by Brian Hioe
語言:
English
Photo credit: Book Cover
KAORI LAI’S Portraits in White, translated by Sylvia Li-chun Lin and Howard Goldblatt, is a skillful literary examination of individuals caught in the larger tides of Taiwanese history. Though not of the generation that directly experienced much of this history, but of the generation that came immediately after, Lai’s work proves a deft exploration of the subjectivities of those who lived through the White Terror.
The short stories that make up Portraits in White are primarily character studies, which are arranged in chronological order. Starting with Ching-ch’ih, a character born during the Japanese colonial period, we are shown the many shifts in Taiwan during the era of KMT rule. Next, the story of Wen-hui provides a lens on much of the same history, although from a female perspective, featuring a number of reflections on the shifts in Taipei demographically–and as reflected in the city itself–in the post-war period. Finally, with the story of Casey, we are guided through the relocation of many Taiwanese overseas, as well as how they understood the subsequent historical shifts that led to the emergence of post-democracy politics.
In Portraits in White, the emphasis is on characters who live in the cracks of history, rather than those who directly seek to influence the larger social shifts they are caught in. In this sense, all three stories take place across relatively long spans of each character’s life, and each short story is more or less biographical. The emphasis is both on the characters’ subjectivities as well as on the larger history, though it might be more accurate to say that the characters are meant to provide a personalist rendering of this larger history.
It is true that, as works of fiction, Portraits in White can come off as slightly anachronistic. It proves commonplace in the narratives that comprise the book for historical touchstones well-known to Taiwanese today to come up, even if one wonders whether individuals who actually lived through the period would have been aware of each and every event. Likewise, one notes that in her character studies, the “everydayness” of each and every individual seems rather contemporary, whereas historical figures–even regular people–would have taken on various elements of the ideological biases of the period.
Of the three narratives, those of Ching-ch’ih and Casey are likely the strongest. Ching-ch’ih’s narrative covers a larger span in time, allowing Lai more opportunity to delve into how a character may have changed across different spans of Taiwanese history. Perhaps due to her experience of living abroad, Casey’s narrative is the most personal, echoing how Lai herself has spent many years living in London.
Either way, minor flaws aside, as a series of character studies that hopes to distill the essence of the period, Portraits in White is highly successful, and Lin and Goldblatt’s translation captures the nuances of the text. In some way, Lai’s work recalls of Pai Hsien-yung’s Taipei People, which also hoped to distill the essence of Taipei residents through a series of character studies. Proving a worthy inheritor of this realist literary tradition, though with aim to uncover a history left out of the waishengren-focused nature of such writing, Portraits in White does well in conveying time and place through a series of distinct narratives.