The one exception to Guo’s lack of an explicit political focus is the last story in this book, Brightly Shine the Stars Tonight. This features an army general at the time of the 228 Incident, widely seen as being Taiwan Executive Administrator Chen Yi (陳儀), though Guo denied this in an interview. What’s distinctive is that the general is portrayed sympathetically, longing to return to private life and thinking the army’s rule did people little real good. Once again, Guo’s concern to try untested waters is displayed.
Like many slow, fastidious writers, Guo embeds aphorisms and carefully polished sentences in his work. He’s also fond of recording aesthetic impressions, registering changes in the light, commenting on “the chill feebleness of life,” and having characters cry “for no reason other than for life itself.”
There are some brilliant moments, as when one character who complains of insomnia decides she may have had a perfect night, and only dreamed that she couldn’t sleep.
The difference between Taiwan’s modernists and their European and American counterparts is that the Taiwanese came later. They were in actuality imitating their Western predecessors, but it was also part of a very widespread desire to reject traditional Chinese culture in favor of foreign models. The tendency flourished in many areas of society — clothing, food and music, etc — and is still present today, and obvious in every aspect of Taiwanese life. It’s what makes Taipei, for instance, in so many ways an “international” city.
Guo is in essence a stylist — it’s no accident his favorite book was Madame Bovary, as his wife reveals in a Foreword. An introspective, contemplative writer, his stories have much in common with chamber music, with themes appearing, disappearing, and then re-emerging when you least expect it. Sometimes there’s a grand moment when they all appear together before the final silence.
Running Mother and Other Stories (edited by John Balcom and translated by a variety of translators) is a very valuable publication, and an important addition of Columbia’s indispensable Modern Chinese Literature from Taiwan series. This now contains over 20 titles and is still going strong.
RSS