Gao Xingjian (高行健) was in Taiwan last week, his visit complemented by the arrival of Japan's Iijima Ai (飯島愛). Their books have both enjoyed brisk sales, and as idols, they are neck and neck in popularity. At the Taipei International Book Exhibition, we witnessed the solemn choice of the members of the Swedish Academy being matched with the lithe charm of the adult video queen. In fact, Taiwanese society has always treated weighty matters in a light way, and there was no chance that even a serious book fair in Taipei would have proved unbearably weighty, notwithstanding Milan Kundera's famous title. Is there this appreciation of both the weighty and the light, the highbrow and the lowbrow, because Taiwanese society has the wisdom to deconstruct itself? Or is it because our mechanism for creating kitsch has a special talent for turning anything into a farce?
After all, the difference between so-called "weighty" and "light" relates to whether or not an author's words touch a nerve. Ai's autobiography inherits the Japanese literary tradition of intimately describing the private sphere. She writes about her hopeless craving for parental love, a craving that has run throughout all the vicissitudes of her life. Cutting straight to the truth, her account takes on depth as though she had pierced a bloody hole in her own wrist.
In the past, did we really know Ai, this woman who has been in the spotlight so much? When she posed before the cameras, did people really see her? Every person is an isolated island in the deep sea. To investigate where the soul lies, we must rely on written words as a guide if there is to be any possibility of moving ahead and carving out a safe harbor among the steep cliffs.
The outline of Ai's life is an excellent example. By means of her adult videos, those who refer to her as a "seductive body of jade" get a peep at all her hidden recesses. The camera passes through one thin layer of clothing after another, removing each gauzy veil, probing the innermost secret passages of her body, and how superficial it all is! Ironically, we have in fact seen nothing. Letting the camera circle around at will, the scene is coarse and rough, but an adult video can never pass through the surface of the skin. She was never there!
Through her writing, however, we do see that lonely girl. Despite having long since exploded to fame, she is still back where she started. She remains a helpless child. In her heart, she is still that delinquent who hasn't finished serving her sentence. If we listen carefully, we can sometimes hear the author crying for help in the wilderness. And if the circumstances are just right, a distant echo can simultaneously be heard from within the reader.
Suddenly, a branch road leading back to childhood clears, and, in an instant, the child in her heart is taken by the hand. The reader and the author exchange souls. After all, whether or not one succeeds in professional life and regardless of the official titles on one's business card, every soul has its noble and sorrowful sides. Unconsciously, we are comforting her and also comforting ourselves. From that moment on, we begin to have genuine sympathy for all she has gone through.
Before he won the Nobel prize for literature, Gao's books had sold only 200 copies here in Taiwan. If Ai were not the queen of adult video, her notes of an abused child wouldn't have climbed onto the bestseller list. Precisely because of this kind of chance opportunity -- or "fairy-tale circumstances" as Gao said in his Nobel acceptance speech -- "cold literature" is suddenly boiling hot. One Man's Bible has, in a flash, transformed magically into the bible in every reader's hand. More importantly, once a book of this sort has been swept up by mainstream fashion, people are more willing to casually pick it up. Because it is a bestseller, but not only a bestseller, readers subsequently forget their original mindset. They forget why they picked up this book in the first place and purely feel attracted by its contents. Perhaps they have a chance to enter another person's internal world.
Even if this fated encounter doesn't come to pass, a book always has its still more marvellous raison d'etre. Like a guide, it will steer your feet to a stop before a different bookshelf. This time you may discover a lesser-known author. The book you pick up may have gathered dust for many years. It may long since have ceased to be popular or may never have been popular. But as you begin to flip the pages, you finally find yourself unable to put it down and bring the book home. No one has mentioned this book to you before, so you derive an even greater pleasure from having discovered a hidden treasure.
Do you have faith in the taste of the members of the Swedish Academy on matters of Chinese language ability? Or do you rely more on your own intuition? Regardless of which trail you walk, following what's hot in the popular book market is one point of departure. What really matters is the journey of the treasure hunt and stepping onto the path of discovery.
Discover Gao. Discover Ai. And search for that part of yourself from which you have become separated in the misty forest. Apart from the bait, there is also a real fishing pole pointing in the direction of a future solo journey out to sea. Presumably, this is what the organizers of the Taipei International Book Exhibition had in mind.
Ping Lu is a social critic and columnist.
Translated by Ethan Harkness
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