Title

The Settling of Ideals and Self: An Observation from the Space Experience in Chen Lie’s Prose

Author

Shih Hsiao-feng

Genre

Article

Pages

591-619

Download

PDF

Language

Chinese

Key words

Chen Lie陳列, prose, space, discipline, settlement

Abstract

　 The life experience in Chen Lie 陳列’s recent book, Song of Hesitation《躊躇之歌》, shows an individual swinging between literature and politics and struggling for the practical way to meaning and beauty. And his previous books, Years on the Ground《地上歲月》, Eternal Hill《永遠的山》, and Human Impression《人間．印象》, are also the records of “I” loitering between earth and sky. From the viewpoint of space, the article hopes to investigate the following questions. How does the writer watch the marginal people and the marginal place at a distance? How does he describe the invisible violence and self-repression of the social space in quiet and beautiful words? How does he intervene in the authoritarian space under force or consciously and present his observations and criticism of the landscape shaping? How does his inner thinking change when he intervenes in politics? And finally, how does he settle his ideals and self in the return of natural space and in the precipitation of literary space? I hope to clarify the mental process and the life trajectory revealed in Chen Lie’s words.