Even so, Taiwan remains a more literary place than anywhere close by in the region, Japan always excepted. (Just about everyone appears to be reading on the Tokyo subway, though long commuting distances may partly account for this). If literature is on the slide in Taiwan, it isn't going down without a fight.
Those of us who read only English can be unaware of this. But strong proof of the on-going vitality of the written word in Taiwan was remarkably demonstrated five years ago when a quasi-public selection of the "Literary classics of Taiwan" was staged, sponsored by the Council of Cultural Affairs. The circus that resulted surprised almost everyone.
Predictably, the arguments that emerged mirrored in many ways those that continue to divide the main political parties -- "Mainstream" versus "Localist" and "pure" literature versus works representing the modern Taiwanese experience such as the effects of rapid urbanization. And so on.
Nevertheless, as with the political divides, so with the literary ones. Life would be duller without them. Moreover, they represent the very mixtures that make Taiwan what it is: its history, the various waves of immigrants and the residual differences and oppositions. These inevitably throw up conflict, and conflict -- so long as it doesn't become physical -- remains the spice of life.
These divides also throw up their inevitable paradoxes. None of these is more remarkable than those surrounding the 1940s novel Orphan of Asia. The book, depicting the uncertainties of the Taiwanese psyche, was banned under martial law, and so became a cause celebre with the Localists, in so many ways the literary equivalents of the modern political greens.
But few things are simple in Taiwan. What makes this particular book paradoxical is one simple fact. It was originally written, not in Chinese, nor in any of the dialects or languages today current in Taiwan. Instead, this celebrated, though doom-laden, analysis of the nature of Taiwan was written in Japanese.
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