San Diego Union Tribune評三腳馬英譯本

　

WOUNDED LIVES | Cheng Ch'ing-Wen s `Horse' opens Taiwan to Western eyes

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Kristine Harley
Kristine Harley is a free-lance writer in Minneapolis.

03-Jan-1999 Sunday

　

Three-Legged Horse

Three-Legged Horse
Cheng Ch'ing-Wen
Columbia University Press, 226 pages, $22.95

Chinese, like English, is a language that has grown beyond its country of
origin. But until recently, Chinese writers overshadowed their literary
counterparts in Taiwan in much the same way that English poets were
elevated above writers from Australia and New Zealand.

Cheng Ch'ing-Wen, a respected leader of the Taiwanese "nativist" literary
movement, is also one of the best-known contemporary writers in his
country, yet his work has before never appeared in the United States. Now a
selection of the best short stories from his 40-year career is collected in
"Three-Legged Horse." (There is a different translator for almost every
story.)

Those who aren't familiar with Taiwanese culture may find a few of the
stories confusing, even frustrating. In "Autumn Night," for example, a
38-year-old woman is forcibly separated from her husband by her embittered
mother-in-law. This seemingly implausible situation isn't questioned by the
wife until her husband's birthday, when she takes a midnight walk alone
from the country to his city apartment. Once there, she tries to leave
immediately, unable to complete even this small act of defiance.

If one is patient and allows the stories to unfold, Ch'ing-Wen writes very
movingly about village life in Taiwan and the upheavals caused by the
country's rapid modernization. Conflicts between rural tradition and urban
innovation bisect the newly created tensions between men and woman in tales
such as "God of Thunder's Gonna Getcha," "The Mosquito" and "Secrets."
Passions and anxieties fester in the protagonists of "The River Suite" and
"The Coconut Palms on Campus," both of which deal with the theme of
unrequited love.

The title story is an excruciating character study of a brilliant artist
who deliberately mutilates his work, carving three-legged horses as penance
for having been a Japanese collaborator during the occupation. But the most
powerful of the 12 stories is "Hair," in which a husband, frustrated with
his wife's chronic stealing, decides to carry out her dare that he cut off
her head.

The humble grace and courage of Ch'ing-Wen's characters are a far cry from
the "literary" narratives being hawked on Oprah Winfrey and other talk
shows, in which autobiography and self-actualization mingle.

Americans tend to be impatient with people, real or literary, who suffer in
silence, yet half the battle for the characters in "Three-Legged Horse" is
in recognizing their personal desires. The inhabitants of Ch'ing-Wen's
universe do not take individuality for granted. They don't broadcast their
victimhood; often, they do not overtly protest. And when insight is at last
gained after so much struggle, what is there to look at but maimed lives -
like three-legged horses, people who have won only the pain of seeing
clearly the injustices of life? Even so, there is nobility in these people,
a simple and honorable strength.

Quiet desperation is still the lot of too many Americans. Indeed,
Ch'ing-Wen's stories are unsettling precisely because they are so
familiar. At one time or another we have been like the woman whose
old-fashioned rigidity estranges her from her son, or the ferryman who
risks his life to save drowning children but procrastinates confessing his
love to a young woman.

These aren't the stories we prefer to tell ourselves, but Ch'ing-Wen
rewards us with truths we long to hear.


Copyright Union-Tribune Publishing Co.