仓促应对，所以“主流”必然会形成一种表达的压力，这种压力一方面是美学形式上的，另一方面也是思想、情感上的，所以反拨和“逸变”也便成为必然。本章即以“解体”、“凝聚”、“逸散”为题，分三节按历时的顺序对这样一个思潮演变的过程进行描述、分析和预测。其间，主题分析是重点，同时兼及艺术分析。第二章侧重人物分析。即主要从农民的现代主体建构角度，关注90年代以来乡村叙事对农民形象的塑造，看其究竟多大程度地表现了在社会转型加剧时期中国农民所经历的那种心灵挣扎和人格蜕变。本章从90年代以来农民作为建构中的现代主体所经历的精神蜕变过程展开论述：第一节写农民作为社会“底层”的“失落之痛”，主要从“身体”受难和“身份”焦虑两个角度入手，考察农民在经历从“主人”到“底层”的坠落过程中身体和精神的双重失重以及文学对此的表现；第二节写农民作为建构中的现代主体所经历的“蜕变之痛”，主要从农民在“传统”与“现代”之间尴尬的文化处境入手，以此为基点看取90年代以来乡村叙事在现实介入能力上的优长与不足；第三节主要关注农民在城市与乡村、“传统”与“现代”之间所经受的一种“中间物”式的“彷徨之痛”，追寻其在城乡“交叉地带”不断蔓延、扩大和自身作为现代文明“侨寓者”在城乡间不断迁徙共同作用下所产生的“恍惚”心理，进而透视当代作家对社会历史和时代现实是否具有一种宏观的、敏锐的把握能力。第三章则在第一章、第二章现象分析的基础上，对乡土作家的创作心态进行有针对性的分析。这一章主要从现代以来乡村叙事者在面对“乡村”时惯有的那种情感与理智的矛盾入手，观察、分析在现实发生激烈动变的情况下，传统乡村叙事方式所面临的蹉跎困境。第一节主要以阎连科为例探讨经典启蒙叙事那种“怒其不争”的“怨怒”情绪在当下时代环境中给乡村叙事造成的束缚；第二节主要以刘庆邦为例探讨当下的乡村浪漫叙事对“乡村”所持有的那种个人化的抒情态度如何在新的时代现实面前日益退变为一种封闭、保守的趣味主义书写；第三节以贾平凹为例，通过对其近作的“症候”式分析，探讨在“情感”与“理智”相冲突的背后所深藏的中国作家较普遍的一种理性能力的不足和文化人格上的缺陷。“结语”探讨了文学“返乡”的潜意识动机，并对乡村叙事的未来进行了瞻望。

“Modernization”entails the termination of rural China， which leads to the inevitable pain of “split”for villages and farmers during the historical process.However， due to influences of various“modernization”concepts， the rural narratives since the May 4th Movement sought some“interpretations”for it in most times instead of facing the pain directly； in contrast， with the acceleration of modernization transformation and the increase of literary works reflecting the development reality in the transformation period in 1990s， the rural narratives also began to pay attention to the current situation in rural areas and present life of farmers frequently， as the result， the trend of following closely“the reality”and expressing the loss and sorrow of the authors mainly by realistic writing gradually becomes the“mainstream”in rural narratives since the late 1990s.The greatest significance of“realistic turn”of rural narratives， we believe， lies in that it faced the historical fate tragedy that the rural China （villages and farmers） was in for during the replacement of civilization and social transformation directly； but in fact， it was not attributed to introspection of literature； rather， it benefited from the dynamic changes of the times.The confusion and perplexity of authors highlights their lack of rational capacity.Therefore， they could only grasp the surface and failed to obtain the in-depth cognition of social history.This expression， though close to reality yet can not touch the reality， is unique and poetic with the honesty of its inner self.Nevertheless， its sensitivity was incapable of maintaining its persistency.This book， entitled On the Rural Novel Narratives since the 1990s， centers around the understanding of“new changes”of rural narratives since 1990s and attempts to identify and analyze the ideological value and artistic value of the“new changes”through focusing on the relationship between literature and society and author's psychology and cultural personality and other angles and seeks to forecast the overall development trend of rural narratives based on the factorial analysis， value analysis and historical analysis.The five parts that comprise the book are as follows：The“Introduction”section analyzes the concept of“country novel narrative”in the first place， that is， analyzes the emergence and use background of“Vernacular Novel”，“Rural Subject Novel”and“ New Vernacular Novel”and illustrates the connotation of “rural novel narrative”and the reason in using this concept in this book through the two angles of comparison of values and literary concepts between users and variation of objects referred by different concepts； secondly， it analyzes the true nature of “new changes”from the perspective of relationship between current rural novel narrative and reality of the times， clarifies the arguments and also describes the origin of the selection of this topic； finally， it elaborates the reason of selecting“new changes”of rural novel narratives as the study object， related academic research and the research methods in this book.The main body consists of three chapters.Chapter I makes an overall description of rural narratives since the 1990s from the perspective of evolution of ideological trend.It is believed that rural narratives since the 1990s showed a decrease of “concept”and increase of “reality”.Seen from the perspective of pattern evolution， this is a process of “disintegration-cohesion”， that is， the change of dominance of“modernization”in an oneness situation before the 1990s into a binary situation in which“concept”and“reality”were contradicted.Along with the growing social transformation， expression about concern for“reality”was increasingly frequent and widespread， and became the “mainstream” of contemporary rural novel narratives in the new century.However， as it was mainly a hasty response to dynamic changes of the times， the“mainstream”was bound to bring about a kind of expression pressure which was aesthetic on the one hand and ideological and emotional on the other hand.Therefore， “Resistance” and“Changes” became a necessity.By taking“disintegration”， “cohesion”and“dispersion”as its theme， the book describes， analyzes and forecasts the process of the ideological evolution in three sections in a diachronic order.In the meantime， thematic analysis is given first priority while artistic analysis is taken into account as well.Chapter II focuses on character analysis， i.e.pays close attention to images of farmers created in the rural novel narratives since 1990s from modern construction of farmers to see to what extent the narratives demonstrates the soul struggles and personality transformation Chinese farmers had gone through during the acceleration of social transformation.This chapter starts its argument from the spiritual metamorphosis process that farmers had experienced as the construction main body since 1990s： the first section focuses on the“pain of loss”of farmers as the social“underclass”.It mainly examines the physical and spiritual weight loss after having experienced the fall from“masters” to“underclass”and the descriptions in the literature from the perspectives of“physical”suffering and“identity”anxiety.The second section mainly deals with the“pain of metamorphosis”farmers had experienced as the modern construction main body.It commences from the awkward situation of farmers when facing both“tradition”and“modern”to see weak points and strong points of rural narratives in the realistic intervention abilities.The third section mainly focuses on farmers’“intermediate”“pain of wandering”between city and villages and“tradition”and“modern”.It seeks to track down the farmers’ “trance”as a result of co-action of continuous expansion of “cross zones” of cities and villages and their constant migration between cities and villages as modern civilization“sojourners”and then to see if the contemporary writers have a macroscopic and keen ability to grasp the social history and contemporary reality.Based on the first two chapters’ analysis of the phenomenon，Chapter Ⅲ conducts a targeted analysis of the mentality of those writers when they write.Starting with the contradiction between sense and sensibility that those writers habitually come across when facing the“villages”， it observes and analyzes the dilemma traditional rural narratives face during the dynamic and fierce changes in the reality.The first section discusses the restrictions on rural narratives caused by the “resentment and anger” of classic enlightenment narratives by taking Yan Lianke as the example.The second section， exemplified by Liu Qingbang， mainly discusses how the individualistic lyrical approach that the contemporary rural romantic narratives hold towards “villages” regress to a kind of closed and conservative interest-ism writing before the reality of the new era.The third section， through the analysis of“symptom”of Jia Pingwa's recent works， explores the lack of rational capacity and cultural personality defects of Chinese writers generally behind the contradiction between“emotion”and“reason”.The “Conclusion” discusses the subconscious motive of “regression” of literature and forecasts the future of rural narratives.