「文明」的磋商：1930年代臺灣長篇通俗小說－以徐坤泉、林煇焜作品為例

1987年解嚴後，本土論漸成當代臺灣文學中的主流論述，日本殖民時期遺留下來的豐富文學遺產也因被視為臺灣新文學的濫觴而在90年代以後成為顯學。在重審此時期的文學生產時，國族和道德主義常是評論和詮釋的基準，缺少鮮明抗日色彩的作品如通俗文學相形之下仍較少受到注視。本文故擬以「文明」的磋商為出發點，探討徐坤泉和林煇焜作品中所呈現的對文明與現代的受容與折衝之經驗。本文探文本細讀的方式，綜合社會（學）的、文學的、以及女性為主的不同切入點，以期能對1930年代臺灣通俗長篇小說作一全面性的檢視。本文首先將「文明」之概念問題化，爬梳其在不同語境下的演繹，然使從婚戀態度、宗教視界、文化互文與物質生活、和臺灣書寫四個主題分別論述兩位小說家作品中所流露出的思想。本文論謹這些長篇作品展現出的文明觀是駁雜多元的，視域上兼具本土典國際，且呈現了「文明」這歧義的「重返的書寫形式的外來詞」轉化成帶有臺灣特色的文明觀之過程。這類通俗文本提供了讀者因應現代物質生活的契機，讓讀者得以從中藉鑒及反思自身的生活與價值觀，此為其所具有的社會功能。就文學價值而言，這些小說不但開啟了鄉土書寫的可能性，其寓社會教化於家庭倫理與愛情悲喜劇中的敘述模式也饒富新意。僅管這些通俗小說中含有的「女性細節」可被讀作對男性化的國族書寫的顛覆，但若單從女性角色來看，她們到故事最後，常被男性角色所收編，在（男性）作家們道德教化敘事下成為被挪用的對象。總言之，這些小說中折射出的「文明」是一種迴異於當時左翼和現代派作家的「日常/通俗現代性」，為嚴肅與通俗文學的分野提位了重新思考的起點。而其半新不舊的視域正是當時臺灣讀者的審美旨趣所在。

關鍵字

文明；通俗小說；徐坤泉；林煇焜；婚戀態度；臺灣書寫

並列摘要

The rich literary heritage from Taiwan's Japanese period has in recent decades been rediscovered, particularly after the lifting of Taiwan's martial law in 1987. Scholarly attention on this literature has tended to concentrate on those works containing a distinct anti-Japanese stance. Consequently, popular literature produced by Taiwanese writers (in both Chinese and Japanese) in the 1930s has largely been ignored. To fill the lacuna, this paper seeks to investigate how the concept of ”civilization” is mediated through the novels of Xu Kunquan (1907-1954) and Lin Huikun (1902-1959). Employing a close reading, this paper offers a holistic treatment by reevaluating the two writers' works from sociological, literary, and women-centered perspectives. First, it problematizes the term ”civilization” by discussing its discursive constructs in various contexts. Secondly, it examines Xu's and Lin's visions toward ”civilization” with a focus on the following four aspects: attitudes toward love and marriage, notion of religion, cultural intertextuality and materiality of daily life, and envisioning Taiwan. It argues that the visions of civilisation reflected in the works by Xu and Lin are mixed, multi-sourced, and simultaneously local and global. They offer a salient example illustrating the travel of ”civilisation”, as a return graphic loan-word, into Taiwan, enabling readers to examine their lives and values. In terms of literary merit, these works exhibit a possibility of alternative native-soil writing and a renovated narrative style inscribing social and cultural commentaries to love/marriage tales. Despite the feminine details embedded in them, these works can be seen as a subversion of the masculine nation-building discourse-female characters in these novels often become a vehicle for propelling the (male) writers' moral instructions. By shying away from anti-colonial resistance and a modernist aesthetic experiment, these texts display an everyday/popular modernity complimenting the visions provided by the two other fore-mentioned literary styles at that time. They invite us to rethink the division between highbrow and popular literature, and their textual vision, which is between old and new, is precisely where popular taste lies.