後鄉土小說初探

A Primary Survey of Post-Regional Literature

九○年代中期以迄，不管在文學刊物或全國性地方性文學獎裡，以鄉土為題材的小說數量愈來愈多，內容或形式上的表現不斷地精益求精。方興未艾的文學潮流明顯地將八○、九○年代以來以現代都會文化、敘述實驗為主流的小說風格導向鄉土文學的支流。我們幾乎可嗅覺到新紀元裡台灣小說的第一種類型已臻成熟。我以「後鄉土文學」一詞定義新一代的小說品種。後鄉土文學不是復古、懷舊式的回歸人文傳統，亦非僅僅是時下台灣本土意識或民粹運動的文學再現，而是綜合台灣內部政治社會文化生態結構性調整、外受全球化思潮滲透衝擊的台灣鄉土再想像產物。 雖然建構台灣民族文化的宏大論述是培育後鄉土小說的溫床，混合全球化論述後的文學美學質變卻某種程度上悖離了前者預設的目的，小說再現出來的鄉土意義亦有所改變。內外緣幾股勢力交互糾結牽動導致文本為鄉土再現的內涵極其複雜曖昧，鄉土想像不斷在符號的增生、替換、衍異中前所未有地豐富蓬勃，同時在過度膨脹間面臨相互對詰、矛盾或裂解的隱憂。由於後鄉土小說的主要成因本相當龐雜，本文勢必無法提出全面性的解釋。囿於學力，我只能做幾個點狀追溯以便為此一新興敘事類型特徵提出一些初步的觀察。後鄉土文學與台灣當代文化論述的弔詭關係，熱中或反對鄉土論述的讀者都可能在其中各取所需但又不盡滿意的線索。

Since the mid-1990s, the number of fiction with Taiwanese regional landscape and rural custom has been increasing. Obviously, the literary trend has been shifting from the descriptive and experimental fiction centering on modernity and metropolitan culture in the 1980s and 1990s to the genre of regional literature. We can almost smell the ripeness of this first type of Taiwanese literature in the new era. I use the term “post-regional literature” to define those texts. Although the grant narrative of nativization promoted by the national and local bureaus serves as the hotbed for post-regional literature, the transformation of aesthetics and culture that combines the discourses on globalization has, to a certain degree, changed the pre-determined aims of the former. The significance of the country represented by the texts has also changed. The visions of the countryside have been multiplying, interchanging and mutating at a constant rate to become unprecedentedly rich and prosperous. At the same time, this literature also faces underlying concerns about questions, contradictions or disintegration amid such excessive expansion. This paper explores the paradox between post-regional literature and the contemporary cultural discourse in Taiwan. I am going to reveal that it is not a return to the past or a nostalgic yearning to resume humanistic traditions. Rather, these texts are the product of a reorganization that sums up Taiwan's structural adjustments in politics, society, culture and ecology and the impact of globalization outside Taiwan.