Decipherment of Zhang Ailing's biographical novel Xiaotuanyuan

Abstract

Zhang Ailing’s latest novel Xiaotuanyuan immediately became the best selling book in Taiwan,Hong Kong and mainland China after it was published in Spring,2009.Many readers regarded it as Zhang’s biography and related its characters to Zhang Ailing,her relatives and friends,while other readers pointed out the fictitious elements in the novel and denied the claim that Xiaotuanyuan was a biographical novel.This article has compared the contents of this novel with that of Zhang’s other writings,the writings of her relatives and friends,and Jinsheng jinshi,her former husband,Hu Lancheng’s biography,with the aim of fully understanding the life and thoughts of this remarkable female author.

張愛玲的小說《小團圓》于2009年春天在兩岸三地出版后,立即高踞暢銷書榜榜首位置,使這位已逝世十多年的作家,再次成為文壇的熱門話題。不少讀者把《小團圓》中出現的每個人物和張愛玲的親友畫上等號,把小說看成是作者的自傳;另外一些讀者卻認為小說中不乏虛構成分,實在不應該把它當作張愛玲現實生活的寫照。本論文從這個討論焦點出發,嘗試在作者的其他著作、作者親友的著作和作者前夫胡蘭成的《今生今世》里,找出與《小團圓》內容相關的資料,詳細分析比較,希望能夠更準確、更深入地了解這位杰出女作家的生平和內心世界。