A literary style newly-formed? -- A Study of Huang Guo-jun's novel style
Date Issued
2011
Date
2011
Author(s)
Lee, Man-Chin
Abstract
The Taiwanese literary scene witnessed a booming era in the 90s of the last century , as David Ter-Wei Wang termed “The resonance of many voices”, following the lift of the Martial ban. Towards the end of the decade, there emerged a distinctive name on the writing scene, Huang Guo-jun, acclaimed to be “singing a different tune from that of contemporaries”. In 2000, his first short story collection Du Wai was published. However, Huang committed suicide by hanging in his home. In the short span of a few years, what legacy has Huang Guo-jun left for the Taiwan literary scene?
The earliest person to classify Huang’s novels as a new literary style was Huang Bi-duan，one of the judges of the Unitas Award for New Novelists which Huang entered. Huang Bi-duan had termed that Fanyi Ti. After Huang Guo-jun’s demise, in a letter to Xu Hui-zhi，Yang Mu mentioned that a new literary style had emerged from Huang Guo-jun’s writing. In literary history, very few have been credited with the creation of a new literary style and therefore, it is the intent of this thesis to understand how Huang Guo-jun was worthy of such an honor.
Although Unitas Literary Monthly announced plans to publish Huang Guo-jun’s commemorative collection and the magazine’s Special for that issue carried a list of Huang Guo-jun’s unpublished works, the proposed commemorative collection has yet to be seen. This thesis, therefore, bases the discussion on the 5 books already published by Huang, concentrating mainly on the 4 novels. Having drawn reference from a selection of critiques and academic theses of Huang’s works, this thesis employs the strategy of analysing one book per chapter, with the hope of mapping Huang Guo-jun’s writing history by a two-pronged approach: One, combing through his literary achievements; two, detailing the shifts of change in his writing. This thesis engages close reading and analysis of Huang Guo-jun’s works as its main tools, avoiding as far as possible the use of literary theories for discussion, with the exception of using Walter Benjamin in chapter three to conduct a dialogue with Huang.
As the discussion of Huang Guo-jun’s four collections unfold, one can see Huang’s aloof stance right from the beginning, setting a detached tone for his writing, a tone which carried over to his second book, showing strong allegorical flavors between realism and fictionalization. The infusion of some “talk show” elements caused a jerk in style in his third work, however, during this period, his trademark sentencing style gained fluency and his stories carried deeper meanings. His final unfinished work Shui men de dong kou can be considered the work closest to his intended literary style, having a clear plot and strong allegorical meaning. Huang’s trademark detachedness in writing, coupled with skilled manipulation of broken time, created a montage of words and an important characteristic of his writing style.
However, although Huang Guo-jun’s literary style may now be seen, it has still reached full maturity. while showing its potential. If literary style were an ongoing process , has Huang Guo-jun completed the development of his literary style? In such cicumstances where no definitive answer is in sight, can Huang Guo-jun be termed a “literary stylist”?
Subjects
Huang Guo-jun
style
Du Wai
Blindness Gaze
Yes or Not at all
Shui men de dong kou
SDGs
Type
thesis
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