The Book of Faces

Name: The Book of Faces
ISBN: 9787549554591

骆以军Guangxi Normal University Press2014

3.7

Chapters: 1
Series: Luo Yijun's Taipei: A City's Faces
ISBN: 9787549554591

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Summary

The Book of Faces is a collection of city stories by Taiwanese novelist Luo Yijun, set in Taipei. Its pieces originated in a column he wrote for Next Magazine for ten years; selected and arranged by the author himself, they form two volumes—The Book of Faces: Smashed Time and The Book of Faces: The Man Who Planted Trees—each piece usually running three to four thousand characters. With a novelist's eye, the author wanders the city's streets and alleys: cafés, KTV parlors, blind massage parlors, swimming pools, taxis, the ruins of old houses, sketching the faces he chances upon yet cannot forget—the late-night man teased by a scam text message, the woman driver who turns her taxi into a nursery, the old man alone in an old house, the child drifting through dreams. These figures often merely pass by, yet in Luo Yijun's dense, dazzling prose they are magnified and refracted, revealing absurdity, loneliness, and a faint warmth. He calls the book "a dizzying ukiyo-e of the city," unfolding in a Thousand and One Nights manner: the stories need not be causally linked, yet together they assemble a panorama of contemporary urban life. At its core is the capacity to "feel and sympathize with others"—what he calls, in his preface, secretly expanding a little the "capacity to love."

Editor's review

骆以军最擅长的是把“日常”写成“异境”。这本《脸之书》里没有惊天动地的大事，多的是出租车、按摩院、便利店、老街区里一张张一闪而过的脸；但他用极密的句子、极亮的意象，让这些平凡场景忽然翻面，露出荒诞、伤感和一点点温柔。全书源自他给《壹周刊》写了十年的专栏，是经过精选的两卷合集，每篇短小，却可以连续读下去，像一部台北版的《天方夜谭》。对读者来说，它既是了解台湾当代小说的一扇门，也是一种阅读训练：学会在陌生人身上看见故事。陈雪、张铁志、马家辉、董启章、葛亮等作家都曾推荐此书，称其“宽阔、温柔、深邃地看待世界”。若你读过长篇《西夏旅馆》，会在这里见到更亲近日常的骆以军；若第一次读他，这本短篇集是难度适中的入口。

Who it's for

A good fit for

喜欢台湾当代文学、想认识骆以军的读者
偏好短篇、随手翻读、通勤阅读的人
对城市观察与市井人物速写感兴趣的读者
写作爱好者，可从中学习如何把日常写成故事

Not a good fit for

期待传统线性情节、完整人物弧光的读者
不喜欢密集长句、意象繁复文风的读者
只想读轻松生活散文、不接受魔幻笔法的人

Reading tips

不必按顺序通读，可每天挑一两篇，像读城市笔记一样慢慢积累。
注意作者的叙述视角与语言节奏，句子往往一句话就切换场景，读慢些更有味。
读完可对照自己城市里相似的脸孔与场景，练习观察与记录。
两卷可分阶段读：先读《砸碎的时光》，再进入《种树的男人》较柔的调子。

About the publisher

Guangxi Normal University Press China · Founded in 1986

Guangxi Normal University Press is a publisher known for literature, foreign literature and history titles. Its 1,175 books in the database show a solid accumulation in classics and prose collections, including foreign literary works such as Les Fleurs du mal: Annotated Poems of Baudelaire, Snow Country, Dubliners and The Wild Palms, as well as modern prose compilations like The Complete Prose of Zhou Zuoren. History and philosophy also hold a notable share, with titles such as Running Dogs: Clerks and Runners in Qing County Yamen and The History and Thought of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom reflecting attention to Qing local administration and modern history. In art literature there is the 16-volume Ten Bamboo Studio Painting and Calligraphy Manual. Its author resources include foreign writers Charles Baudelaire and Yasunari Kawabata, translators and annotators Liu Nanqi and Zou Bo, and scholars such as Zhong Shuhe, Bradly W. Reed and You Chenjun. As public information is limited, this characterization is based only on the books in the database, which together present a profile balancing Chinese and foreign literary classics with academic works in the humanities and social sciences.

Imaginist · Works by Luo Yijun

FAQ

《脸之书》是小说还是散文？

它介于两者之间。素材来自骆以军在《壹周刊》写了十年的专栏，多为耳闻目睹的城市见闻，但作者以小说笔法改写、拼装，常带魔幻与虚构色彩，广西师大版将其作为故事集出版。

这本书和“脸书”社交网站有关吗？

书名并非指社交网站。作者说“脸之书”指生活中偶然相遇却难以忘怀的脸孔，以及这些脸孔背后的故事；他以速写城市众生的方式，写成一册“脸”的合集。

没读过骆以军其他作品能读吗？

完全可以。本书每篇独立成文、篇幅短小，不依赖前作；不过若先了解他《西夏旅馆》式的繁复语言风格，读起来会更适应。

这本书一共几册？

广西师范大学出版社2014年版为两卷合集，含《脸之书·砸碎的时光》与《脸之书·种树的男人》，合装一册，全书528页。

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About the author

骆以军 Author

Luo Yijun is a Chinese-language fiction writer. The library currently holds two of his works, Kuang Chaoren and Story Convenience Store. Publicly available information about his nationality, dates of birth and death, education and writing career is limited, so no inferences are made here. That his works are classified as social fiction suggests that his writing pays attention to social reality and the human condition, with narratives unfolding between everyday life and imagination and marked by strong storytelling and readability. Kuang Chaoren uses its title character to explore contemporary human nature, while Story Convenience Store presents fragments and observations of life in the form of short stories. Though the two works differ in subject and scale, together they show his continuing interest in social issues through fictional narrative.