This book collects the auther's first writing,"The sheep that stays still in the tree"that is out of print and his last novel," Hotspring bathtub" that has never been published. One of his journals and also a column called," See you off" describes some small happenings among a few people. In the beginning of the story, a military policeman brings along a ran-away soldier whose father brings along his
little sun, and an old woman and a
young woman bring their daughter. The author expresses all the events in a very simply way as if he were drawing a sketch without too much emotional descritption of the characters. As
time goes by, it feels like our everyday
life--it all has a beginning and and end. He's just trying to abstract a part of it.However, it makes us realize that every thing that happened to us has a meaning in it. The author is just giving us a framework,but the readers have to color in it by themselves. In addition, we can also be aware of the fact that one thing happens after one another even if they don't seem relevant.And all the beginnings and the endings are happening all the time in which life is made up. It sounds a bit ridiculous ,but it's a fact most of the time. The same as Chang Ai Ling's saying," Life is an endless process of horror and desolation." I think that Yuan Je Shen also feels the same. The novel," Hotspring bathtub" has never been published. It is describing some small happenings. J's father gets paranoid all of a sudden for he can't find one of the puzzles. J is kicked out of his home so he ends up horsing around in a tea house to kill time when he runs into two elders, Ben and Lu. When he finally goes home, he finds his house a mess. He obeys his
mother and goes to see his father in an emergency ward. The author decrbies this story in a slower speed. Sometimes he tells you more little by little,but sometimes he repeats what just happened. The readers would feel like some images are being magnified again and again. We can take a glimpse of the condition of J and his mother. When J is looking for his father in the emergency room, he keeps recalling some things that seem unimportant in life. It does make you examine your own life about some funny contrast. After this the story turns to another angle. It says that after his father's recover from his sickness, he gets so into hotsrping. So J has taken his father by bus up to the
mountains for hotspring for almost 2 years. During this time, it reminded J of his ex girlsfriend who has been with him in school. The foggy-like mountains are like heavens.The elders get more healthy there. It seems a bit awkward and lonely,but yet healthy that a young man,J, is among them. It's the same no matter if he's in the mountains. What does life depend on to sustain? Belief,( such as Ben and Lu, young and energetic) persistence,( like the father doing his puzzle) timidity,(the mother), and emptiness are all the components of life, aren't they? Perhaps life will only reveal its truth to us when it ends in stillness.
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