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妈阁是座城
★当代女作家、好莱坞专业编剧的影视名作
★李少红导演同名影视
★白百何、黄觉、吴刚领衔主演，刘嘉玲、曾志伟友情出演，钱小豪、梁天联合主演
★对历史的重新评价，对复杂人性的深刻探究
楚楚可人的梅晓鸥，干上这么血淋淋的一行，必定有大秘密。妈阁有几个女人敢从堵厅拿出上千万的筹码借给一个个在赌台上搏杀的男人呢？
天之骄子段凯文始于金秋假期的赌场搏杀最后将画出一张什么形态的人生路线图？
是什么魔障让投出诱饵的梅晓鸥反在段凯文的棋盘里屡遭暗算？
妈阁是一座迷城，容纳了各种人性、浓缩了百样人生。妈阁是实验场，一场场对赌如电光石火，生死相搏；之后跟踪追债、猫鼠游戏，是智力比拼，更较量人性的成色。
该书以2008-2012年为故事发生的时间段，以赌城“妈阁”为背景，描写了游走于赌场内外、靠追债讨生活的女叠码仔梅晓鸥和三个男赌徒——北京的大房地产商段凯文，木雕艺术家史奇澜，及梅晓鸥前情人、原国家某部委科技人员卢晋桐之间的故事，将文学的笔触深入到当代中国人的生活和情感之中，让读者看见丰富的城市记忆和芜杂的人性底色。
这个时代波澜壮阔，这个时代处变不惊。都说生活比小说更精彩，而严歌苓专在你不知其所以然处下笔，将耳听为虚化作精准的肖像素描和行为写真，将人性的谜底推入深度的心理演绎。
严歌苓是一位美籍华人，美国21世纪著名中文、英文作家，好莱坞专业编剧。作品以中、英双语创作小说，常被翻译成法、荷、西、日等多国文字，其作品无论是对于东、西方文化魅力的独特阐释，还是对社会底层人物、边缘人物的关怀以及对历史的重新评价，都折射出复杂的人性，哲思和批判意识。多年的沉淀和积累，直接和间接的经历与经验都成为了她的创作“矿藏”，甚至她和劳伦斯被美国联邦调查局“搅局”的爱情故事也写成了长篇小说《无出路咖啡馆》。张艾嘉执导影片《少女小渔》原作者，张艺谋新执导影片《金陵十三钗》原作者，《天浴》、《梅兰芳》 原作者及编剧，《小姨多鹤》等多部小说改编为热播电视剧。曾获华裔美国图书馆协会“小说金奖”、亚太国际电影节最佳编剧奖，台湾电影金马奖最佳编剧奖。
人民文学出版社1951年3月成立于北京，系国家级专业文学出版机构，现为中国出版集团公司成员单位。60多年来，人民文学出版社是获得各种国家级图书奖奖项最多的文学专业出版社，并先后荣获“全国优秀出版社”、“全国百佳出版单位”等一系列荣誉，在海内外亿万读者中享有良好口碑。
★李少红导演同名影视
★白百何、黄觉、吴刚领衔主演，刘嘉玲、曾志伟友情出演，钱小豪、梁天联合主演
★对历史的重新评价，对复杂人性的深刻探究
楚楚可人的梅晓鸥，干上这么血淋淋的一行，必定有大秘密。妈阁有几个女人敢从堵厅拿出上千万的筹码借给一个个在赌台上搏杀的男人呢？
天之骄子段凯文始于金秋假期的赌场搏杀最后将画出一张什么形态的人生路线图？
是什么魔障让投出诱饵的梅晓鸥反在段凯文的棋盘里屡遭暗算？
妈阁是一座迷城，容纳了各种人性、浓缩了百样人生。妈阁是实验场，一场场对赌如电光石火，生死相搏；之后跟踪追债、猫鼠游戏，是智力比拼，更较量人性的成色。
该书以2008-2012年为故事发生的时间段，以赌城“妈阁”为背景，描写了游走于赌场内外、靠追债讨生活的女叠码仔梅晓鸥和三个男赌徒——北京的大房地产商段凯文，木雕艺术家史奇澜，及梅晓鸥前情人、原国家某部委科技人员卢晋桐之间的故事，将文学的笔触深入到当代中国人的生活和情感之中，让读者看见丰富的城市记忆和芜杂的人性底色。
这个时代波澜壮阔，这个时代处变不惊。都说生活比小说更精彩，而严歌苓专在你不知其所以然处下笔，将耳听为虚化作精准的肖像素描和行为写真，将人性的谜底推入深度的心理演绎。
严歌苓是一位美籍华人，美国21世纪著名中文、英文作家，好莱坞专业编剧。作品以中、英双语创作小说，常被翻译成法、荷、西、日等多国文字，其作品无论是对于东、西方文化魅力的独特阐释，还是对社会底层人物、边缘人物的关怀以及对历史的重新评价，都折射出复杂的人性，哲思和批判意识。多年的沉淀和积累，直接和间接的经历与经验都成为了她的创作“矿藏”，甚至她和劳伦斯被美国联邦调查局“搅局”的爱情故事也写成了长篇小说《无出路咖啡馆》。张艾嘉执导影片《少女小渔》原作者，张艺谋新执导影片《金陵十三钗》原作者，《天浴》、《梅兰芳》 原作者及编剧，《小姨多鹤》等多部小说改编为热播电视剧。曾获华裔美国图书馆协会“小说金奖”、亚太国际电影节最佳编剧奖，台湾电影金马奖最佳编剧奖。
人民文学出版社1951年3月成立于北京，系国家级专业文学出版机构，现为中国出版集团公司成员单位。60多年来，人民文学出版社是获得各种国家级图书奖奖项最多的文学专业出版社，并先后荣获“全国优秀出版社”、“全国百佳出版单位”等一系列荣誉，在海内外亿万读者中享有良好口碑。
- GenresChina
Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 22, 2022
For most people, the world of gambling either conjures up glamourous Hollywood movies, like James Bond and Ocean’s 11, or grimy old men in bookkeeper shops betting on the horses. This novel by Yan Geling gives us a mixture here by portraying the stories of big rollers in China, but lifting up their masks and exposing the grubby little men lying beneath, body odor and all.
We’re introduced to the protagonist, a middle-aged single mother living in Macau called Xiao’ou, through a story of how gambling runs in her blood, with the tragic tale of her male ancestor’s addiction. This eventually led to him taking his life and, as a result, his wife became obsessed with wiping out the male line of her family to ensure the defective gambling gene wasn’t passed down.
From there we jump to Xiao’ou’s current job as a junket operator/bate-ficha (壘碼仔/ Cantonese: daap6 ma5 zai2) in Macau; basically, these are the middlemen who bring high-rollers into casinos. Topically enough, while I was penning this review, this story emerged, giving an insight into the real world goings-on behind this fictional account.
We gradually come to learn that despite her supposed scorn for gamblers, Xiao’ou is gambling by proxy, in that she borrows money from the casino on behalf of her clients, and then has to chase up the money with them after paying the casino back on their behalf. She also offers clients the option to treble or quadruple the actual chips on the table, in an under-the-table bet with her, which makes the stakes even higher. Many are subsequently unable to pay and she risks losing big if other debtors collect from the clients before she can.
Two of her clients occupy the majority of the narrative of the book, Duan Kaiwen and Shi Qilan. Despite her attachment to them, the two men seem to share a sociopathic veneer of social grace masking extreme disregard for the people in their lives. While Shi is both an old client and old flame who has already fallen on desperate times by the time the novel opens, Duan is a new client for Xiao’ou. At first, the relationship between her and Duan is quite flirtatious and cordial, but as he gradually reveals the inveterate gambler underneath his facade of sophistication and fails to make good on his promises of payment, their relationship descends into a bitter rivalry. Duan, an architect of some renown, continues to get deeper and deeper into debt, whilst hiding his addiction from his family. Eventually, he abandons his wife (who subsequently has a stroke) and children, moving to North America to escape debt collectors. Things get worse for Shi Qilan too, as, after he loses his wood carving business, his wife leaves him, taking their son with her.
We gradually come to realize, that, where, at the start of the novel, we were observing Shi and Duan in contrast to the protagonist, she is, in fact, very similar to them. She misses out on her son’s life, just to accompany the gamblers with whom she has a strange fixation. There is one point in the novel where this becomes very clear. Despite her fellow bate-ficha Laomao urging her to recoup debts owed by Duan Kaiwen, she instead chooses to continue watching as he gambles more and more:
「她擔心段凱文此刻收手。已經差不多夠還她的債了，他完全可以收手。假如他收了，曉鷗看懸念片的興奮和快感、緊張和驚悚就被釜底抽薪。那她就沒機會看段凱文墮落到底，把人渣做到極致了。假如他馬上就還曉鷗的錢，連本帶利，就可以找回他一向的傲慢莊嚴。
“She was worried that Duan Kaiwen would resign just then. He already had around enough to repay his debt to her, so he could just quit. If he did, it would put an end to the excitement, pleasure, tension and thrills Xiao’ou was getting from this cliff-hanger. And she wouldn’t have the opportunity to see Duan Kaiwen fall from grace and become a fully-fledged scumbag. If he returned Xiao’ou’s money right away, principal and interest included, he would recoup with it his haughty sense of pride.
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，234頁 // MY TRANSLATION
There is a sort of dialectic at play, we discover, in which Xiao’ou thinks she’s taking revenge on gamblers, invoking the name of her female ancestor; but in her persecution of them she becomes a mirror image of them. Despite her incredible insight into how the minds of gamblers work, Xiao’ou doesn’t seem to catch herself enmeshed in precisely the same logic:
無非贏了幾手，便自認為找到了感覺，看出了路數，接下去把偶然的贏當成必然，把必然的輸當成偶然。想想吧，一個顛倒了偶然和必然的人會一有什麼結局？就是必然的犧牲品。
Especially when you win a few hands, you’ll think you’ve got a feel for it, that you can see a strategy, then you see what happened by chance as inevitable, and see what’s inevitable as chance. Think about it, how will it end for someone who has confused chance for the inevitable? They are the inevitable sacrificial lambs.
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，216頁 // MY TRANSLATION
Xiao’ou seems to thrive on being owed, as Shi states towards the end of the novel, after the two of them have become lovers:
「你為什麼老要別人虧欠你呢？！」他有點生氣了。
「我沒讓別人虧我……」
「你就讓我虧欠你，永遠還不清你，把人家都變成乞丐，你永遠做施主……」
“Why do you always want people to owe you?!” He was a little angry.
“I don’t make them owe me…”
“You made me owe you, and I’ll never be able to pay you back. You turn other people into beggars, and you’re forever their patron…”
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，343頁 // MY TRANSLATION
She eventually sees her own fixation with gambling when she catches her son at a casino with a group of friends in Macau. She realizes that she is largely responsible for exposing her son to the world of gambling and sees a sort of karma in learning that he has inherited the gambling gene.
她以為幹上疊碼仔的行當是報復盧晉桐，是替梅吳娘報復梅大榕，現在她自己得到報應了。
She thought that by working as a bate-ficha she was getting revenge on Lu Jintong (her estranged husband), and getting revenge on (her male ancestor) Mei Darong on behalf of (her female ancestor) Mei Wuniang, but now she’d gotten her comeuppance.
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，350頁 // MY TRANSLATION
https://www.translatingtaiwan.com/202...
We’re introduced to the protagonist, a middle-aged single mother living in Macau called Xiao’ou, through a story of how gambling runs in her blood, with the tragic tale of her male ancestor’s addiction. This eventually led to him taking his life and, as a result, his wife became obsessed with wiping out the male line of her family to ensure the defective gambling gene wasn’t passed down.
From there we jump to Xiao’ou’s current job as a junket operator/bate-ficha (壘碼仔/ Cantonese: daap6 ma5 zai2) in Macau; basically, these are the middlemen who bring high-rollers into casinos. Topically enough, while I was penning this review, this story emerged, giving an insight into the real world goings-on behind this fictional account.
We gradually come to learn that despite her supposed scorn for gamblers, Xiao’ou is gambling by proxy, in that she borrows money from the casino on behalf of her clients, and then has to chase up the money with them after paying the casino back on their behalf. She also offers clients the option to treble or quadruple the actual chips on the table, in an under-the-table bet with her, which makes the stakes even higher. Many are subsequently unable to pay and she risks losing big if other debtors collect from the clients before she can.
Two of her clients occupy the majority of the narrative of the book, Duan Kaiwen and Shi Qilan. Despite her attachment to them, the two men seem to share a sociopathic veneer of social grace masking extreme disregard for the people in their lives. While Shi is both an old client and old flame who has already fallen on desperate times by the time the novel opens, Duan is a new client for Xiao’ou. At first, the relationship between her and Duan is quite flirtatious and cordial, but as he gradually reveals the inveterate gambler underneath his facade of sophistication and fails to make good on his promises of payment, their relationship descends into a bitter rivalry. Duan, an architect of some renown, continues to get deeper and deeper into debt, whilst hiding his addiction from his family. Eventually, he abandons his wife (who subsequently has a stroke) and children, moving to North America to escape debt collectors. Things get worse for Shi Qilan too, as, after he loses his wood carving business, his wife leaves him, taking their son with her.
We gradually come to realize, that, where, at the start of the novel, we were observing Shi and Duan in contrast to the protagonist, she is, in fact, very similar to them. She misses out on her son’s life, just to accompany the gamblers with whom she has a strange fixation. There is one point in the novel where this becomes very clear. Despite her fellow bate-ficha Laomao urging her to recoup debts owed by Duan Kaiwen, she instead chooses to continue watching as he gambles more and more:
「她擔心段凱文此刻收手。已經差不多夠還她的債了，他完全可以收手。假如他收了，曉鷗看懸念片的興奮和快感、緊張和驚悚就被釜底抽薪。那她就沒機會看段凱文墮落到底，把人渣做到極致了。假如他馬上就還曉鷗的錢，連本帶利，就可以找回他一向的傲慢莊嚴。
“She was worried that Duan Kaiwen would resign just then. He already had around enough to repay his debt to her, so he could just quit. If he did, it would put an end to the excitement, pleasure, tension and thrills Xiao’ou was getting from this cliff-hanger. And she wouldn’t have the opportunity to see Duan Kaiwen fall from grace and become a fully-fledged scumbag. If he returned Xiao’ou’s money right away, principal and interest included, he would recoup with it his haughty sense of pride.
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，234頁 // MY TRANSLATION
There is a sort of dialectic at play, we discover, in which Xiao’ou thinks she’s taking revenge on gamblers, invoking the name of her female ancestor; but in her persecution of them she becomes a mirror image of them. Despite her incredible insight into how the minds of gamblers work, Xiao’ou doesn’t seem to catch herself enmeshed in precisely the same logic:
無非贏了幾手，便自認為找到了感覺，看出了路數，接下去把偶然的贏當成必然，把必然的輸當成偶然。想想吧，一個顛倒了偶然和必然的人會一有什麼結局？就是必然的犧牲品。
Especially when you win a few hands, you’ll think you’ve got a feel for it, that you can see a strategy, then you see what happened by chance as inevitable, and see what’s inevitable as chance. Think about it, how will it end for someone who has confused chance for the inevitable? They are the inevitable sacrificial lambs.
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，216頁 // MY TRANSLATION
Xiao’ou seems to thrive on being owed, as Shi states towards the end of the novel, after the two of them have become lovers:
「你為什麼老要別人虧欠你呢？！」他有點生氣了。
「我沒讓別人虧我……」
「你就讓我虧欠你，永遠還不清你，把人家都變成乞丐，你永遠做施主……」
“Why do you always want people to owe you?!” He was a little angry.
“I don’t make them owe me…”
“You made me owe you, and I’ll never be able to pay you back. You turn other people into beggars, and you’re forever their patron…”
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，343頁 // MY TRANSLATION
She eventually sees her own fixation with gambling when she catches her son at a casino with a group of friends in Macau. She realizes that she is largely responsible for exposing her son to the world of gambling and sees a sort of karma in learning that he has inherited the gambling gene.
她以為幹上疊碼仔的行當是報復盧晉桐，是替梅吳娘報復梅大榕，現在她自己得到報應了。
She thought that by working as a bate-ficha she was getting revenge on Lu Jintong (her estranged husband), and getting revenge on (her male ancestor) Mei Darong on behalf of (her female ancestor) Mei Wuniang, but now she’d gotten her comeuppance.
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，350頁 // MY TRANSLATION
https://www.translatingtaiwan.com/202...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 23, 2020
18年第四十八本。叶沙推荐。故事嵌套很熟练，梅晓鸥也是个赌徒，赌人而已。最大的败笔是女主的性格，与钱相伴十载，对人性早就磨的透透的了，哪里这么多的情感，如同一锅泡发的面一样臃肿
December 4, 2025
Geling Yan is a significant contemporary Chinese-language author, noted for her portrayals of contemporary China. I was amazed by her work "The Criminal Lu Yanshi", but this novel fell short of my expectations. I am not sure whether my discomfort stems from the theme of gambling, the characters themselves - with their genuinely incorrigible and morally vacant mentality, or their profit logic and conduct strike me as genuinely sordid.
But I guess this might be the real life of certain people, like junket operators and gamblers who are unable exercise self-restraint. This is also the first time I have learned about the occupation of junket operator and their amoral principles. Maybe I shouldn't impose my own moral framework when reading. It is a tragic novel anyway and the dark side of Macau, OR perhaps it reflects the city's more uncomfortable realities?
If you are interested in Macau or the gambling culture, it is worth reading. Ultimately, it was merely an average book for me.
But I guess this might be the real life of certain people, like junket operators and gamblers who are unable exercise self-restraint. This is also the first time I have learned about the occupation of junket operator and their amoral principles. Maybe I shouldn't impose my own moral framework when reading. It is a tragic novel anyway and the dark side of Macau, OR perhaps it reflects the city's more uncomfortable realities?
If you are interested in Macau or the gambling culture, it is worth reading. Ultimately, it was merely an average book for me.
July 9, 2021
远离赌博🎲珍爱生命
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews