走在一條建造家屋之路──論七等生《重回沙河》中的時間光影與生命家屋

A Walk on A Path to Build a Residence － A Study and Exploration into Light and Shadow of Time and House of Life in “A Return to the Sand River” by Qi Deng Sheng

1980年，四十一歲，且已寫就一百多篇短篇與八篇中長篇小說的七等生，在自覺的寫作瓶頸中，作出了「決定暫時停筆撰寫小說」的重大決定，希望以從頭學起的攝影技藝重新捕捉寫作的靈光與創作的純粹動能，進而找到創作之於自己的意義。學習攝影的同時，亦正是七等生要開始建造生平中的第一間房子之時，因此，一個突圍寫作困局的建造工程遂開始啟動，本文將把攝影、蓋房子視為一組有意識的創造活動，亦即這是一個以「觀看」來展現生命的「建造/創造」之思的「家屋建造」工程，因此有了以八十九則札記所寫就的《重回沙河》一書。
在看似散漫零碎的八十九則札記中，本文要探討的問題是：在書寫之轉折點上，「攝影」與「蓋房子」二者可以帶給作家什麼啟示？作家如何從中找到寫作的復甦之道？其次，書名為《重回沙河》──「重回沙河」的隱喻是什麼？究竟，對「決定暫時停筆撰寫小說」的作家言，他所體認到的創作問題為何？復甦創作的契機為何存在於「重回沙河」中？最後，在視域融合中，對作品隱喻的探討與掌握，是否亦能對同等關注創作課題的文學研究者產生啟示效用？本文希望透過細讀文本的方式展開討論。

At 41 in 1980 when he was a prolific writer with one hundred-more short stories and eight novels already published, Qi Deng Sheng made an important decision to “suspend his writing novels temporarily” in the wake of having a self-awareness of his writing bottlenecks, in hopes of beginning his photography lesson to recapture his writing inspiration and sheer drive for his creations that further promoted him to be in search of the signification to his creations. The moment when Qi Deng Sheng began his photography lesson came exactly in the time when he started to building the very first house in his life, thus initiating a construction to break out the writing bottlenecks: photography and building house were linked consciously by Qi Deng Sheng as he signified both of the two as a construction of “House Building” to present a thought of life of “Building/Creation” from the perspective of “observation,” thus leading to the publication of one work titled “A Return to the Sand River” consisting of 89 reading notes. Among these what looked like 89 pieces of unorganized and fragmentary reading notes, this essay aims to probe into the following core issues: What will “photography” and “house building” in the aspect of transition point for writing inspire people? How will the author search for the ways to revive his writing? Furthermore, what is the metaphor for the title “A Return to the Sand River” to this novel? For a writer who “had decided to suspend his writing temporarily,” what are the problems for his writing creation he had perceived? Why did the turning point to revive his writing exist in “A Return to the Sand River?” Finally, will the good command of discussion and exploration into the metaphor of writing works be able to inspire these researchers of literatures who show concern over issues of writing creations? This essay hopes to initiate the related discussions on the preceding issues through a close reading of this work.