《我城》的現代性：“未來觀”與“時間共存”

西西從事創作四十多年，她對於小說時空的關注，不但可視爲形式探索，也表達了她對現代性的看法。《我城》(1975)即爲此中代表。本論文從兩方面分析《我城》的現代性，第一部份探討《我城》對於「未來」的處理，《我城》樂觀向前的主線故事，雖然貌似挪用自西方工業革命以來的線性時間觀，但本文正指出，《我城》非但不是直接模仿「過時」的古典社會學概念，亦不僅僅是香港七零年代社會發展的同步反映，反而帶有預示意味，小說對現代主義過份悲觀的反思與反撥，就當時的華文城市文學而言亦很罕見。第二部分嘗試運用「時間共存」的觀念，指出《我城》通過四組的敘述視點。令多種矛盾不容的時間觀，同顯於一體、一城。其中所體現的時間意識，更貼近當代城市生活的狀況。以上兩種的時間意識，不但令《我城》顯得獨一無二，對於理解同期華文文學對現代比的追求，也提供另一參照系。

關鍵字

現代性；一九七零年代的香港；預示作用；多元敘述視點；時間共存

並列摘要

Engaging n creative writing for some forty years, X Xi is extremely sensitive to the notions c1inie in literature as well as aesihetics. Not only can her anenliveness to the issues concerning time anti space in novels be regarded as the exploration on forms, it reflects also her own perspective on modernity. My City (1975) is a good example of such. The unique concept of Lime expressed through the novel's shifting flow of narration and structure of multiple combinations is distinct from those novels of the cross-straits areas written during the very same period. This essay is to analyze from two aspects the issue of modernity presented in My City. The first part of the essay explores the way the novel cleats with the concept of ”future.” Although it seems that the optimistic and forward-looking theme story in My City had plagiarized the concept of linear time that emerged since the industrial revolution in the West the context of the story was, actually set at Hong Kong in the 1970s when the city was right at the crossroads making choices between the old and the new then. Hence, the theme story of My City is not at all a blatant imitation of the ”outdated” concept of classical sociology. Nor is it merely a contemporaneous reflection of Hong Kong's social development. Rather, it is anticipatory in some sense. As regards the Chinese urban literature of that particular period, this novel is unquestionably a voice against the over-pessimistic retrospection and repulsion of modernism. Employing the concept of ”coexistence of different temporalities,” the second pail of the essay attempts to show how the various contradicting notions of time in My City are put together in one single entity within that same city through four different sets of narrative points-of-view. The sense of time depicted in the novel is so close to the contemporary urban life situations and is uncommon in novels of the same period. Indeed, such two perspectives on time had made My City a unique novel while serving as alternative referenees for comprehension of the pursuit of modernity present in the Chinese literature of that particular period.