High-Speed Rail

Han SongShanghai Literature and Art Publishing House2020

Rating 3.6
Word count
228K words
Chapters
40
Series
Han Song Works · The Rail Trilogy
ISBN
9787532175598

Tags

Featured Fiction Science Fiction Historical ReappraisalHuman NatureLife PhilosophyComplex HumanityGrowing UpDaily ReflectionsPoetic BeautyIllustrated GuideAcademic StudyPractical Guide

Summary

High-Speed Rail is the middle installment of Chinese science fiction writer Han Song's "Rail Trilogy" (Subway, High-Speed Rail, Rail), republished in a revised edition in 2020 by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House in the "Han Song Works" series. Running about 220,000 Chinese characters, it is regarded as a segmented novel. The story begins with a high-speed rail accident: the train's control system fails, contact with the outside world is severed, and the train gradually evolves into a self-contained artificial universe, its passengers like projections of some collective consciousness. The protagonist, Zhou Yuan, is chosen as the "seed figure" to save the train but flees out of cowardice. Thereafter the train is repeatedly remade into new forms: from an artificial-muscle train, an artificial star and a newborn biological chain, to a "large farm" disguised as a mobile nuclear missile launch base, and then a looping space that returns people again and again to the starting point. Zhou Yuan's son, Zhou Tiesheng, is born and raised on the train; amid another round of turmoil he pursues his father's secret and encounters destruction and rebuilding with each "evolution" of the train. In the end, a passenger civil war destroys all life aboard, yet the train keeps speeding into the distance. Using the high-speed rail—the most symbolic technological object of contemporary China—as metaphor, the novel compresses the relationship between speed, order, the collective, and the individual into car after car, presenting a cyclical fable of civilization in a strange and poetic style. The "dark consciousness" pervading the book and its wariness of technological rationality have made it a frequently cited work in discussions of dystopian writing in Chinese science fiction.

Editor's review

读《高铁》前最好先放下对“科幻＝星辰大海”的预期：这本书里没有拯救世界的英雄，只有一节节停不下来的车厢。韩松把中国高铁这一最日常、也最富时代象征的技术场景，翻转成一个封闭运行的人工宇宙——控制系统失灵之后，列车自己长出了生态、阶层、信仰与战争，而乘客在其中一遍遍重复迁徙、服从与逃亡。 它的写法并不“顺”：五个段落（《动车》《产房》《高塔》《雷霆》《危楼》）各有主角与语调，时间跳跃、视角游移，人物常常像符号而非血肉。这正是本书的趣味所在——它更像一部以列车为标本的文明寓言，读者需要在碎片与梦境般的场景中自行拼合意义。阿来称其“诡异而华丽，深沉而热烈”，王德威则指出韩松的“悬想”与“神思”把叙事推向了后人类的视野。 如果你关心中国科幻中那条不那么昂扬的支线——从《地铁》到《轨道》的反乌托邦传统，这本承上启下之作不可跳过。它不提供答案，但会让你在下一次坐上高铁时，忽然对“速度”二字生出一点犹疑。

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Reading tips

  1. 先读作者后记《未来难以改变》，了解写作时间与高铁背景，再进入正文
  2. 把五个段落当作相对独立的中篇来读，不必强求一次理清时间线
  3. 可配合《地铁》《轨道》按三部曲顺序对读，体会韩松“轨道”意象的延续
  4. 读到反复出现的循环、毁灭与重建时，不妨记下自己的解读，本书留白极多

About the publisher

Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House China · Founded in 1952

Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House takes modern and contemporary Chinese literature and folk literature as important publishing directions, while also covering social novels, classic works, and prose and miscellaneous writings, and has long introduced foreign literature and philosophical works. Its books include masterpieces such as Lao She's Teahouse and Camel Xiangzi, Lu Xun's Call to Arms and Wandering and Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk, and Xiao Hong's Tales of Hulan River, as well as translations such as Gilles Deleuze's Nietzsche and Philosophy, Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, and The Pillars of the Earth trilogy. Its authors include Lao She, Lu Xun, Xiao Hong, Zhou Ying, Liu Yuyu, and Jiang Yi, reflecting a publishing character that balances original literature, academic translation, and general reading.

Contents

  1. The Bullet Train
  2. 1. The Accident
  3. 2. The Infirmary
  4. 3. "Go to the Inpatient Department"
  5. 4. The Strange Man in the Ruins
  6. 5. Fellow Patients
  7. 6. The Woman
  8. 7. The Answer
  9. 8. The Dance Weapon
  10. 9. The Tank Driver and the Primary School Teacher
  11. 10. The Rooftop Restaurant
  12. 11. The Cause of the Malfunction
  13. 12. Money
  14. 13. Never Get Off
  15. 14. The Masses
  16. 15. "The Universe"
  17. 16. The Signal Problem
  18. 17. The Long March
  19. 18. The Battle to Break Through the "Island"
  20. 19. The Spaceship Designer
  21. 20. The Old Woman's Story
  22. 21. The Laboratory
  23. 22. Stained Glass
  24. 23. The Artificial Intelligent Being
  25. 24. God
  26. 25. The Rendezvous Point to the Wormhole
  27. 26. Rebellion
  28. 27. Freedom
  29. 28. The Train Conductor
  30. 29. Time
  31. 30. Sowing
  32. 31. Rebirth
  33. Maternity Ward
  34. 1. The New Home
  35. 2. The Old Man
  36. 3. The Smoke Screen
  37. 4. The Truly Formidable Figure
  38. 5. The Fans
  39. 6. The Girl
  40. 7. The Dream

FAQ

《高铁》是讲中国高铁发展的纪实作品吗？ 不是。它是韩松的长篇科幻小说，以高铁为隐喻展开反乌托邦叙事，灵感部分来自高铁时代的现实经验，但情节、人物均为虚构，不涉及真实的铁路建设史或工程细节。
这本书和《地铁》《轨道》是什么关系？ 三书合称“轨道三部曲”，2020年由上海文艺出版社统一修订再版。《高铁》是其中承上启下的一部，三者在主题与意象上互相呼应，但故事各自独立，可以单独阅读。
《高铁》有几个版本？该买哪一版？ 主要有新星出版社2012年9月初版（“中日青年作家优秀作品集”，ISBN 9787513308267）和上海文艺出版社2020年7月修订版（ISBN 9787532175598）。修订版经过作者校订并纳入“轨道三部曲”，目前更易获取，建议优先选择。
书里的周原、周铁生是谁？ 周原是《动车》《产房》部分的主人公，在高铁控制系统失灵后被选为“种子人物”却选择逃跑；周铁生是他在列车上出生的儿子，在《高塔》部分长大并追寻父亲的秘密，两代人的命运构成小说的主线之一。
读起来会不会很难懂？ 确实有一定门槛。全书为分段式结构，视角跳跃、象征密集，人物常带符号色彩。建议先把握“列车即文明”的整体隐喻，不必逐句求解；读完后记与相关评论，会更容易进入。

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About the author

Han Song Author · Chinese · 1965

Han Song, born in Chongqing in 1965, is a Chinese science fiction writer hailed as one of the "Four Heavenly Kings" of the new generation of Chinese science fiction. He studied in the English and Journalism departments of Wuhan University and joined Xinhua News Agency in 1991, where he currently serves as deputy director of the External Department. His representative works include Red Ocean, Subway, High-Speed Rail, Track, and the "Hospital" trilogy, and he has won the Galaxy Award and the Chinese Science Fiction Nebula Award multiple times. Known for his eerie imagery and austere style, he occupies a distinctive place in Chinese science fiction. This site carries five of his works, spanning science fiction and mobile photography, including Stars in Transit: Selected Chinese Science Fiction, The Fear of Seeing: Han Song's Fantastic World, and Why Mobile Photography Is Cooler Than Cameras (Revised Edition), showing a creative vision that crosses literary imagination and everyday image-making.