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第三個兒子(The Third Son)
三個兒子(The Third Son)
書評：第三個兒子 (The Third Son) 轉載自:Taipei
Times/YouTube]
By Bradley Winterton / Taipei
Times contributing reporter
Tue, May 07, 2013 譯者:
江悅
朱莉吳(Julie Wu)的小說，講述一個台灣的家庭，部分在台灣和部分在美國，是一個了不起的故事，在審視中國傳統家庭觀念根深蒂固的專制家庭。
這是一個非常優秀的小說。 我如此說不是因為此書描寫臺灣,尤其是前幾章.也不是因為主角是桃園人。”TheThird Son”是精彩，是因為好書都是精彩，以下我會陳述。
這個故事在1943年開始，美國飛機轟炸台灣民眾，因為該島是日本帝國的殖民地。 在美軍轟炸臺灣時八歲的三郎(Saburo)保護一個女同學(Yoshiko)而後決定有一天要和她結婚。
但因他是第三個兒子，因此他沒得非常傳統的台灣家人的重視。 他的傲慢和沒有天賦的哥哥(Kazuo)得到一切最好的東西，而且也想追Yoshiko。
但三郎是幹勁十足，從書本中他學到在一般學校沒教的知識。 他以他自己的方法很快的到戰後的美國。在那裡他追求他的野心，進入太空火箭技術的新興領域。
是什麼讓這本小說如此顯著，並不像有些喜愛台灣者聲稱，它包含在台灣歷史上重要的事件，如中國國民黨軍隊從中國進臺灣，228大屠殺，以及隨後的白色恐怖。
這些事件只是簡單敘述，是此書中不重要的情節。使人想閱讀的是其結構的複雜方式，以及筆者讓你大呼過癮的每章的最後一句。更重要的是，她的發展不僅是情節，但也有主題。 其中最主要的是由傳統帶來的可怕的悲傷，和一個希望時下老套的中國家庭的精神氣質。
“一個傷口永不癒合。 一個承諾從沒得到履行。 這就是家庭。" 總結三郎對本書的結尾。 而這一點，是對傳統的中國家庭的判決，是這一優良新穎之書深深耕耘的重擔。
但事情並非如此簡單。 在故事中它沒顯露太多的情節說三郎和Yoshiko會有個成功的結婚生活。因為他最初獨自一人在美國留學，他未能建立與他的年幼兒子(Kai-ming)的任何顯著的關係。 因此歷史像是要重演，在三郎小孩的眼中，父親是非常遙遠陌不可及，絕情的父親，就像三郎自已的父親顯現在他的眼前。
儘管如此，小說的總體基調是不悲哀，而是活潑和樂觀。 三郎多次克服了種種面對他的困難，贏得獎學金；成為第一個到美國求學的桃園男孩；也成為一個在密歇根州安阿伯大學從事火箭研究教授的助理、、、等等。 小說下半段的背景，順便提到1957年俄羅斯成功發射了第一顆人造衛星的事。
一本好的小說除了情節和主題，也要有可信和明確的品格。 Saburo肯定有， 讓人討厭的Kazuo也有，三郎的父親亦有不同的品格。 描繪Yoshiko為賢惠的女友，她期待有一個脾氣好，理想主義的丈夫，比擁有物質財富更重要。
當然，一個被鄙視的小兒子的最終成功，不是在西方小說的歷史長河中一個新的情節主線。 亨利·菲爾丁(Henry Fielding) 也許是第一個使用它。在他的代表作湯姆·瓊斯(TomJohns)，湯姆最初被認為是一個棄兒，得到他的可恨的兄弟姐妹，使Blifil為嫡子、、、等等。 但是，這並不妨礙這些情節在此書良好的運轉。
除上述的內容,本人喜愛這書是因朱莉吳的清晰，簡潔的風格，顯示情感的誠實。 她最欣賞的三郎，以及Yoshiko都有這些肯定的品質。但筆者希望善良佔上風，有必要建構在障礙路徑中。在多個情節中使我自然的快樂微笑。
小說中有其他的優點。比如政治的主題，更進一步的描寫衰弱的國民黨軍隊，鍋子拴在他們的脖子上登臺，這是他們第一批的國民黨到達台灣海岸的寫照。 國民黨特務在臺灣及美國尾隨三郎擾亂他的精心培育計劃。 政治也繼續影響生活在台灣的人。 事實上，台灣史是歷代被外來的強權佔有及控制，中國國民黨僅僅是最近的景況。
筆者沒直接說，兩大主題連接。 但亞洲各國政府力圖避免實施西方式的人權立法，常常強調這裡的情況是不同的，理由是“亞洲家庭價值觀。” 清楚的人讀這本書知道這具有諷刺和荒謬的意味。
朱莉吳寫道，她為瞭解在台灣戰時當地的實際情況，細心聽她父母的講解。臺灣戰後的幾年情景，她還諮詢了有關專家。在美國她住的地方，也詢求50年代空間技術的相關知識。
這本小說在上一週出了精裝本，是非常可推薦的。 事實上，根據我的判斷，這是我讀過的最好的有關台灣的小說。 一些其他人可能更徹底深入地描寫特定事件，但沒有像"TheThird
Son"的專業構建和清晰。 總之，你必須是一個死硬的國民黨支持者，或愛台灣傳統的家庭觀念的份子，オ會覺得這本書不值一讀。
Book review: The Third Son
Julie Wu’s novel about a
Taiwanese family, set partially in Taiwan
and partially in the US ,
is a remarkable tale that scrutinizes the authoritarianism ingrained within
traditional Chinese family values
By Bradley Winterton
/ Contributing reporter
Make no mistake about it, this is a really excellent novel. I don’t say this because, at least in the early chapters, it’s set in
The story begins in 1943 when US planes were
targeting Taiwanese citizens because the island was a colony of the Japanese
empire. The eight-year-old Saburo — his Japanese name; his Chinese name is
Chia-lin — protects a fellow student, Yoshiko, and thereafter determines
one day to marry her.
But he’s a third son, and as
such receives scant attention in his highly traditional Taiwanese family. His
arrogant and untalented elder brother, Kazuo, gets the best of everything, and
in addition sets his sights on Yoshiko before the story has gone very far.
But Saburo is highly motivated,
learning from books what he doesn’t get taught at his unremarkable
schools. He soon finds his way to the post-war US where he pursues his ambition
to enter the burgeoning field of space rocket technology.
What makes this novel
so remarkable isn’t, as some Taiwan
enthusiasts have claimed, that it contains descriptions of crucial events in
Taiwanese history such as the arrival of the first Chinese
Nationalist Party (KMT) troops from China , the 228 Massacres, and the
subsequent White Terror. These are all afforded somewhat cursory treatment. The
least important of the many aspects of the book that make it compulsive reading
is the sophistication of its plotting, and the way the author keeps you hooked
with the last sentence of virtually every chapter.
Much more importantly, she
develops not only the plot, but also themes. The main one of these is the
terrible sadness brought on by the traditional, and one hopes nowadays
old-fashioned, Chinese family ethos.
“A wound that never healed. A
promise never to be fulfilled. That was family.” So concludes Saburo towards
the book’s end. And this, as a judgment on the traditional Chinese family, is
the burden, the deep ground-swell, of this fine novel.
But things aren’t that simple.
It isn’t giving away too much of the plot to say that Saburo succeeds in
marrying Yoshiko quite early on in the tale, but because he’s away studying in
the US, initially alone, he fails to establish any significant relationship
with his young son, Kai-ming. Thus history threatens to repeat itself, with
Saburo on the edge of becoming the remote and, in the eyes of his offspring,
unfeeling father that his own father had unambiguously been before him.
Nonetheless, the general tone
of the novel isn’t melancholy but buoyant and optimistic. Saburo
repeatedly overcomes the problems that so frequently confront him, winning
scholarships, becoming the first Taoyuan boy ever to study in the US , becoming an assistant to a cutting-edge professor at Ann Arbor , Michigan
In addition to plot and theme,
a good novel is said to have believable and well-defined
characters. These The Third Son certainly has. Kazuo is particularly
loathsome, as is, though in a different way, Saburo’s father. And Yoshiko is
excellently portrayed as the virtuous girlfriend, the kind of person who would
rather have a good-natured, idealistic man for a husband than any amount of
material wealth.
Of course, the eventual success
of a despised younger son isn’t a new plotline in the long history of
the Western novel. Henry Fielding was perhaps the first to use it in his
masterpiece Tom Jones, where Tom, initially thought to be a foundling, gets the
better of his detestable sibling, the legitimate Blifil. But this doesn’t
prevent the device working well once again here.
I also warmed to this novel for
reasons additional to the above. There is something about Julie Wu’s clear and
concise style that displays, too, an emotional honesty. That is certainly the
quality she most admires in Saburo, and, for that matter, Yoshiko. But the
author’s wanting goodness to prevail, yet of necessity having to construct
obstacles in its path, made me smile on a number of occasions, but invariably
with pleasure and never, I hope, with condescension.
The novel has other riches,
too. The political theme, for instance, goes a lot further than the portrayal
of the emaciated KMT troops, saucepans tied round their necks, who were the
first Nationalists to arrive on Taiwanese shores. Nationalist agents are there
in the US
as well, trailing Saburo and very nearly upsetting his carefully-nurtured
plans. Politics also continue to influence lives back in Taiwan . Indeed,
Taiwanese history is presented as being a sequence of acts of possession and
control by alien powers, of which the Chinese Nationalists are merely
the most recent.
The author doesn’t say so, but
the two main themes are linked. Asian governments seeking to avoid implementing
Western-style human rights legislation often plead the situation is different
here, citing “Asian family values.” The irony, and absurdity, of this will be
clear to anyone reading this book.
Julie Wu writes that she made a
point of listening to her parents in order to understand the realities on the
ground of the wartime, and then post-war, years in Taiwan . She also consulted the
relevant experts in the US ,
where she lives, on relevant aspects of space technology in the 1950s.
This novel, then — which came
out in hardback last week — is highly recommendable. In fact, in my judgment
it’s the best novel featuring Taiwan
I’ve ever read. A few others have perhaps more thoroughly worked up
particular incidents in depth, but none has been as professionally constructed
and as lucidly written as The Third Son. In short, you’d have to be a die-hard
KMT supporter, or an enthusiast for traditional Taiwanese family values, not to
find this book a fantastically good read.
Author Julie Wu Introduces New Novel, The Third Son
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