中国在梁庄

梁庄三部曲 #1

by Liang Hong, 梁鸿

作者多年深入农村，用自己的脚步丈量家乡的每一寸土地，用自己的眼睛记录下那些惊人的故事：王家少年强奸了八十二岁的老太、昆生把自己的家安在了墓地里、即使火化了，也要把骨灰在棺材里撒成人形……通过这些真实的“个人史”，展现了中国农村在城市化的进程中的现实危机。

该书再现了一个真实的乡村。农村留守儿童的无望，农民养老、教育、医疗的缺失，农村自然环境的破坏，农村家庭的裂变，农民“性福”的危机，新农村建设的留于“形式”……当代中国农民的生存现状在作者的笔下一一显现出来。

通过此书，村庄的过去与现在、村庄所经历的欢乐与痛苦、村庄所承受的悲伤，都将慢慢地浮出历史的地表，我们会由此看到一个真实的中国。

Genres: China, Nonfiction, History, Memoir, Sociology, Asia, Biography

212 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2010

Reviews

[Steve Llano · Rating 5 out of 5]

A profoundly moving, thoughtful, sad, and curious account of the people and places that the author once never questioned - her childhood village in rural China - now seen through her adult eyes on a return trip in the early 2000s.

This book brings to the personal level for everyday people the impact of China's policies through the 1960s to today. It isn't critical; it is hardly political in the common sense of the term. Instead, Hong allows the people from her village and her family to speak their own stories and perceptions onto the page. This isn't a novel, it's not journalism, and it's definitely not sociology. What is it?

It's really beautiful and really eerie. It's really wonderful and painful to hear people tell their life stories, in the context of changes happening around them set in to motion years or months ago by a distant government.

I love how each story stands on its own and the author never judges. There is commentary and even a bit of longing for the way things used to be. But it's all done so well. Thoroughly enjoyed the book, and I feel I have a better sense of what life in rural China was, and is, like.

[Joshua Pulsifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The lack of any written reviews on this platform is shocking to me! “China in One Village” is one of the most dynamic and thoughtful works of narrative nonfiction I’ve ever read. Liang approaches the nation’s most pressing of political quandaries not as one to be explained away through sociological and logistical means. Rather, by “shedding light on individual lives,” and approaching the transformation of “the Chinese village” as a fate which is directly tied to the country’s social and spiritual health, this book exposes a depth and vitality to the issue in a way which has eluded scholarship for decades.

The plain-faced and candid transcripts of conversations had with villagers present an immensely compelling and tangible insight into the lived realities of those whose words have historically been interpreted beyond recognition, caricatured, or perhaps worst of all, neglected entirely. In massive contrast to other works on the topic, the focal point is not Liang’s analysis of the villager’s stories, but the villager’s stories themselves. They stand on their own and act as the novel’s central, authoritative voice.

Furthermore, the sensitivity of Liang’s prose does not just merely complement what could otherwise exist alone, but masterfully elevates the whole of the piece. At points, she reads like Annie Dillard with lines like, “In the autumn, I would lie on the golden-yellow knotweed, thick and strong. I would roll in it, breathing, silent, watching a fire-red cloud in the western sky, imagining it was a horse coming to carry me to distant places.”

At other times, I’m reminded that this is serious, pressing academic literature such as when Liang conducts an interview with the highly regarded Rang County Committee Secretary or when discussing “the general disregard for the sexuality of peasants.” The literary interest to be found in the book’s varying styles and forms is dizzying in the most enthralling of ways.

While I haven’t read the original Chinese, I can say that the result of the translation is superb. It reads as fluidly as any book originally written in English and captures a natural beauty and flow which I feel is too often lost when translating from Chinese (with its a deeply descriptive, metaphorically rich character system) into English.

Obviously, I cannot say enough good things about “China in One Village”

Just go read it. Read it now. Go.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author returns to her rural village after a long absence to find that life there has changed for the worse. Much of the book features the point of view of various villagers and what would typically be a strength was instead monotonously tedious. It read like a collection of bitter liars contemptuous of all of the other bitter liars in the village. On a few occasions the author interpreted the meanings and motivations of some of the villagers and that was very helpful and interesting but not often enough to prevent the rest of the material from sounding like a typical bad day on social media.

Normally I'd recommend the most recent version of a book for the updates. Not in this case. Here it just means more of this same stuff to read. And here's a spoiler lots of people mentioned in the book died subsequently or their lives were ruined in some way .

I could see the appeal in the book's home country - it lends a voice to the many downtrodden in China - but it just didn't work for me.

[Anne Fenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a long and detailed look at life in a remote country village, by a former resident. Lots of interviews about past experiences. Pretty terrible life to my eyes. China likes it, has put it on reading list for young. There’s some sense of happy community life, tempered by stories of how they treated one another so brutally in the cultural revolution days.

[Kaleb Wulf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great sociological text full of rural Chinese stories. Influenced several filmmakers and authors in China by interviewing rural villagers and presenting their stories with minimal interjection. It really paints a bleak picture at first, polluted towns and local disputes, both that lead to death and despair. At the same time, there's a thread of interdependence and love that ties all of these stories together. The young men go to the big cities so that they can support their poor families. The educated children respect old superstitions in the presence of their elders, like not cremating them, hurting them in the afterlife. It's a nice text with a lot of depth. Would recommend for the person like me who gets confused about bizarre cultural norms in Asia. I feel like there's a lot of overlap with other traditional Asian cultures, despite the highly specific town that the book remains in for 95% of the book.

[Teodora Petkova · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book provides a super interesting review of contemporary social issues in China, while narrating the story of a city woman returning to her home village.

[Jillwilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why read this book? Definitely if you are a bit interested in China. Even though it was written over a decade ago and has only just been translated into English, I think it is an illuminating set of insights into rural China. And oddly enough into rural life anywhere. I grew up in country Victoria and on the surface there is practically nothing that you could say is or was similar to life in a central Chinese province. What resonated though was that both Liang and I have “moved away’, become urbanised, been educated, but still have ties back into the communities that we grew up in.
This is the village of Liang’s family and forebears. So she might be deemed an “insider” but she’s not. She has that awkward “insider/outsider” status that I also feel when I return to the village (town) of my childhood. At one stage in the narrative she writes about this; about being recognised but not quite trusted, not longer at home in the village despite the fact that her father and many relatives live there and her mother is buried there.

In this book, Liang is exploring the impact of change on a village. Towards the end of the book, she writes: ”We, who represent the national ideology and the intelligentsia, are always using the word “transformation” to describe this rupture [of culture], but in so doing, we neglect the immense damage caused by the “black hole” of this transformation. What I mean by “culture” is not only traditional concepts, morality, and customs; it is also the practical reality of their lives.” I once heard an Australian journo talking about his time as a correspondent there and he said "You need to imagine the country as being like a school - they are simultaneously building the school from scratch but also running a full education program while they build - the speed of change and how people are expected to adapt is extraordinary!"

This is an account of the practical reality of the lives of the villagers including the kind of environmental upheavals caused by development, the flight of young people from the village to big cities, the work of grandparents as they care for grandchildren who can’t be raised in the cities, and decreased engagement in education. It’s about poverty and wealth and how it is created and the internecine politics of local government, of neighbours, and of warring families. Liang interviews many villagers – and much of the narrative is carried by first person stories.

It’s a disturbing read. There is massive disruption of life and of traditional expectations of how society might function. The things I found most disturbing included the lack of support for old people as they retired; that in the past they would have been looked after by one or more of their children (usually the oldest son), but this is happening less and less. The sort of filial piety that used to be the underpinning of this society is shredding. (Though I have to acknowledge that not all aspects of this value system were beneficial – especially in terms of the place of women and women’s rights.) The state provides very limited support for old people. There is a whole cohort of “rear-guard” or left-behind children (liúshǒu értóng), kids left with their grandparents while their parents work in the cities. These kids are often are not engaged in school and not as responsive to parents and grandparents. A country that used to revere education (through Confucianism) has this phenomenon!

The environment is a mess. It’s not surprising given the population pressures. Liang writes very movingly about the poisoning of river systems, and/or the misuse of water, the disappearance of rivers. She writes: “Rivers are the lifelines of a country’s ecology; the guarantee of a nation’s future. Yet, over the past ten years, we have brought them to an early end. We live among riverbeds that are dried up and foul smelling, terrifying and dark. If this doesn’t change, catastrophe is nigh.” On the flip side, more people have access to sewerage systems. They eat better than they used to.
I kept thinking of the need for food in such a populated society – and I wanted to know more about what was happening to the amount of food being produced, as people left for the cities. This UN-based site says: “China has succeeded in producing one fourth of world’s grain and feeding one fifth of world’s population with less than 10 percent of world arable land.”

It’s worth quoting this from a reviewer: “Over the past 40 years, China has urbanised at a faster rate than any country in history. By 2035, the government estimates that 70 per cent of the country’s population – around a billion people – will be living in cities. Astonishing, if uneven, economic growth has attended China’s reinvention, but in the decades since the process of reform and opening began, in 1978, the Communist Party has largely failed to address an inconvenient question: if most of China’s people are moving to cities, what happens to those left behind?” (https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-m...)

It's a question that is also pertinent in Australia as the politics of people who feel left out (often those in rural areas) or powerless, begin to have an effect on how political parties manoeuvre. How do you manage uneven growth – and deal with the feelings of those who have been left behind? It seems like this is less of an issue in China, given the political system there. As Liang puts it, villages like hers feel “no true sense of participation” in the government decisions that are destroying them.

This book has been a best-seller there. “In China the result was a true literary sensation. It sold hundreds of thousands of copies, won many of China’s top literary prizes, spurred imitations and caused a national discussion about the costs of modernization. Liang’s book reflected what she calls a national sense of “psychological homelessness” — a feeling that change has overwhelmed institutions that for millenniums had been the bedrock of Chinese society, especially the family and the village.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/bo...)

That’s an interesting phrase isn’t it - “psychological homelessness”. Many people (millions) don’t feel at home in the cities, and yet they may only return to the village for a few days a year. They often build a house there and leave it unlived in for most of the time. They are disconnected from any community.

The book has been criticised on a couple of fronts. “Liang tells her stories empathetically, saying in the preface that her book “is literature, first and foremost.” At times it reaches that goal. Still, at other times the chapters feel a bit like a laundry list of issues: the environment, children, mental health, crime, politics.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/bo...) Another reviewer felt that she had not adequately described the larger context for decision-making; the impact of central government decisions on village life, the lack of government responsiveness to real problems. It would have been hard to do this (given the nature of publishing in China) and also shifted the focus a little from that intense beam on village life. One reviewer notes: “They’re depressing, these old village stories that repeat over and over again.” No matter how repetitive the themes of these stories may be, the many perspectives make these topics feel fleshed out and allow readers to come to a deeper understanding for what life may be like in rural China. Everyone that Hong interviews has a distinctive perspective, which humanizes these large and complex issues. What were once fragmented statistics, now represents the lived experiences of real people in rural China. Humanization is the true power of this book.” (https://asiamedia.lmu.edu/2021/10/12/...)

And another: “What China in One Village does well, however, is to give voice to the unvoiced — the ghosted villages, the overburdened grandparents, the children who don’t see their parents from year-end to year-end, the crippled survivors of the Cultural Revolution, and the workers straining to make a living in cities that do everything to shut them out.” (https://supchina.com/2021/07/16/china...)

It’s not the best-written book – a little repetitive and would have benefitted a bit by breaking up the text a bit more. Sometimes over-flowery. But really interesting to read these insights into almost (it was written ten years ago and things change fast) contemporary China.

[Johan D'Haenen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Een boek waar ik echt van genoten heb. Liang Hong beschrijft op diep doorvoelde manier het leven in haar geboortedorp in een veranderend China. Ze doet dit aan de hand van verhalen van dorpsbewoners zelf.
Terwijl ik aan het lezen was, had ik steeds voor ogen de dorpen waar ik geweest ben in China, die van familieleden in het Wudanggebergte, dorpen in Zhejiang province of in de omgeving van Shenzhen, en vooral het geboortedorp van mijn echtgenote nabij Wuhan.
Wat Liang Hong schrijft is zeer herkenbaar en roept heel terechte vragen op over hoe het leven van die honderden miljoenen mensen op het platteland verder zal evolueren in dit land dat aan een razend tempo blijft evolueren.

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding and in depth work done here. She has really made her village come to life on these pages. She’s critical, sympathetic, understanding and inquisitive. For someone like myself that’s more obsessed with Chinese culture and history by the day, this is a must read.

Fantastic use of primary source interviews, well thought out observations on a subject that even she admits can be very elusive and close-doored. These interviews are so entertaining, delightful and even sorrowful, but always back up her observations and criticisms on a myriad of issues that impact rural life in China’s countryside.

I’ve been moved by the sheer tenacity and strength of the people of her hometown. How they continue to endure and navigate an encroaching city lifestyle, continuously changing government plans and reforms that, while attempting to be beneficial, often lead to isolating many of the individuals it’s set out to assist. It was a joy to read about the successes and failures of how the villagers adapted, or didn’t, to such massive cultural shifts over the decades that were discussed. The village and its residents have lived through so much change; from the days of the cultural revolution of the 60s and 70s, to the reforms and opening up during the 1980s and 90s, right into the 21st century.

I feel that the book ended in the same way it progressed, bitter sweet. The inevitability of an ever encroaching city life, financial burdens, disconnection from traditional home life, the loss of rural values, migrating to the city for work at a younger and younger age, lack of interest in education, the hyper focus on making money, etc. It seems like the government sees the value of the rural population and is trying to prove so by implementing more and more social programs to save it. Yet it still misses the mark. These programs don’t help everyone and can’t help everyone in the current circumstances. If anything, these policies over the years have proven to drive a wedge deeper and deeper between the clans that have been there for generations, ie: the elderly that remain at home in the village and the young that have to migrate to work to send money back. Who are these policies benefitting? There are some of course. But it seems like the vast majority remain stymied and caught in a cycle of working to stay poor. Not being able to succeed in either the city (because of hukou, cultural reasons) as someone from the countryside, or now the countryside itself because of the reasons above. Financial instability, whether by design or circumstance is wiping out the rural way of life. What’s left is a romantic notion of what once was.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is, at times, so grim in its content, that I almost gave it up more than once. However, it pays to persevere in spite of the grimness, since the book gives such an insight into the life of rural villages in China as they were around ten years ago. This is a part of China we hear little about in the West, and it's a world we can barely imagine. Even with all the changes and 'modernisations' this world remains something of a mystery; perhaps more so to people used to cities than to rural living, but I think even the latter would find that parts of the book are like reading about something from the middle ages.
One of the things I found hardest to take was the aggression that's so much part of the village life: aggression against families who don't belong to your clan, against someone who steps out of line, against someone who disagrees with you, against mothers, fathers, and most especially, daughters-in-law. And aggression by daughters-in-law against everyone. That may be an exaggeration, but in spite of Liang Hong's view of the people she knows, and the warmth that appears at times, it has to be admitted there's a considerable lack of compassion shown for others.
Liang brings a relatively dispassionate view to her writing, but not fully so: she's related to many of the people she mentions so that naturally colours her feelings towards them. But equally she's not backward about letting them reveal themselves in all their sordidness. Many things may contribute to this: the increasing tearing away from the land, the way in which the adult children tend to go off and leave their offspring with their grandparents for years at a time, the downgrading of religion as of any importance, the lack of schools, the lack of culture, the sense of being ignored by the Government, or treated badly by it.
Certainly the book gives you an insight into a world most of us know little about, and sadly, it seems to be that this world will continue on and continue worsening; hope isn't something that appears much here.

[Michael Canham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rural China is described and its people, although generally poor, are much like humans everywhere. The author shares a quote, “Modernization is a classic tragedy. For every benefit it brings, it asks the people to pay with all they hold of value.”

[Lucky · Rating 4 out of 5]

作者在进行书写的过程中，始终对周遭及自身保持着警惕，那是一种深刻的自省与自我博弈的精神，她不断向内心发问何谓知识分子的道德，也试图探讨身份与身份之间的边界。后记里，她说或许更愿做一个旁观者、写作者，可是怎样站在这一角度去做出阐释并感受真实？又怎样在观察记录与切身参与之间寻找一个道德平衡点？这些自我诘问最终并没能导向某个结论，实际上也不可能导向某个确凿的结论，但是这种自觉的反思，在当代世界既是必要的又是极为缺失的。它并不会让谁成为圣人，而是一种建立人与人之间应有的理解的可能。

[Valentin Herinckx · Rating 4 out of 5]

Après un début difficile, le livre commence à se révéler aux alentours de la 100ème page aux travers des histoires de vie (très) souvent tragiques des habitants de Liangzhuang. Un beau portrait de la ruralité chinoise et de ses challenges!

[Jjj · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw my country, my life, my past, my parents, my neighborhood

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author returns to her rural village in China and documents through interviews the collapsing rural structures and the movement of young people to cities in search of work.

[Sandryne David · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*

J'ai vraiment été surpris d'aimer autant cette lecture qui m'a bien tenu compagnie pendant un vol transatlantique!  Le livre était assez abordable pour quelqu'un qui ne connaît pas si bien l'histoire chinoise.

J'ai vraiment été surprise par les fortes transformations sociales engendrées par l'industrialisation des dernières décennies décrites dans ce livre. La description du démantèlement des familles causé par les migrations vers les villes  et le fait que les paysans qui s'installent dans les villes n'ont pas les mêmes droits que les autre parce qu'il n'ont pas ce qu'on appelle un citoyenneté urbaine (je devrais faire plus de recherche là dessus je ne comprends pas trop), l'application très variable de la loi de l'enfant unique, les politiques qui visent à aider les fermiers mais rendent le travail de la terre non rentable et la fin de l'éducation comme pouvoir de mobilité social m'ont particulièrement choqué. Mais ce que je retiens le plus de cette lecture c'est la grande importance des personnes âgées qui doivent rester dans le village pour cultiver la terre et élever les enfants dont les parents sont partis travailler en ville.

Le livre fait son âge (2010) et parfois l'autrice donne l'impression que le livre est encore plus vieux. Elle note que les jeunes jouent beaucoup en ligne mais maintient fermement que ce sont les DVD qui ruinent la jeunesse. Elle énumère les vices que cause la séparation des couples par les migrations comme étant l'adultère, l'homosexualité, et l'incest... Il me semble que ces trois choses ne devraient pas se trouver sur un pied d'égalité! Aussi bien que l'autrice montre clairement aussi le point de vue des femmes, elle les efface aussi parfois de sa narration. Elle décrit longuement ce qu'elle appelle ''L'attaque de M. Wong contre M. Lang'' et après 3 paragraphes mentionne à la va vite que l'épouse de M. Lang s'est fait couper les doigts. Ça aurait pas mérité de s'appeler l'attaque de M. Lang ET Mme Lang? Elle me semble quand même bien impliquée dans le truc.

Le livre à un côté un peu pessimiste et, même si l'autrice rappelle quand même que tous les changements ne sont pas mauvais, j'ai été en colère contre les mauvaises conditions de vie des gens à de nombreuses reprises. Cette lecture était très informative et assez plaisante, je comprends la popularité de ce livre!

[Gail Jeidy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers insights into the environment, families, economics and culture of one village in rural China via interviews with its inhabitants. About 15 years ago, I traveled to Beijing but did not go far out of the city; this book deepened my understanding of the rural people, some of whom I encountered as vacationers at my hotel. (While in Beijing, I bought a folk art 'farmer's painting', a pictorial of farmers harvesting wheat, a soulful piece I love which has hung in my kitchen nook ever since.) Fully understanding the way things work in China is difficult for me, the mix of capitalism with 'Chinese characteristics." I never quite got my head around the frequent military presence, verbal restraint among the people, and yet the 798 arts zone existing as a space of free expression. Same with this book. It has won awards and been a best seller in China. And yet it is critical/candid in describing conditions and systems in the rural villages. Another review explained that the book stops short of detailing and criticizing the policies at the root of disintegrating life in China's rural villages. The Cultural Revolution is mentioned but there's a line there somewhere, one, that as a layperson I don't fully understand, but am interested in. This story shares the changing ecology of the rural landscape, the holes and poor earth due to soil removal for bricks, the dried and decimated natural streams and waterways. It talks of economic realities of poverty, of parents leaving their children with the grandparents in the village as they go off to the city for jobs, returning maybe once a year. It shares impacts of older citizens in the village, older teachers, older administrators and the disconnect with the young. It shares the impacts of Christianity among some families, the challenge of who will care for elders, who will inherit the family land or house and if they want it as daughters-in-law voice other preferences. It talks of the complexity of the layers of life in the village, all of the knots and holes and the everyone out for themselves kind of outlook. Even the author talks of it being hard to understand how things work in the villages, and she grew up there. So that was comforting in a way and yet not! All in all, an interesting read.

[Sophie Hogg · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book, full of interesting details. The approach to the material is refreshing and the method of examining one case and extrapolating the findings out to rural China as a whole is an intriguing, if not entirely sound, methodology.

Personal anecdotes and long passages of quotes from interviews were a nice touch, and it made the book feel very personal despite its making far-reaching implications.

I will be looking at reading Leaving Liang Village for the complete picture, as it often felt like stories were incomplete without the narratives of city-dwelling inhabitants. These stories were often only brushed over and parts of the book felt a bit stilted without them.

[Michael Pepe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liang Hong is an academic living in Beijing who returns to her rural village home for several months in 2009 to write an ethnography. I struggled with this book because while the intro and conclusion make brilliant arguments about rural development and the tragedy of hypercapitalism, the vast middle portion of this book is mostly long, ambling conversations with villagers and occasionally hypocritical commentary from Liang. In short, I found this book to be skimmable and tedious. However, it was worth the read because this is a valuable collection and defense of rural life in an age of increasing urbanization.

[Robert Rust · Rating 4 out of 5]

A depiction of life in a rural Chinese village from an author who grew up there. Liang Hong shows and tells us how rural roots persist, both emotionally in terms of villagers' sense of belonging and local customs and practically in regard to land rights and services like education. An excellent book for anyone interested in the human side of rural China, Chinese development policy and the issues it has had to address, and the benefits and costs of reform-era Chinese urbanization.

[Lou]

DNF 35%
Je pense que ce livre peut vraiment plaire à certaines personnes mais j’ai trouvé ça trop factuel, pas assez humain au final.

[世愚 · Rating 4 out of 5]

远离现场的我们往往习惯于用“发展中的阵痛”对凋敝的乡村加以概括，并顺遂言说进入它设置好的麻痹怪圈，好像这么认定之后我们便完成了对农人们的“理解”：由于陈述，我们在感知层面似乎已经让自己亲身经历了这一切苦痛，因而也就不再需要进入乡村加以考察。殊不知单纯地不断陈述名为“阵痛”的语词这一行为本身就显露出一种虚伪。在这一点上，梁鸿的返乡与她的思考理应得到我们的尊重。

梁鸿所见的故乡“寂寞、荒凉、矛盾，没有生命力、没有情感”，这些特点也成为故乡的基本形态。改革发展预设的美好生活落地后却形成乡村的“衰败”，巨大错位带给农人的不仅是日常生活、经济上的窘迫，也还有精神上的压抑和痛苦。城乡巨大差异带来的人口流动和社会治安难以保证问题、城市居民对农民工的歧视、农民工边缘化弱势化的现实、空心化的村落、留守儿童与留守老人、日渐萎缩的农村教育以及日益增长的农村青少年犯罪问题——乡村的失落确实具有牵一发而动全身的巨力。狂飙突进的城市化进程伴随着无限增长的房地产泡沫，本质上并不具有坚实的基础，一旦抽离，崩塌与颓圮将带来巨大、无可避免的悲剧。乡村的衰落随着青壮年农民工的出走愈演愈烈，曾经喧闹的乡土中国如今逐渐被失落涣散的暮气笼罩，以宗族为中心的乡村文化在经济与生活的实际需要面前彻底瓦解，因而这种衰落实际上显示着中国传统文化结构的巨变。身处迅速迭代发展的城市，人们往往感到一种难以言说的漂泊感，他们很难将所处的城市视为自己百年之后所欲归往之处，在日常生活中也就出现了“家”与“老家”之分，籍贯正是在此显示出其特定的价值。对“老家”的执著显示出国人强烈的系于泥土的故乡情结，华侨对故土的依恋实际上正是极具代表性的事例。而“村庄的溃散使乡村人成为没有故乡的人，没有根，没有回忆，没有精神的指引和归宿地”，这实际上斩断的是国人的文化根源，意味着“个体失去了大地的稳固支撑”，这对于整个民族而言是难以想象的灾难。

在书中，梁鸿不止一次写到返乡带给自己的“疏离感”，“在他们眼里，你已经是异乡人”，“你已经习惯了明窗净几的、安然的生活，你早已失去了对另一种生活的承受力和真正的理解力。”这种身份的矛盾性促生她叙述的矛盾性：

“我不是梁庄人，还因为我时时承担着阐释的功能。许多时候，正是这些阐释，暴露了‘我’其实已经不是梁庄人的尴尬事实。”“‘我’的叙述一方面构成梁庄内部风景的一部分，而一当我以客观的形象进行公共议论时，所运行的完全是另一套话语。”“也显示了‘我’作为一个外部人对村庄内部生命的简单化理解。”

作为走出梁庄的人文学者，她已经从被启蒙者转变为了启蒙者，因而她看待梁庄的观念无可避免的带有先验性：

“我注意到，我总是不自觉地在模拟一种情感并模仿鲁迅的叙事方式，似乎只有在这样一种叙事中，我才能够自然地去面对村庄。”

“通过修辞、拿捏、删改和渲染，我在塑造一种生活形态，一种风景，不管是‘荒凉’还是‘倔强’，都是我的词语，而非它本来如此，虽然它是什么样子我们从来不知道。我也隐约看到了我的前辈们对乡村的塑造，在每一句每一词中，都在完成某种形象。”

实际上，作为经受了文学教育的读者，我自身也带有这种先验性。在梁鸿展示出的悲哀背后，更令人悲哀的正是这种先验性带给我们的无力感：“我又能说什么呢？当面对我的族人亲切的、和善的笑脸，当倾听他们的艰难人生和悲欢离合时，你又怎能告诉他们，这已死的、肮脏的坑塘，也应该是他们生活的一部分？”“所谓的悲剧与痛苦只是我们这些‘参观者’和‘访问者’的感受。”对村民而言，“这种处境太普遍太正常，是一种极其自然、日常的状态，何来悲剧之感？”这一切都不禁令人沉思：如何消解这种无力，如何让我们重回平等，又如何还原梁庄人目之所及的日常真实？或许，梁鸿的矛盾与沈从文相似，当沈从文不断声称自己为“乡下人”的时候，他实际正在逐步摆脱这个他自我言说的身份。换个角度看，赵树理被视为农民作家，但本质上他却与一般的农民不同，陶渊明也是一样。这么看来，农民眼中的真实也只能通过农民自己来把握，梁鸿大量引述受访者的原话也许就是出于这种考虑。

如果将梁鸿的书写放置在五四以来的乡土书写图谱中，我们或许更能看清时代对乡村、对书写者的影响。它对现代化带给农村的变革的书写异于《长河》，所呈现的荒凉破败的乡村也与启蒙者笔下的乡土中国截然不同；虽然《山南水北》《马桥词典》中的乡村与它有相似之处，但韩少功要讨论的问题并不在此；但总的来说，无论是当年的寻根文学还是当代写作中对乡土的构建，似乎都与梁鸿的观感一致——当代的乡村从来都不是美好的代言词，它充斥着匮乏、衰败和种种难以解决的问题，这一饶有意味的现象似乎是一种警告——即乡村愈发需要我们的关注，并且是从梁鸿所谓的“内视角”进入这个独特的空间。

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

這版本的附錄才真正令這部作品完整。在這部文學作品（而非學術論述）中，梁鴻的寫作理念是把社會學者的數據還原成一個個活生生的人，因而她在描述自己的觀察之中採用了被訪者的口述。梁鴻嘗試在客觀觀察記錄與主觀代入感情之間取得平衡，把「我」放入非虛構寫作之中。因為如作者所述，「我」作為走出梁莊的一分子，是梁莊敘事的一部分也是已經疏離的異鄉人，因而也是被審視反思的一部分。梁鴻在探索兼具兩者的寫作形式。在我看來，她選擇用非虛構文本寫作是極有勇氣的嘗試。
萊辛在談論《金色筆記》之後寫作的自傳時談到虛構作品往往比非虛構更容易寫出真實。梁鴻在附錄中也提到了寫作的悖論。「我們面對世界時並非為了改變它，而只是為了敘述它。」作為一個參與者，她不避諱自己的感情，但同時作為一個旁觀者，她在寫作中也時時自省和反思，並清楚地認知採用非虛構文本引起的爭議。每個人都會有因為經歷認知等等因素導致的偏見，認識並反思自身的偏見並且嘗試聆聽記錄理解不同的聲音在現今社會越來越難得。 而梁鴻不僅記錄下了她眼中的梁莊人，也坦誠地記錄了她自己的所思所想，在附錄中她更是跳離出來反思。這是最難能可貴的。所以這裡的附錄應該被視作此文本的一部分這部作品才完整。
萊辛為了結合理性的社會敘事和濃烈的個人感情而創造了《金色筆記》這樣獨特的小說結構，梁鴻在《梁莊》的非虛構寫作之後似乎走向了虛構寫作。我想這也是她對自己文學理念的嘗試。很好奇她在虛構寫作中是否更加能夠寫出「真實」。

[River C. J. Ander Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

一段好的阅读感受应当是文字慢慢地把读者往书里拽，尽管读者也许事先会有预设，会有期待，会有猜想，但是所有这些都慢慢被叙述打消。不认同一些评论对这本书作出的判决，认为写作像“小学生”，认为观点不“正”，认为居高临下，认为是在“黑”梁庄/河南，诸如此；我的第一感受是觉得书的叙事安排十分奇怪，一些内容给人凌乱感，直到读到书末才发现对每章每节的安排，作者似乎没有为了叙事而打散自己的直观记录，这一点很让我备受触动；至于一些观点，我赞同吗？我不赞同，但我誓死捍卫作者表达的权利；从第一章到最后，能感受到作者思考的深度在一步步递进，但是似乎想说的却没能说，想想还是挺悲哀的。最重要的是，它让我想起了自己的家乡，尽管差异程度十分大，有些东西的确是共通的。

[廣發 · Rating 5 out of 5]

小小一个村庄装着半个多世纪以来风雨苦难，在艰难黑暗的时期在开放时期在城乡差异拉大村落逐渐式微的各个阶段，宏观的历史是如何作用在具体而微的个人身上。在步入现代社会的今天，农村貌似更新换代焕然一新，但乡村生活依然固守着着某些传统，乡村治理也依赖这样的内在逻辑在统治权力无法完全触及的乡村得以运行。在文中有作者的作为出走的局外人的反思，非常知识分子的自我省察，但总感觉过于关注自我也是一种ego大的表现。

[Yan Nan · Rating 4 out of 5]

一开始我看的好不耐烦，可能是书名看起来比较高雅，然而书中有我意料之外的众多抒情文字。这种不耐烦甚至干扰了我阅读口述部分。
直到后半本抒情部分减少，我才开始享受。
书应该是直接引用各个人物的口述，借此塑造了一系列梁庄的人物群像。一幅清明上河图徐徐展开，我们可以看到梁庄每个人不同的命运，借此一窥北方乡村百态。
书值得一看，总结部分可以重复看，前半部分注意跳读。

[JUNO YANG · Rating 4 out of 5]

沉浸式叙述中国的一个小村庄——梁庄村。多次感觉作者把普世性的问题归结为农村特有的问题，不知道是我长期对农村问题的冷漠造成的误解，还是作者对家乡的感情产生的偏见。非常同意其中一个观点，真正的现代化不是把农民推出打工，变成城市里的农民工，而是让农村可以享有城市生活的便利和信息的发达，让农村人愿意留在农村，把农村变成生活的一个选项，而不是千方百计想要逃离的地方。

[Nora · Rating 4 out of 5]

了解中国和中国人。

[YimHoel Wong · Rating 4 out of 5]

既采用了采访的形式，也渗透的作者本人的观点与感情。算是真正改变了我对于乡村题材的态度。有人用社会学的学术要求来批判作者过于主观，但实际上作者是以文学工作者自居的，旨在探寻的东西除了学术上的结论，更多是情感的内核。