吳明益的歷史小說《單車失竊記》透過失落與追尋的主題,重構歷史。不同於七八○年代台籍日本兵小說,本書既是台籍日本兵的故事,也是戰後世代兒子的故事。由失落與追尋出發,它關注戰爭記憶,並試圖探討在戰後被遮蔽的日本時期現代性之遺緒以及「失落的世代」及其後代的戰後經驗。同時它也探討家族和解與族群和解、彌合二戰及戰後傷痛、反思現代性與動物關懷等。失落的不僅是敘述者的父親,也是台灣歷史。敘述者希圖找回失蹤的父親及其生命史,但在追尋過程中他又成為業餘文史工作者,得知其他許多人和動物的故事。與此同時,對於能否真正感知上一代的生命經驗(尤其戰爭經驗),仍是他的縈心之念,因此流露對於紀實性的執念,但亦攙雜對文本性的關注。本文第一部分將探討失落與追尋的意義;第二部分探討重新記憶、族群和解與世代傳承;第三部分探討小說如何反思現代性與重構戰後記憶;第四部分討論紀實性與文本性;第五部分則是結論。
This article argues that as a historical novel Wu Ming-yi's The Stolen Bicycle deals with historical re-membering through unraveling loss and retrieval. The disappearance of the narrator's father signifies the loss of Taiwanese history. The narrator seeks to find his father and retrieve his life story, in the process of which he becomes an amateurish cultural worker, familiarizing himself with the stories of several characters, objects, and animals. Unlike fictions about Taiwanese Imperial Japan Servicemen in the 1970s and 1980s, this novel focuses on both the servicemen and their sons born after World War II, seeking to retrieve war memories, postwar memories about the "Lost Generation" and their offspring, as well as memories about the Japanese legacy of modernity. Moreover, it delves into family and ethnic reconciliations, the healing of war and postwar trauma, critical reflections on modernity and concerns for animals. The first section of the article deals with the meanings of loss and retrieval; the second section explores re-memory, ethnic reconciliation, and generational heritage; the third section discusses how the novel reflects on modernity and reconstructs postwar memories; the fourth section examines facticity and textuality; the fifth section is the conclusion.