膠林之外：論冰谷的散文

Beyond the Rubber Plantation: On Bing Gu's Prose Writings

馬華資深作家冰谷早年以書寫膠林生活著稱。隨着人生閱歷的擴展與生活經驗的累積，他的散文題材益加豐富，並且為散文文類開發新的可能性。本文旨在全面考察冰谷膠林系列以外的散文，突顯其散文在開拓題材與拓展議題方面的貢獻。由於冰谷的散文多半根植於現實人生，而且關乎他的生命歷程，因此其散文自敘性強。更重要的是，這些散文雖多出於個人的人生歷練，但卻剛好與當代諸多重要的文學議題或領域產生親和關係，包括雨林書寫、自然書寫、文學人類學、大洋洲文學、疾病書寫等。這個現象在馬華文學界並不多見。

The early phase of the Malaysian Chinese writer Bing Gu's prose was mainly about life in the rubber plantation. As Bing Gu went deep into life and gained more work experiences, his prose has increasingly become diversified in theme and style. This paper is an attempt to look into Bing Gu's later works to explore his contributions to prose writing. Since Bing Gu's prose is deeply rooted in social reality and has much to do with his own life experience, it is autobiographical by nature. More importantly, as I will indicate in my investigation, many of his prose writings can also be related to various major concerns in contemporary literary studies, such as rainforest writing, nature writing, literary anthropology, oceanian literature, and pathography. The fact makes Bing Gu's prose unique in the Malaysian Chinese literary scene indeed.