"dust Settles" The Space Of Writing

By the end of the twentieth century, the"spatial turning"in the academic field had led the studies of geography and of many cultural subjects along the trend of mutual infiltration. Interdisciplinary perspective of space has gradually been adopted in many research fields. Literary geography, especially those multi-component, parallel, interactional comparative studies of the literatures of different languages and of different ethnic groups of our country have opened up new horizons for the discussion of the ethnic literatures of China and the relations among the literatures of different ethnic groups of China. The present dissertation conducts a case study to Alai's novel The Settling of the Dust, which won the fifth"Mao Dun Literature Award", and tries to interpret Alai and his literary works by combining geographical study with the studies of the literature, the writer and the work. It takes the perspective of spatial elements as the departure of study, adopts the space theory and the theory of"comparative study of the nature of parallelism in literature"as the basic research methodology, and takes as method the combination of case study and the theoretical framework and the combination of field research, interview with the writer, and literature materials.The Settling of the Dust is a story which happens in a special, transitional area of geography and culture, which is also a multi-cultural area. The natural and humanitarian factors have composed a complex, diverse, dynamic and multi-dimensional space. From the perspective of the relations between literature and culture, this is a multi-cultural ecological zone with a cultural anthropology and literary ecological significance. This dissertation attempts to build a relationship between the writer's creative practice and his ethnic group, geographical area and the culture, and get to understand the writer and interpret the text from the multi-dimensional perspective concerning geography, religion, culture, language, narration, society and politics. The Settling of the Dust has two levels of meanings: at the surface level it tells a story about the destruction of the Maiqi Tusi family, while the deeper level presents the specific ethnic history and cultural changes of"the Tibetan region in Jiarong"under the special historical course, which is a special mountainous farming area of Tibetans along the border of Tibetans and Han people, illustrating the mental confusion of independent life and group identity.The present dissertation is composed of five chapters. Chapter One departs from the places where the writer grew up and where the piece of work took place, and analyzes the significance of geographical space and historical cultural space to Alai's creation of work, giving orders to the creative works of Alai. The author holds that the geographical space and its natural elements are the foundational factor which composes Alai's mental world and which builds Alai's strong spatial sense, and that the ethnic history, religious history and the folk cultural sources have shown great influence on Alai's life and works.Chapter Two analyzes the close association of Alai's multi-cultural identity with his spatial background, and the great influence of the cultural identity to the writer's mental world and his literary innovation. Kinship and ethnicity is the two inevitable key issues of personal identity, ethnic identity and cultural identity. As a"Tibetan in Jiarong", Alai always has to face the embarrassment and confusion of ethnic—cultural identity, and he always wander on the way of spiritual return due to the"vague"ethnical—cultural identity, neither being able to head forward nor to retreat. The Settling of the Dust presents Alai's confusion and anxiety in an implicit way through the repeated questioning of the"fool"master of mixed origin.Chapter Three,"the language of the third space"is an extension of the concept of"third space". The author applies this concept to take position at the intersection or intermediate area of the spaces of two different languages and cultures, and to interpret the multi-language phenomenon in the inter-language and inter-cultural literary works by the writers who are in a transitional area of geography, language and culture. Chapter Four analyzes the unique narrative perspective of double tones in The Settling of the Dust. The writer applies a narrative style with which the hero questions and talks with himself with different voices. Basically, the key of double tones is the parallel existence of multiple values and multiple independent thoughts. This well fits Alai's situation which is vague and multi-dimensional.Chapter Five discusses the relation between The Settling of the Dust and the multi-literary and multi-cultural traditions. Alai's works features a combination of the multiple languages and multiple cultures. Not only did Alai inherit the tradition of Tibetans'folk literature and culture, but he was also deeply influenced by the tradition of Han literature and by the world literature, particularly the literatures of black Americans, Southern Americans and Latin-Americans.