面对着茅奖得主刘醒龙的长篇小说《蟠虺》(载《人民文学》二○一四年四期),我首先便陷入了一种自我尴尬的状态之中。这个“蟠”字么,我倒还认识,蟠龙镇的“蟠”不就是这个“蟠”么,但“虺”呢?这是一个什么字?尽管说很快地我就借助于词典解决了这个问题,但曾经的自我尴尬却是一种无法否认的事实存在。关键问题是,刘醒龙为什么非得给自己的长篇小说弄这么一个怪模怪样的标题呢?不这样不行么?但只有在认真地 In the face of the novel Poon Poon (“People’s Literature”, 2014, issue 4), which is the first prize of the prize winner Liu Xinglong, I first fell into a state of self-embarrassment. This “Pan ” words, I would also like to know, Beaulieu’s “Pan ” is not this “Pan ” What, but “虺 ” What? I quickly solved the problem with the help of a dictionary, but once the self-embarrassment was an undeniable fact. The key question is, why did Liu Xinglong have to give such a blame-like title to his novel? Not that bad? But only seriously