Simon Leys writing on Liu Xiaobo in The New York Review of Books in 2012.
------
2016 最驚訝的是2周前NYT的訃聞：Pierre Ryckmans, 78, Dies; Exposed Mao’s Hard Line.. Chinese Shadows by Simon Leys.
Wikipedia 的著作清單。臺大圖書館幾乎只有3~5% 著作有收藏。"唐獎"其實應該弄完整的漢學圖書館。
Bibliography[edit]
Shitao's Les propos sur la peinture du moine Citrouille-amère (translation and comments, 1970)
La vie et l'oeuvre de Su Renshan, rebelle, peintre et fou (1971).
Les habits neufs du président Mao (The chairman's New Clothes: Mao and the Cultural Revolution, 1971)
Shitao's Les propos sur la peinture du moine Citrouille-amère (translation and comments, 1970)
La vie et l'oeuvre de Su Renshan, rebelle, peintre et fou (1971).
Les habits neufs du président Mao (The chairman's New Clothes: Mao and the Cultural Revolution, 1971)
Chinese Shadows, (1974) 我再翻閱，前15頁查英文字典的是我嗎？
中國大陸的陰影 / Ryckmans, Pierre撰 ; 金開鑫譯
台北市 : 黎明, 民66[1977]
翻譯者除將罵國民黨處 (多因KMT是魯迅的對頭)及只翻譯正文，文筆不錯。
淡江大學歐洲研究所有金開鑫教授：教學計畫表| 教師| ： - 淡江大學
中國國民黨中央委員會考核紀律委員會主委
Images brisées (1976)
Human Rights in China (1979) 此書在臺大圖書館已遺失
中國大陸沒有人權 / 李斯(Simon Leys)撰 ; 聯合報編譯組譯
台北市 : 聯合報社, 民70[1981]
中國大陸沒有人權 / 李斯(Simon Leys)撰 ; 聯合報編譯組譯
台北市 : 聯合報社, 民70[1981]
Broken Images: Essays on Chinese Culture and Politics (trans. Steve Cox, London: Allison & Busby, 1981)
Orwell, ou l'horreur de la politique (1984)
La forêt en feu: Essais sur la culture et la politique chinoises (The Burning Forest: Essays on Chinese Culture and Politics) (1987)1985
La Mort de Napoléon (The Death of Napoleon, 1986)
""The Chinese Attitude Towards the Past" (Forty Seventh Morrison Lecture, 16 July 1986), China Heritage Quarterly 14 (June 2008).
L'humeur, l'honneur, l'horreur: Essais sur la culture et la politique chinoises (1991)
Analects of Confucius (translation, 1997)
Essais sur la Chine (Laffont, 1998, coll. "Bouquins")
L'Ange et le Cachalot (1998)
The Angel and the Octopus (collected essays 1983–1998, published February 1999) ISBN 1-875989-44-7
Protée et autres essais (2001; awarded the 2001 Prix Renaudot de l'Essai)
Deux années sur le gaillard d'avant (2002)
Les Naufragés du Batavia (The Wreck of the Batavia: A True Story, 2003, was awarded the Prix Guizot)
La mer dans la littérature française (Plon, 2003)
Lu Xun's La mauvaise herbe (French translation)
Other People's Thoughts – Idiosyncratically compiled by Simon Leys for the amusement of idle readers (Black Inc., 2007)
The Hall of Uselessness: Selected (sic) Essays (Black Inc, 2011)
http://hcbooks.blogspot.tw/2011/05/chinese-shadows-by-simon-leys.html
Orwell, ou l'horreur de la politique (1984)
La forêt en feu: Essais sur la culture et la politique chinoises (The Burning Forest: Essays on Chinese Culture and Politics) (1987)1985
Contents
| 35 |
| 95 |
La Mort de Napoléon (The Death of Napoleon, 1986)
""The Chinese Attitude Towards the Past" (Forty Seventh Morrison Lecture, 16 July 1986), China Heritage Quarterly 14 (June 2008).
L'humeur, l'honneur, l'horreur: Essais sur la culture et la politique chinoises (1991)
Analects of Confucius (translation, 1997)
Essais sur la Chine (Laffont, 1998, coll. "Bouquins")
L'Ange et le Cachalot (1998)
The Angel and the Octopus (collected essays 1983–1998, published February 1999) ISBN 1-875989-44-7
Protée et autres essais (2001; awarded the 2001 Prix Renaudot de l'Essai)
Deux années sur le gaillard d'avant (2002)
Les Naufragés du Batavia (The Wreck of the Batavia: A True Story, 2003, was awarded the Prix Guizot)
La mer dans la littérature française (Plon, 2003)
Lu Xun's La mauvaise herbe (French translation)
Other People's Thoughts – Idiosyncratically compiled by Simon Leys for the amusement of idle readers (Black Inc., 2007)
‘A book is a mirror; if an ape looks into it, an apostle is hardly likely to look out.’ –G. C. Lichtenberg
‘The desire to go into politics is usually indicative of some sort of personality disorder, and it is precisely those who want power most that should be kept furthest from it.’ –Arthur Koestler
‘Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.’ –Thoreau
In this wonderfully entertaining collection of quotations, Simon Leys gathers insights and bons mots from a motley group of great artists, wits and thinkers. Topics range from ambition and adventure to youth, sex, time, toads, wine, faith and friendship.
Wise, witty and delightfully unpredictable, Other People’s Thoughts is for anyone who has ever rifled through a friend’s bookshelves or snuck a peak over a reading stranger’s shoulder. In this wide-ranging miscellany, we are given free rein to explore the nooks and crannies of one man’s mental library. By turns profound, whimsical and subversive, the result is a book-lover’s delight.
The Hall of Uselessness: Selected (sic) Essays (Black Inc, 2011)
The Hall of Uselessness: Collected Essays
Simon Leys' cultural and political commentary has long been legendary for its profundity and acerbic wit. In The Hall of Uselessness his most significant essays are finally gathered together, on subjects ranging from China to Orwell, from Quixotism to the sea. Leys feuds with Christopher Hitchens, ponders the popularity of Victor Hugo and analyses whether Nabokov's unfinished novel should ever have been published. He dissects Mao's Cultural Revolution and the Khmer Rouge, and discusses Waugh, Simenon and Confucius. He considers Chinese art, culture and politics, the joys and difficulties of lit.
http://hcbooks.blogspot.tw/2011/05/chinese-shadows-by-simon-leys.html
- Hardcover: 220 pages
- Publisher: Viking Adult; 1st U.S. edition (September 15, 1977)
- Language: English
這是一本了解文革和現代中國的傑作 ( 我用Penguin 1978版)
看他在書末對 韓素英 、 C. P. Snow和費正清的一語道破其弱點，就可知其功力 (書中說，
魯迅先生的《阿Q正傳》 說明革命的不可能， 以及一些當時法文刊物對中國的幽默)......
1973年版的註解：末段說魯迅被大量"誤裝"為中共所利用
中國大陸的陰影 / Ryckmans, Pierre撰 ; 金開鑫譯 台北：黎明，1977.11
這本中譯似乎是搶譯，翻譯者懂得英文本是本傑作，文筆好，可是有兩問題，罵國民黨的，全消失了。第二大問題是無力還原魯迅等的文字。
舉一例，魯迅-->墳-->燈下漫筆1
所謂中國的文明者，其實不過是安排給闊人享用的人肉的筵宴。所謂中國者，其實不過是安排這人肉的筵宴的廚房。不知道而讚頌者是可恕的，否則，此輩當得永遠的詛咒！
(複印處還有 Pierre Ryckmans 諷刺羅蘭巴特的中國遊日記得荒謬了解。)
但實際上，中國人嚮來就沒有爭到過「人」的價格，至多不過是奴隸，到現在還如此，然而下于奴隸的時候，卻是數見不鮮的。中國的百姓是中立的，戰時連自己也不知道屬於那一面，但又屬于無論那一面。強盜來了，就屬於官，當然該被殺掠；官兵既到，該是自家人了罷，但仍然要被殺掠，彷彿又屬於強盜似的。這時候，百姓就希望有一個一定的主子，拿他們去做百姓，——不敢，是拿他們去做牛馬，情願自己尋草喫，只求他決定他們怎樣跑。
假使真有誰能夠替他們決定，定下什麼奴隸規則來，自然就「皇恩浩蕩」了。可惜的是往往暫時沒有誰能定。舉其大者，則如五胡十六國的時候，黃巢的時候，五代時候，宋末元末時候，除了老例的服役納糧以外，都還要受意外的災殃。張獻忠的脾氣更古怪了，不服役納糧的要殺，服役納糧的也要殺，敵他的要殺，降他的也要殺：將奴隸規則毀得粉碎。這時候，百姓就希望來一個另外的主子，較為顧及他們的奴隸規則的，無論仍舊，或者新頒，總之是有一種規則，使他們可上奴隸的軌道。
「時日曷喪，予及汝偕亡！」憤言而已，決心實行的不多見。實際上大概是羣盜如麻，紛亂至極之後，就有一個較強，或較聰明，或較狡滑，或是外族的人物出來，較有秩序地收拾了天下。釐定規則：怎樣服役，怎樣納糧，怎樣磕頭，怎樣頌聖。而且這規則是不像現在那樣朝三暮四的。于是便「萬姓臚歡」了；用成語來說，就叫作「天下太平」。
任憑你愛排場的學者們怎樣鋪張，修史時候設些什麼「漢族發祥時代」「漢族發達時代」「漢族中興時代」的好題目，好意誠然是可感的，但措辭太繞灣子了。有更其直捷了當的說法在這裏——
一，想做奴隸而不得的時代；
二，暫時做穩了奴隸的時代。
這一種循環，也就是「先儒」之所謂「一治一亂」；那些作亂人物，從後日的「臣民」看來，是給「主子」清道闢路的，所以說：「為聖天子驅除云爾。」
In response to:
Chinese Shadows from the May 26, 1977 issue
To the Editors:
I am shocked by your recent articles on Vietnam and China, the likes of which one might expect to appear in Commentary or the Readers Digest. Apparently it is intellectually chic again to be anti-communist, especially in regard to third world countries.
The authors of both pieces had profound personal biases against their subjects. One of your readers has already pointed this out in reference to the Vietnamese piece (NYR, May 12). I shall therefore focus on Simon Leys’s China pieces (NYR, May 26 and June 9).
There is a proclivity among European intellectuals going as far back at least as Hegel to see China in terms of oriental despotism. It does not matter whether it is contemporary or historical China—it is all the same, there is always that terrible oriental despotism that the Chinese cannot escape. The most articulate of the twentieth-century European exponents of this point of view was Etienne Balazs. In a brilliant series of essays he argued that the Chinese had chances to escape oriental despotism through the Sung dynasty (end 1368). After that it has been all down hill. The weight of the past is such that contemporary China can in no way escape it—any revolution is a false one. Usually this view is derivative, as it was in Balazs’s case, of his own disillusionment with European politics and the left in particular. At bottom the Oriental Despotism view of China is Europe-centered. The genuine social and political revolution must come first in the West. Since it has not happened in the West, it is preposterous to talk of genuine revolution in such a place as China.
I shall be specific on three points.
1) Walls, the walls that Leys mourns so bitterly. Is it not just possible that city walls symbolize the oppression of the past to most Chinese? Both Chiang Kai-shek and the Japanese hid behind these walls for decades—used as bulwarks against the guerrillas in the countryside. It was their custom also to put the ordinary inmates of these marvelously walled cities up against these walls and shoot them for some crime real or imagined. The heads of dissenters were displayed on these wonderful walls. And then there was the squatter housing squashed up against Mr. Leys’s walls.
2) Wang Shi-wei, the dissident who was shot in Yenan in 1947. True enough Wang was shot in Yenan in 1947 and Mao afterwards talked about it. What Leys fails to say is that Mao considered the execution a serious error which should not be repeated. In China, as elsewhere (even Europe), dissidents are persecuted, but they are rarely executed. In the 1950s we executed the Rosenbergs and today we publicly regret it. Eisenhower advocated executing American communists and we are embarrassed. Does this mean that Stalinist purges are the rule in either China or the US?
Perhaps your readers would be interested in Mao’s full statement in 1962 about Wang Shi-wei’s execution:
No doubt Mr. Leys knows all this and that is what angers. His rigid preconceptions about the nature of past and present Chinese society and politics force a level of dishonesty which is unworthy of The New York Review….
Stephen R. MacKinnon
Tempe, Arizona
—Concerning Balazs: Etienne Balazs was a great scholar and an admirable man. That Mr. MacKinnon in reading my modest little essays should be induced to compare me with him fills me with a mixture of confusion and pride. (I doubt however if Mr. MacKinnon did understand Balazs’s writings any better than mine.)
—Concerning city walls: In underlining the fact that walls can symbolize oppression and that it was therefore right to pull them down, Mr. MacKinnon raises a very interesting point. Come to think of it—is it not a shame that, in a revolutionary capital such as Peking, quite a number of other (far worse) symbols of oppression are still allowed to stand: the Imperial Palace, the Summer Palace, etc.? Actually, in this respect, too many countries are still badly in need of a big clean-up: the London Tower, the Louvre, the Escorial, the Vatican, the pyramids of Egypt, etc., etc., are all awaiting the revolutionary intervention of Mr. MacKinnon’s pickaxe. If he intends to devote his energy to such a worthy cause, he has, without doubt, a most busy career ahead of him.
—Mao’s quotation concerning Wang Shih-wei: three points
Pierre Ryckmans, who used the pen name Simon Leys, first traveled to China as a student in 1955. His once romantic view of China dissipated when he learned of the Cultural Revolution.
I am shocked by your recent articles on Vietnam and China, the likes of which one might expect to appear in Commentary or the Readers Digest. Apparently it is intellectually chic again to be anti-communist, especially in regard to third world countries.
The authors of both pieces had profound personal biases against their subjects. One of your readers has already pointed this out in reference to the Vietnamese piece (NYR, May 12). I shall therefore focus on Simon Leys’s China pieces (NYR, May 26 and June 9).
There is a proclivity among European intellectuals going as far back at least as Hegel to see China in terms of oriental despotism. It does not matter whether it is contemporary or historical China—it is all the same, there is always that terrible oriental despotism that the Chinese cannot escape. The most articulate of the twentieth-century European exponents of this point of view was Etienne Balazs. In a brilliant series of essays he argued that the Chinese had chances to escape oriental despotism through the Sung dynasty (end 1368). After that it has been all down hill. The weight of the past is such that contemporary China can in no way escape it—any revolution is a false one. Usually this view is derivative, as it was in Balazs’s case, of his own disillusionment with European politics and the left in particular. At bottom the Oriental Despotism view of China is Europe-centered. The genuine social and political revolution must come first in the West. Since it has not happened in the West, it is preposterous to talk of genuine revolution in such a place as China.
I shall be specific on three points.
1) Walls, the walls that Leys mourns so bitterly. Is it not just possible that city walls symbolize the oppression of the past to most Chinese? Both Chiang Kai-shek and the Japanese hid behind these walls for decades—used as bulwarks against the guerrillas in the countryside. It was their custom also to put the ordinary inmates of these marvelously walled cities up against these walls and shoot them for some crime real or imagined. The heads of dissenters were displayed on these wonderful walls. And then there was the squatter housing squashed up against Mr. Leys’s walls.
2) Wang Shi-wei, the dissident who was shot in Yenan in 1947. True enough Wang was shot in Yenan in 1947 and Mao afterwards talked about it. What Leys fails to say is that Mao considered the execution a serious error which should not be repeated. In China, as elsewhere (even Europe), dissidents are persecuted, but they are rarely executed. In the 1950s we executed the Rosenbergs and today we publicly regret it. Eisenhower advocated executing American communists and we are embarrassed. Does this mean that Stalinist purges are the rule in either China or the US?
Perhaps your readers would be interested in Mao’s full statement in 1962 about Wang Shi-wei’s execution:
There was another man called Wang Shi-wei who was a secret agent working for the Kuomintang. When he was in Yenan, he wrote a book called The Wild Lily, in which he attacked the revolution and slandered the Communist Party. Afterwards he was arrested and executed. That incident happened at the time when the army was on the march, and the security organs themselves made the decision to execute him; the decision did not come from the Center. We have often made criticisms on this very matter; we thought that he shouldn’t have been executed. If he was a secret agent and wrote articles to attack us and refused to reform till death, why not leave him there or let him go and do labor? It isn’t good to kill people. We should arrest and execute as few people as possible. If we arrest people and execute people at the drop of the hat, the end result would be that everybody would fear for themselves and nobody would dare to speak. In such an atmosphere there wouldn’t be much democracy. [from “On Democratic Centralism” in Stuart Schram, ed., Chairman Mao Talks to the People (Pantheon, 1974), pp. 184-185]3) It is well known that the diplomatic community in China lives an isolated existence and receives formal and bureaucratic treatment from the Chinese. The ordinary visitor is received in a much more friendly, relaxed manner—and often sees much more than the cloistered diplomat like Leys did. There are other foreigners living in China as well. Teachers, students, “experts,” and writers have a much less isolated existence and often a rather integrated life among the Chinese people. Has Mr. Leys ever met Sid Engst, Jim Veneris, Israel Epstein, and others like them in China? Their perspective on the foreigner in China is rather different than Mr. Leys’s, although not without problems and barriers (see for example the excellent book by David and Nancy Milton, The Wind Will Not Subside [1976], which revolves around the foreign community in Beijing).
No doubt Mr. Leys knows all this and that is what angers. His rigid preconceptions about the nature of past and present Chinese society and politics force a level of dishonesty which is unworthy of The New York Review….
Stephen R. MacKinnon
Tempe, Arizona
Simon Leys replies:
Mr. MacKinnon’s criticism bears on four questions. Let us discuss them in succession:—Concerning Balazs: Etienne Balazs was a great scholar and an admirable man. That Mr. MacKinnon in reading my modest little essays should be induced to compare me with him fills me with a mixture of confusion and pride. (I doubt however if Mr. MacKinnon did understand Balazs’s writings any better than mine.)
—Concerning city walls: In underlining the fact that walls can symbolize oppression and that it was therefore right to pull them down, Mr. MacKinnon raises a very interesting point. Come to think of it—is it not a shame that, in a revolutionary capital such as Peking, quite a number of other (far worse) symbols of oppression are still allowed to stand: the Imperial Palace, the Summer Palace, etc.? Actually, in this respect, too many countries are still badly in need of a big clean-up: the London Tower, the Louvre, the Escorial, the Vatican, the pyramids of Egypt, etc., etc., are all awaiting the revolutionary intervention of Mr. MacKinnon’s pickaxe. If he intends to devote his energy to such a worthy cause, he has, without doubt, a most busy career ahead of him.
—Mao’s quotation concerning Wang Shih-wei: three points
- “Mao deplored the execution of Wang Shih-wei.” Nixon too deplored his “plumbers” initiatives at Watergate. Great leaders are so often done a disservice by clumsy underlings!
- “Mao opposes random killings.” This in fact was the only point on which Mao significantly departed from Stalin’s doctrine. Mao always agreed with the principle of Stalinist purges; only, to his more sophisticated taste, their methods appeared rather crude, messy, and wasteful. Mao eventually developed his own theory of the efficient way of disposing of opponents—which is expressed quite clearly in the fifth volume of his Selected Works recently published in Peking: executions should not be too few (otherwise people do not realize that you really mean business); they should not be too many (not to create waste and chaos). Actually before the launching of some mass-movements, quotas were issued by the Maoist authorities, indicating how many executions would be required in the cities, how many in the countryside, etc. This ensured a smooth, rational, orderly development of the purges. Some people see in this method a great improvement by comparison with Stalin’s ways. I suppose it might be so—at least from Big Brother’s point of view.
- “Mao said that Wang Shih-wei was a secret agent working for the Kuomintang.” And Stalin said that Trotsky was a secret agent working for the Nazis. Later on it was also said that Liu Shao-ch’i was a secret agent working for the Americans. And that Lin Piao was a secret agent working for the Soviet Union. And now we have just learned that Madame Mao had been working for Chiang Kai-shek. Why not? After all there are always people ready to believe these things—Mr. MacKinnon, for instance.
但實際上，中國人嚮來就沒有爭到過「人」的價格，至多不過是奴隸，到現在還如此，然而下于奴隸的時候，卻是數見不鮮的。中國的百姓是中立的，戰時連自己也不知道屬於那一面，但又屬于無論那一面。強盜來了，就屬於官，當然該被殺掠；官兵既到，該是自家人了罷，但仍然要被殺掠，彷彿又屬於強盜似的。這時候，百姓就希望有一個一定的主子，拿他們去做百姓，——不敢，是拿他們去做牛馬，情願自己尋草喫，只求他決定他們怎樣跑。
假使真有誰能夠替他們決定，定下什麼奴隸規則來，自然就「皇恩浩蕩」了。可惜的是往往暫時沒有誰能定。舉其大者，則如五胡十六國的時候，黃巢的時候，五代時候，宋末元末時候，除了老例的服役納糧以外，都還要受意外的災殃。張獻忠的脾氣更古怪了，不服役納糧的要殺，服役納糧的也要殺，敵他的要殺，降他的也要殺：將奴隸規則毀得粉碎。這時候，百姓就希望來一個另外的主子，較為顧及他們的奴隸規則的，無論仍舊，或者新頒，總之是有一種規則，使他們可上奴隸的軌道。
「時日曷喪，予及汝偕亡！」憤言而已，決心實行的不多見。實際上大概是羣盜如麻，紛亂至極之後，就有一個較強，或較聰明，或較狡滑，或⋯⋯
更多
訃告
揭露「文化大革命」本質的漢學家去世
傅才德 2014年08月20日
William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
皮埃爾·李克曼曾使用筆名西蒙·萊斯，1955年上學時首次到中國旅行。了解到「文化大革命」的情況後，他對中國的浪漫化觀點消散了。
比利時出生的中國學學者皮埃爾·李克曼(Pierre Ryckmans)曾質疑西方在20世紀60年代將毛澤東浪漫化的觀點，並率先將毛髮起的「文化大革命」描述為混亂和破壞的景象。周一（8月11日——譯註）他於澳大利亞悉尼家中逝世，享年78歲。
他的女兒詹尼·李克曼(Jeanne Ryckmans)宣布死因是癌症。
- 檢視大圖
Jean Vincent/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images1966年6月，穿紅衛兵服裝的年輕學生揮舞着毛澤東語錄「紅寶書」，在北京遊行，慶祝「文化大革命」的開始。
李克曼以其筆名西蒙·萊斯(Simon Leys)更加廣為人知。1955年，19歲的他與比利時的同學們一起到中國旅遊，從此便愛上了這個國家。期間更是受到周恩來總理的接見。毛澤東發起「大躍進」所導致的饑荒人禍，乃至始於1966年，止於1976年毛澤東去世的「文化大革命」都還是後話。在當時，新中國有很多值得讚美之處。
但是對於一個西方人來說，留在中華人民共和國學習中國藝術、文化和文學是不可能的，於是他去了台灣，在那裡遇到了未來的妻子張涵芳（音譯）。後來他也曾在新加坡和香港定居。
20世紀60年代末，香港仍然是英國的殖民地，在那裡，李克曼開始關注越過香港邊境的混亂，閱讀中國官方媒體關於「文化大革命」的報道，和逃離中國大陸的人交談，他們原來都曾是毛澤東的支持者。
許多西方知識分子對毛澤東懷有浪漫主義觀點，認為他雖然有缺點，但卻是進步的，是人民大眾的捍衛者，李克曼漸漸發現，這些浪漫的觀點和「文化大革命」的殘酷性完全是互相抵觸的。「文化大革命」力圖抹殺中國文化傳統與西方資本主義的影響，代之以正統的毛主義。這個運動導致了大清洗，強制的國內流放與不同政治派別的互相打擊。這促使李克曼開始涉足政治評論領域。
「1966年之前，中國政治根本沒有引起我的關注，我對中國的一切都有好感，我充滿信心地把這種好感也延伸到了毛主義政權上面，並沒特別多想，」李克曼在他以筆名出版的《中國的陰影》(Chinese Shadows)中寫道，該書於1974年以法語首次出版。「但是我從香港這個有利的位置從始至終地觀察了』文化大革命』，這迫使我從舒服的無知中脫離出來。」
他的第一本書《主席的新裝》(The Chairman』s New Clothes)也是用法文出版，那是1971年，一年後，他定居澳大利亞，因為著名中國文學學者柳存仁將在澳大利亞國立大學教書。李克曼以筆名西蒙·萊斯出版了這本書，掩蓋真實身份是為了防止被中國拒之門外。
1972年，他為比利時大使館擔任文化隨員工作，回到中國呆了六個月。看到這座城市的古建築遺產遭到破壞，他大為震驚。
在《中國的陰影》中，他寫到自己瘋狂地尋找這座城市最宏偉的巨大城門，他覺得它們本應被保留，儘管他知道這座城市的城牆從20世紀50年代開始就已經在進行拆除了。城門不見了。「確切地說，北京城門的拆除是一種褻瀆；充滿戲劇性的不是官方拆除了它們，而是始終不解他們究竟為什麼要拆除它們，」他寫道。
他發現，「文化大革命」破壞了中國文化與文明之美，卻沒有摧毀文化中應當被去除的東西——暴虐與專制。
前澳大利亞總理陸克文(Kevin Rudd)曾是李克曼的學生，在一次電話採訪中，他說李克曼是「20世紀六七十年代第一個揭露』文化大革命』中文化褻瀆真相的西方漢學家，他剝除了其上的政治虛飾，暴露出它的真正本質：由毛澤東領導的一場中共內部醜陋而暴力的政治鬥爭」。
陸克文還說：「當時的漢學家們大都迷戀『文化大革命』早期的浪漫色彩，因此嚴厲地指責他。」
諷刺的是，陸克文說，毛澤東死後，中國領導人開始否定「文化大革命」。許多老北京令人欣喜的東西又回來了，比如食品小攤和夏日街頭的舞蹈，人們開始欣賞古典藝術、文學，乃至曾遭受毛主義者中傷的古典學者孔子。李克曼曾把孔子的語錄《論語》譯成英文。
但李克曼並沒有隨着時間的流逝而改變。「讓皮埃爾接受中國自『改革開放』以來這些真實的、可持續和積極的變化是很困難的，」陸克文說。
李克曼的連襟、同樣也是漢學家的任格瑞(Richard Rigby)說，李克曼不僅是漢學家，也是令人敬畏的歐洲學者，他曾在比利時獲得法學與藝術的博士學位。他說，李克曼的演講博採東西方之長。
「他可以將一幅中國國畫，或奧威爾(Orwell)寫的什麼東西以及蒙田(Montaigne)的散文結合起來，成為一個連貫的整體，」任格瑞說。
李克曼還寫過長篇小說《拿破崙之死》(The Death of Napoleon)，書中想像了這位被罷黜的君王從聖海倫島流放地逃回法國的經歷。1986年在法國首版，1992年出版了英文版，小說家佩尼洛普·菲茨傑拉德(Penelope Fitzgerald)曾為《紐約時報》書評版撰文，稱之為「一本非同尋常的書」，2002年，它被改編為電影，由伊恩·霍爾姆(Ian Holm)和休·博內威利(Hugh Bonneville)主演。
李克曼經常為《紐約書評》(The New York Review of Books)、《世界報》(Le Monde)和其他期刊撰稿，並獲得多項文學獎。
他於1935年9月28日出生於布魯塞爾，除了女兒，他在世的親人還包括妻子與兒子馬克(Marc)、艾蒂安(Etienne)和路易(Louis)，以及兩個孫輩。
他曾在悉尼大學教書，晚年在寫作和玩帆船中度過。他的文集《無用堂文存》(The Hall of Uselessness)於2011年出版，探討從堂·吉訶德到孔子在內的各種話題。
在《中國的陰影》一書中，李克曼寫道，儘管毛和他的扈從們終將離場，權威統治會出現一個不可避免的放鬆時期，但共產主義統治的基本特點不會改變。
「在不同時期對共產主義中國的各種描述中，人們可以發現區別，」他寫道。「如果這些描述都是發自良心，有洞察力的，它們呈現出來的東西要比短暫的新聞真實更多，各種改良都是量變，而不是質變——它們只是角度上的變化調整，而不是基本方向的改變。」
Pierre Ryckmans, 78, Dies; Exposed Mao’s Hard Line
August 20, 2014
Pierre Ryckmans, a Belgian-born scholar of China who challenged a romanticized Western view of Mao Zedong in the 1960s with his early portrayal of Mao’s Cultural Revolution as chaotic and destructive, died on Monday at his home in Sydney, Australia. He was 78.
His daughter, Jeanne Ryckmans, said the cause was cancer.
- 檢視大圖Jean Vincent/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesYoung students in the Red Guard waved copies of the “Little Red Book,” a collection of quotations by Mao, at a parade in Beijing in June 1966 to celebrate the start of the Cultural Revolution.
Mr. Ryckmans, who was better known by his pen name, Simon Leys, fell in love with China at the age of 19 while touring the country with fellow Belgian students in 1955. One highlight was an audience with Prime Minister Zhou Enlai. The man-made famine of Mao’s Great Leap Forward and his Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966 and ended about the time of Mao’s death, in 1976, were still in the future. There was much to be admired in the new China.
Yet pursuing his studies of Chinese art, culture and literature in the People’s Republic itself was not an option for a Westerner, so he settled in Taiwan, where he met his future wife, Han-fang Chang. He also lived in Singapore and Hong Kong.
It was in Hong Kong during the late 1960s, when it was still a British colony, that Mr. Ryckmans (pronounced RICK-mans) began to follow the turmoil just across the frontier, reading accounts in the official Chinese press about the Cultural Revolution and talking to former Mao supporters who had escaped it.
He began to find that the romantic view of Mao harbored by many Western intellectuals — as a progressive if flawed champion of the masses — was completely at odds with the cruelties of the Cultural Revolution, which sought to eradicate Chinese cultural traditions and Western capitalist influences and replace it with a Maoist orthodoxy. The movement led to purges, forced internal exiles and whipsaw shifts in the political winds, and it compelled Mr. Ryckmans to step into the arena of political commentary.
“Until 1966 Chinese politics did not loom large in my preoccupations, and I confidently extended to the Maoist regime the same sympathy I felt for all things Chinese, without giving it more specific thought,” Mr. Ryckmans wrote under his pseudonym in “Chinese Shadows,” which was first published in French in 1974. “But the Cultural Revolution, which I observed from beginning to end from the vantage point of Hong Kong, forced me out of this comfortable ignorance.”
His first account, “The Chairman’s New Clothes,” was also published in French, in 1971, a year after he had settled in Australia, lured by an eminent Chinese literary scholar, Liu Cunren, to teach at Australian National University. Mr. Ryckmans wrote the book under the name Simon Leys to disguise his identity so that he would not be banned from China.
He returned to China in 1972 on a six-month assignment as a cultural attaché for the Belgian Embassy in Beijing. The wanton destruction of the city’s ancient architectural heritage shocked him.
In “Chinese Shadows,” he wrote of his frantic search for some of the most magnificent of the city’s huge gates, which he assumed had been preserved, even though he knew that the city walls had been taken apart starting in the 1950s. The gates were gone. “The destruction of the gates of Peking is, properly speaking, a sacrilege; and what makes it dramatic is not that the authorities had them pulled down but that they remain unable to understand why they pulled them down,” he wrote.
The Cultural Revolution, he found, had destroyed the beauty of Chinese culture and civilization without destroying what needed to be exorcised: the tyranny of arbitrary rule.
In a telephone interview, Kevin Rudd, a former prime minister of Australia and a former student of Mr. Ryckmans, called him “the first of the Western Sinologists of the ’60s and ’70s to expose the truth of the cultural desecration that occurred during the Cultural Revolution, ripping away the political veneer from it all and exposing it for what it was: an ugly, violent, internal political struggle within the Chinese Communist Party led by Mao.”
Mr. Rudd added, “He was excoriated at the time by Sinologists who had been captured by the romance which many felt for the Cultural Revolution in the early days.”
The irony, Mr. Rudd said, is that the Chinese leadership moved to repudiate the Cultural Revolution after Mao’s death. Many of the delights of old Beijing — the food stalls, the street dancing on a summer’s evening — did indeed return, as did an appreciation for classical art, literature and, finally, the classical scholar Confucius, who had been vilified by the Maoists. Mr. Ryckmans translated, into English, the “Analects,” the collection of sayings attributed to Confucius.
Yet he did not change with the times. “It was difficult to get Pierre to accept that real, sustainable and positive changes had occurred in the China of the period of ‘reform and opening,’ ” Mr. Rudd said.
More than a Sinologist, Mr. Ryckmans was also a formidable European man of letters, earning doctorates in law and art in Belgium, said Richard Rigby, a China scholar and Mr. Ryckmans’s brother-in-law. His lectures, he added, brought the best of both worlds together.
“He could look at a Chinese painting or maybe something by Orwell and essays by Montaigne and put them all together into a coherent whole,” Mr. Rigby said.
Mr. Ryckmans also wrote a novel, “The Death of Napoleon,” which imagines the deposed emperor escaping from exile on St. Helena and making his way back to France. First published in France in 1986 and then in English in 1992, it was hailed as “an extraordinary book” by the novelist Penelope Fitzgerald, writing in The New York Times Book Review, and adapted into a film, with Ian Holm and Hugh Bonneville, in 2002.
Mr. Ryckmans was a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, Le Monde and other periodicals and the recipient of several literary prizes.
He was born on Sept. 28, 1935, in Brussels. Besides his daughter, he is survived by his wife; his sons Marc, Etienne and Louis; and two grandchildren.
He also taught at the University of Sydney and spent his later years writing and sailing. A collection of his essays, “The Hall of Uselessness,” discussing topics as far-ranging as “Don Quixote” and Confucius, was published in 2011.
In “Chinese Shadows,” Mr. Ryckmans wrote that even though Mao and his acolytes would leave the scene, and there would be an inevitable relaxation of authoritarian rule, the fundamental characteristics of Communist rule would not change.
“Among various descriptions of Communist China made at different times, one may note differences,” he wrote, “yet if these descriptions have been made conscientiously and perceptively, they will show more than ephemeral journalistic truths, for modifications will be in quantity, never in quality — variations in amplitude, not changes in basic orientation.”
燈下漫筆
一[编辑]
有一時，就是民國二三年時候，北京的幾個國家銀行的鈔票，信用日見其好了，真所謂蒸蒸日上。聽說連一向執迷于現銀的鄉下人，也知道這既便當，又可靠，很樂意收受，行使了。至于稍明事理的人，則不必是「特殊知識階級」，也早不將沈重累墜的銀元裝在懷中，來自討無謂的苦喫。想來，除了多少對于銀子有特別嗜好和愛情的人物之外，所有的怕大都是鈔票了罷，而且多是本國的。但可惜後來忽然受了一個不小的打擊。
就是袁世凱想做皇帝的那一年，蔡松坡先生溜出北京，到雲南去起義。這邊所受的影響之一，是中國和交通銀行的停止兌現。雖然停止兌現，政府勒令商民照舊行用的威力卻還有的；商民也自有商民的老本領，不說不要，卻道找不出零錢。假如拿幾十幾百的鈔票去買東西，我不知道怎樣，但倘使只要買一枝筆，一盒煙捲呢，難道就付給一元鈔票麼？不但不甘心，也沒有這許多票。那麼，換銅元，少換幾個罷，又都說沒有銅元。那麼，到親戚朋友那裏借現錢去罷，怎麼會有？於是降格以求，不講愛國了，要外國銀行的鈔票。但外國銀行的鈔票這時就等於現銀，他如果借給你這鈔票，也就借給你真的銀元了。
我還記得那時我懷中還有三四十元的中交票，可是忽而變了一個窮人，幾乎要絕食，很有些恐慌。俄國革命以後的藏著紙盧布的富翁的心情，恐怕也就這樣的罷；至多，不過更深更大罷了。我只得探聽，鈔票可能折價換到現銀呢？說是沒有行市。幸而終于，暗暗地有了行市了：六折幾。我非常高興，趕緊去賣了一半。後來又漲到七折了，我更非常高興，全去換了現銀，沈墊墊地墜在懷中，似乎這就是我的性命的斤兩。倘在平時，錢舖子如果少給我一個銅元，我是決不答應的。
但我當一包現銀塞在懷中，沈墊墊地覺得安心，喜歡的時候，卻突然起了另一思想，就是：我們極容易變成奴隸，而且變了之後，還萬分喜歡。
假如有一種暴力，「將人不當人」，不但不當人，還不及牛馬，不算什麼東西；待到人們羡慕牛馬，發生「亂離人，不及太平犬」的嘆息的時候，然後給與他略等于牛馬的價格，有如元朝定律，打死別人的奴隸，賠一頭牛，則人們便要心悅誠服，恭頌太平的盛世。為什麼呢？因為他雖不算人，究竟已等於牛馬了。
我們不必恭讀《欽定二十四史》，或者入硏究室，審察精神文明的高超。只要一翻孩子所讀的《鑑略》，——還嫌煩重，則看《歷代紀元編》，就知道「三千餘年古國古」的中華，歷來所鬧的就不過是這一個小玩藝。但在新近編纂的所謂「歷史教科書」一流東西裏，卻不大看得明白了，只彷彿說：咱們嚮來就很好的。
但實際上，中國人嚮來就沒有爭到過「人」的價格，至多不過是奴隸，到現在還如此，然而下于奴隸的時候，卻是數見不鮮的。中國的百姓是中立的，戰時連自己也不知道屬於那一面，但又屬于無論那一面。強盜來了，就屬於官，當然該被殺掠；官兵既到，該是自家人了罷，但仍然要被殺掠，彷彿又屬於強盜似的。這時候，百姓就希望有一個一定的主子，拿他們去做百姓，——不敢，是拿他們去做牛馬，情願自己尋草喫，只求他決定他們怎樣跑。
假使真有誰能夠替他們決定，定下什麼奴隸規則來，自然就「皇恩浩蕩」了。可惜的是往往暫時沒有誰能定。舉其大者，則如五胡十六國的時候，黃巢的時候，五代時候，宋末元末時候，除了老例的服役納糧以外，都還要受意外的災殃。張獻忠的脾氣更古怪了，不服役納糧的要殺，服役納糧的也要殺，敵他的要殺，降他的也要殺：將奴隸規則毀得粉碎。這時候，百姓就希望來一個另外的主子，較為顧及他們的奴隸規則的，無論仍舊，或者新頒，總之是有一種規則，使他們可上奴隸的軌道。
「時日曷喪，予及汝偕亡！」憤言而已，決心實行的不多見。實際上大概是羣盜如麻，紛亂至極之後，就有一個較強，或較聰明，或較狡滑，或是外族的人物出來，較有秩序地收拾了天下。釐定規則：怎樣服役，怎樣納糧，怎樣磕頭，怎樣頌聖。而且這規則是不像現在那樣朝三暮四的。于是便「萬姓臚歡」了；用成語來說，就叫作「天下太平」。
任憑你愛排場的學者們怎樣鋪張，修史時候設些什麼「漢族發祥時代」「漢族發達時代」「漢族中興時代」的好題目，好意誠然是可感的，但措辭太繞灣子了。有更其直捷了當的說法在這裏——
- 一，想做奴隸而不得的時代；
- 二，暫時做穩了奴隸的時代。
這一種循環，也就是「先儒」之所謂「一治一亂」；那些作亂人物，從後日的「臣民」看來，是給「主子」清道闢路的，所以說：「為聖天子驅除云爾。」
現在入了那一時代，我也不了然。但看國學家的崇奉國粹，文學家的讚歎固有文明，道學家的熱心復古，可見於現狀都已不滿了。然而我們究竟正向著那一條路走呢？百姓是一遇到莫名其妙的戰爭，稍富的遷進租界，婦孺則避入教堂裏去了，因為那些地方都比較的「穩」，暫不至於想做奴隸而不得。總而言之，復古的，避難的，無智愚賢不肖，似乎都已神往於三百年前的太平盛世，就是「暫時做穩了奴隸的時代」了。
但我們也就都像古人一樣，永久滿足於「古已有之」的時代麼？都像復古家一樣，不滿于現在，就神往于三百年前的太平盛世麼？
自然，也不滿于現在的，但是，無須反顧，因為前面還有道路在。而創造這中國歷史上未曾有過的第三樣時代，則是現在的青年的使命！
二[编辑]
但是讚頌中國固有文明的人們多起來了，加之以外國人。我常常想，凡有來到中國的，倘能疾首蹙額而憎惡中國，我敢誠意地捧獻我的感謝，因為他一定是不願意喫中國人的肉的！
鶴見祐輔氏在《北京的魅力》中，記一個白人將到中國，預定的暫住時候是一年，但五年之後，還在北京，而且不想回去了。有一天，他們兩人一同喫晚飯——
- 「在圓的桃花心木的食桌前坐定，川流不息地獻著山海的珍味，談話就從古董，畫，政治這些開頭。電燈上罩著支那式的燈罩，淡淡的光洋溢於古物羅列的屋子中。什麼無產階級呀，Proletariat呀那些事，就像不過在什麼地方刮風。
- 「我一面陶醉在支那生活的空氣中，一面深思著對於外人有著『魅力』的這東西。元人也曾征服支那，而被征服于漢人種的生活美了；滿人也征伐支那，而被征服于漢人種的生活美了。現在西洋人也一樣，嘴裏雖然說著Democracy呀，什麼什麼呀，而卻被魅于支那人費六千年而建築起來的生活的美。一經住過北京，就忘不掉那生活的味道。大風時候的萬丈的沙塵，每三月一回的督軍們的開戰游戲，都不能抹去這支那生活的魅力。」
這些話我現在還無力否認他。我們的古聖先賢既給與我們保古守舊的格言，但同時也排好了用子女玉帛所做的奉獻于征服者的大醼。中國人的耐勞，中國人的多子，都就是辦酒的材料，到現在還為我們的愛國者所自詡的。西洋人初入中國時，被稱為蠻夷，自不免個個蹙額，但是，現在則時機已至，到了我們將曾經獻於北魏，獻於金，獻於元，獻於清的盛醼，來獻給他們的時候了。出則汽車，行則保護：雖遇清道，然而通行自由的；雖或被劫，然而必得賠償的；孫美瑤擄去他們站在軍前，還使官兵不敢開火。何況在華屋中享用盛醼呢？待到享受盛醼的時候，自然也就是讚頌中國固有文明的時候；但是我們的有些樂觀的愛國者，也許反而欣然色喜，以為他們將要開始被中國同化了罷。古人曾以女人作苟安的城堡，美其名以自欺曰「和親」，今人還用子女玉帛為作奴的贄敬，又美其名曰「同化」。所以倘有外國的誰，到了已有赴醼的資格的現在，而還替我們詛咒中國的現狀者，這纔是真有良心的真可佩服的人！
但我們自己是早已布置妥帖了，有貴賤，有大小，有上下。自己被人凌虐，但也可以凌虐別人；自己被人喫，但也可以喫別人。一級一級的制馭著，不能動彈，也不想動彈了。因為倘一動彈，雖或有利，然而也有弊。我們且看古人的良法美意罷——
- 「天有十日，人有十等。下所以事上，上所以共神也。故王臣公，公臣大夫，大夫臣士，士臣皁，皁臣輿，輿臣隸，隸臣僚，僚臣僕，僕臣臺。」（《左傳》昭公七年）
但是「臺」沒有臣，不是太苦了麼？無須擔心的，有比他更卑的妻，更弱的子在。而且其子也很有希望，他日長大，陞而為「臺」，便又有更卑更弱的妻子，供他驅使了。如此連環，各得其所，有敢非議者，其罪名曰不安分！
雖然那是古事，昭公七年離現在也太遼遠了，但「復古家」儘可不必悲觀的。太平的景象還在：常有兵燹，常有水旱，可有誰聽到大叫喚麼？打的打，革的革，可有處士來橫議麼？對國民如何專橫，向外人如何柔媚，不猶是差等的遺風麼？中國固有的精神文明，其實並未為共和二字所埋沒，只有滿人已經退席，和先前稍不同。
因此我們在目前，還可以親見各式各樣的筵宴，有燒烤，有翅席，有便飯，有西餐。但茅簷下也有淡飯，路傍也有殘羹，野上也有餓莩；有喫燒烤的身價不資的闊人，也有餓得垂死的每斤八文的孩子（見《現代評論》二十一期）。所謂中國的文明者，其實不過是安排給闊人享用的人肉的筵宴。所謂中國者，其實不過是安排這人肉的筵宴的廚房。不知道而讚頌者是可恕的，否則，此輩當得永遠的詛咒！
外國人中，不知道而讚頌者，是可恕的；佔了高位，養尊處優，因此受了蠱惑，昧卻靈性而讚歎者，也還可恕的。可是還有兩種，其一是以中國人為劣種，只配悉照原來模樣，因而故意稱讚中國的舊物。其一是願世間人各不相同以增自己旅行的興趣，到中國看辮子，到日本看木屐，到高麗看笠子，倘若服飾一樣，便索然無味了，因而來反對亞洲的歐化。這些都可憎惡。至于羅素在西湖見轎夫含笑，便讚美中國人，則也許別有意思罷。但是，轎夫如果能對坐轎的人不含笑，中國也早不是現在似的中國了。
這文明，不但使外國人陶醉，也早使中國一切人們無不陶醉而且至于含笑。因為古代傳來而至今還在的許多差別，使人們各各分離，遂不能再感到別人的痛苦；並且因為自己各有奴使別人，喫掉別人的希望，便也就忘卻自己同有被奴使被喫掉的將來。于是大小無數的人肉的筵宴，即從有文明以來一直排到現在，人們就在這會場中喫人，被喫，以凶人的愚妄的歡呼，將悲慘的弱者的呼號遮掩，更不消說女人和小兒。
這人肉的筵宴現在還排著，有許多人還想一直排下去。掃蕩這些食人者，掀掉這筵席，毀壞這廚房，則是現在的青年的使命！
一九二五年四月二十九日。
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