Notes of a Desolate Man as an Act of Mourning

Abstract

Chu T’ien-wen’s (朱天文) Notes of a Desolate Man is a montage of vastly different cultural references, where the authenticity of the floating, west-originated signifier repeatedly comes into question in its oriental context of Taiwan. The novel repeatedly includes names such as Eliot, Goethe, Montaigne, Foucault, Fellini, Levi-Strauss, Satyajit Ray, Ozu Yasujiro, the Bible, and references to Mao’s poetry. In my essay, I aim to answer the question: amidst the litter of references and quotes, where do we locate the author in the text, who seems to have created an inscrutable work of pastiche, and in which the different elements don’t seem to unify? Many scholars interpret the book in a Barthesian framework – the kaleidoscopic cultural references as the promiscuous expression of the main character’s homosexuality. Some Chu’s textual practice is political, aiming to “negotiate Taiwan's cultural identity through the aesthetics of hybridity”, giving the postcolonial Taiwan its vitality with the erotic potential of clashing signifiers.

However, I disagree with this reading, for Chu Tien-Wen’s conservative politics disagrees with the vision of an utopia of hybridity. For her, the identity of Taiwan is not fluid but broken. Rather than advocating a concrete political vision or practice, I argue that Notes is about nostalgia and mourning Taiwan’s nationalistic past, as she emphasizes the importance of Walter Benjamin’s Angel of History in the epilogue of the Chinese version. With writing, Chu T’ien-wen attempts to metaphorically reconstitute Taiwan’s the past through fragments, but also laments that futility of her attempt.