一般认为传统中国读者普遍采用口头阅读,默读从来不是主流。《红楼梦》却抵触了这个常识,里面的人物几乎都理所当然地在读诗时保持沉默。小说呈现的倒不是清一色的历史“真实”图景,因为分歧早在前八十回和后四十回之间出现,后者里吟诵之声明显越发“响亮”。要全面了解此一吊诡的现象,我们不能光看《红楼梦》本身,更必须把它放回到一个漫长曲折的系谱里。这系谱上溯清初才子佳人小说,下至18、19世纪之交的首批《红楼》续书;前者已出现口头与无声阅读的分际,却与此同时隐没了其中的意义,后者则作为对原著前八十回的反动,展开了我所谓的“有声”模式。本文不仅挖掘出传统阅读史比想象中远为复杂的面貌,而且还借此重构通俗小说非线性的发展流程。 Generally considered traditional Chinese readers generally adopt verbal reading, silent reading is never the mainstream. “Dream of Red Mansions” has contradicted this common sense, almost all of them inside the characters are naturally silent in reading poetry. The novel presents not all the pictures of history “real ” because the disagreements appeared between the first eighty and the last forty, and the voices of recitations in the latter became louder and louder. To fully understand this paradox, we can not just look at “Dream of the Red Chamber” itself, but must put it back in a long and tortuous pedigree. This pedigree traces the first “Red Mansions” sequels dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries in the novels of the early twenties and early dynasties; the former has witnessed the verbal and the silent reading of the subtleties, while at the same time, As a reaction to the first eighty backs of the original, I started my so-called “voiced” mode. This article not only digs out the far-reaching complex outlook of traditional reading history, but also reconstructs the non-linear development process of popular novels.