對消費文化的“模擬”、呈現與反思——論董啓章《The Catalog》的城市書寫

The Imitation,Reveals and Reflections of ConsumerCulture — An inquisition of the City writing in DongQizhang’s The Catalog

本文旨在探討董啓章如何以城市書寫的方式來模擬、呈現與反思1990年代香港文化的重要面向:消費文化。藉著考察董啓章小説譜系中被忽略,卻又異常獨特的一部作品——《The Catalog》(重新出版後名爲:《夢華録》Menghua lu),本文將會討論它的書籍設計怎樣既遵循消費文化的運作邏1,又在某些地方刻意反其道而行,從而達到模擬的效果。然後,本文會借用各種消費文化理論,探析《The Catalog》如何從'液態之愛'、'符號消費'和'物化人生'三方面來呈現城市人在消費社會的生存狀況,以及董啓章引出的反思。最後,本文總論《The Catalog》於董啓章創作歷程及香港文學中的特殊位置。

This article aims to explore how Dong Qizhang,through city writing,imitates,reveals and reflects“Consumer Culture”—an important aspect of Hong Kong’s culture in the 1990s.Through exploring an often neglected,yet unusually unique fiction of Dong Qizhang—The Catalog(which was renamed as Menghua lu after republishing),this article will discuss how the book design follows the operational logic of consumption culture,and how it sometimes intentionally runs against the logic to achieve imitation.Then,a variety of consumption culture theories will be used to explore and analyse how The Catalog reveals the survival of urbanites in consumer society and the reflections raised by Dong Qizhang in three ways,namely“liquid love”,“signs of consumption”and“commodification of life”.Last,this article will conclude the special position of The Catalog in Dong Qizhang’s novel and Hong Kong’s literature.