假如《纽克姆一家》没有写成,19世纪英国的历史描述——尤其是关于那些体面的“新来者”的历史描述——就会比现在苍白许多。批评界往往把研究的重心放在《纽克姆一家》的互文性、自我关涉性和叙事结构等方面。然而,从对“进步”话语的回应这一角度来看,该小说的意蕴也非常丰富。它捕捉住了“进步”的一些新迹象,而其中最主要的是崇尚“进步”话语的整个社会对外表体面的追求。捕捉历史真实是萨克雷孜孜以求的目标,但是他没有机械地去理解历史真实,而是深谙虚实相间之道。他所写作品的自我指涉性并不排斥重塑现实的可能性。即便是在戳穿自己小说的虚构性的时候,萨克雷仍然巧妙地传递了来自现实世界的信息。 If the Newham family were not written, the historical descriptions of England in the nineteenth century, especially the historical accounts of those decent Newcomers, would be much more pale than they are now. Critics often focus their research on the intertextuality, self-transformativeness and narrative structure of the Newcomb family. However, from the perspective of the response to the “progressive” discourse, the novel’s meaning is also very rich. It captures some new signs of “progress,” the most important of which is the outward appearance of the whole community advocating “progressive” discourse. Capturing historical truth is the goal of Sacre-dzi, but he does not mechanically understand the truth of history, but he understands the way between reality and reality. The self-referential of his writing does not exclude the possibility of reshaping the reality. Even in the fictitious nature of his novels, Saclay still cleverly transmits information from the real world.