December 26,2006
南風

文:陳昌明
榕園裡的大榕樹,據聞是日皇裕仁為太子時手植,乃鹿兒島原生種,樹傘極大,樹幹粗壯,有人說像宮崎駿《龍貓》卡通中的古屋老榕,國泰企業的標誌,就以這百歲老榕為構圖。這棵老榕屹立於成功大學光復校區,在廣大草坪上,是許多人晨昏遊憩之所在。我有時站在中文系館三樓,依偎牆欄邊,看陽光下的榕園與成功湖,只覺清風徐來,樹影搖曳 . . .
詳見聯合報:地誌書寫》成大榕園
December 14,2006
東海書苑
文:馮小非 (曾任舊東海書苑的工作人員,現為「溪底遙學習農園」召集人,讀書人工會會員)
某個夜晚,我躺在床上看書,忽然感到一種強烈的孤單,不是因為沒有人陪而寂寞,而是忽然發現,已經好長一段時間,我都自己看書,自己理解,自己發現,好像這個世界只有我自己。回想以前在書店混的時候,雖然也是自己在看書,可是旁邊有人在看別的書,有人會互相交談,聊些我沒想過的事情,有些書,如果 不是對方聊起,我一輩子都不會去翻閱,忽然想起以前在書店,我說喜歡看詩集,有人就說,你看過辛波絲卡的嗎?我說沒有耶,就去拿來看看,結果成了我最喜歡 的詩集之一。
那一刻,我忽然好難過,我就這樣放棄了一個深愛的小書店,當我說:「好吧,如果你受不了了,你就把書店關起來吧」,我卻沒有意識到,能在一個舒服的 小書店,遇見一些和自己氣質相近的人,和他們交談,聽別人討論,是一件多麼重要的事情,我也沒有意識到,如果我希望這些事情發生,我其實可以作點什麼,我 可以跟英良說:「請你不要結束這個書店,我們一起來想點辦法」,我僅是消極的說:「好吧,你可以選擇結束」,卻沒想到,有一天我會在鄉村的夜晚,想起書苑 的時候,難過的說不出話來。
所幸,英良仍沒有放棄書店,他提出了這個「讀書人工會」的計畫,他提議,以會員制的方式,讓書店安穩的營運,就可以把力氣用在更多的活動、討論、會員的互動交流。
他邀請我還有幾個朋友討論這些事情,我很高興,還有再次擁抱書店的機會。我們好像又回到1995年的夏天,要接下東海書苑的那個時刻,但是我們畢竟 是比較老了,對營運的方式有了更謹慎的看法,對書籍的想也有點不同,抽象思維仍在,但也多了生活內容,例如飲食、園藝、健康….,這些年輕時代不會想到的 議題,現在將跑進我們的書架中,而這也是會員制很棒的地方,既然我們一起承擔了書店的命運,當然也可以更具體的表達我們對書的主張。
很抱歉,用了這麼長的篇幅,談論自己的想法,或許是因為,我即將和各位一起參與這間書店,我,就是200名成員中的一位,我們將來也許會有好多的互動,也許,我會期望將鄉村、有機農業的議題帶進來,渴望有更多人重視。
詳見南方電子報:在鄉村的夜晚想到東海書苑 (2006.11.23)
相關網站:東海書苑
November 5,2006
我的老師與張愛玲
This month 【...】 New York Review Books has teamed up with Karen Kingsbury, a former professor in Taiwan and a well-known American translator of some of Chang’s other literary works, to publish a new translated collection of Chang’s works, titled Love in a Fallen City.
【...】
Kingsbury, who resides in Seattle, taught literature at Tunghai University in Taichung for 14 years before moving back to the US this year. When asked how the current translation came about, Kingsbury said the publisher in New York contacted her directly and requested a translation.
“I wanted a good, strong literary house, rather than an academic one. That’s where Chang belongs — in the company of world-class writers, over and above her classification as a Chinese writer. So when I saw that New York Review Books could list her alongside Chekhov, Hawthorne, Balzac, Auden and Colette, among others, then I felt I’d found the right home for this book.”
【…】
“Like most English-speaking students of Chinese literature, I first encountered Chang in her own English version of The Golden Cangue (金鎖記), and in the long passage from Jasmine Tea which C.T. Hsia (夏志清) included in his seminal history of modern Chinese literature,” Kingsbury said. “Those stories made a strong impression but, to tell the truth, I didn’t really understand why Hsia had praised her so highly until I read Love in a Fallen City in Chinese. I was an English Department student who had sort of wandered into Chinese, and I was looking for a 20th-century Chinese writer 【…】from whom the English Department could learn something about topics that they cared about already,” Kingsbury added. “Not just something about Chinese-ness, or about one huge people’s modern-day history of struggle and change, but about mental and social life in general. Reading and re-reading Eileen Chang has changed and enriched me almost immeasurably; my humble hope is that these translations will help to make that sort of learning possible for others as well.”
詳見Taipei Times:Eileen Chang finds a new voice(2006.10.15)
南飛烏鵲曰:
在東海大學的那四年,是我至今最難忘的日子。彼時初探學問的天地,上下求索,困頓憤悶,也無刎頸交,也無忘機友,還好有那麼些讓人懷念的好老師,給我鼓勵,予我啟發。
Karen Kingsbury 老師教我班美國文學,其後因待產而由 John Shufelt 老師接手課程。短短一學期,讓我印象最深的,是她講課時與文學作品的感通。記得有次,她講解某位女詩人— 許是Emily Dickinson 吧 — 說到其人詩作給她的感受是 “poignant”,一種心如針扎的感覺。後來,在某些時地,與某些人相遇,當感受到心如針扎的痛,我就會想起“poignant”這個字。(閩南語裡,針扎一詞讀如「針ㄨㄧ」,我私心以為,閩南語音比之國語音更能讓人感會這種痛楚。)
上個月由學妹處獲悉Kingsbury老師離校返美,我心裡直感到惋惜。今天無意間找到一篇報導,敘寫老師及其翻譯的《傾城之戀》,於是節選其中幾段貼了上來。


