| This paper focuses on Eileen Chang’s late autobiographical novels The Fall of the Pagoda, The Book of Change, Little Reunion and No Worse than Anyone Else. On one hand, it trying to make a reasonable explanation for these late autobiographical novels by drawing on Said’s concept of Late style and combining with Eileen Chang’s biographies, letters and proses. On the other hand, it compensating for the lack of holistic research about Eileen Chang’s late autobiographical novels.The introduction part mainly describes the research status of the four novels, and puts forward the question:why the four novels are not only different from the early writings, but also different from the late writings in the general sense, so that showing a completely different writing style which is beyond the readers expected? In the text, the author introduces Said’s concept of Late Style, to explain and define the connotation of Late Style, is clarify that this paper references to this concept to what extent.The first chapter’s theme is Behind the Story. At first, it combines with the life experience of Eileen Chang, biographies and letters, especially in her later years’experience in the United States. Second, it linked to the writing and the survival status with the way of The Archeology of Knowledge to obtain detailed and accurate information. Third, it quotes from Late Style to the connotation about anxiety, the refraction of death and so on. There are two purposes of doing all the above. One is repeated writing and publishing process of these novels in the greatest degree, dating back the change of the novels’fate. Another is enriching the connotation of Said’s Late Style with repetitive writing.The second chapter is the focus of discourse which theme is the Content of the Text. It dedicated to describe and explain the performance of the novels’ content with the help of Self-imposed Exile and be Inopportune or Inappropriate which are the most important contents in Said’s Late Style. These four novels as reflected in the content:Eileen Chang went into self-imposed exile to the ancient family memory, looked to the permanent past, showed great interest in the old order and old things, to some extent, she was out of her own age; Eileen Chang no longer take into account any hypothetical peace and harmony, she exposed the scandals and personal privacies in the inside and outside of the family, depicting a group of nasty characters; Eileen Chang took off the masks of the characters in the novel and willfully described their psychology and behaviors which is inadvertently or imperceptible, as a result, she constructed everyone’s philosophy which unknown or unwilling to known; Eileen Chang detailed explanation of the Confucian rites with an ambiguous attitude and built an imagination of Confucian China for American readers. Thus, she conducted inopportune or inappropriate revolt to the Chinese imagination which the American loves to see and hear.The third chapter’s theme is the Form of Text. From the angle of the reader, to study the performance of the novels in the chapter structure, topic relevance and language style, it includes Disorganized Structure, Escape Story and Dull Implicit Style. Compared with early gorgeous language and desolate style, these late autobiographical novels like the draft without modification and embellishment, resulting in an Unfinished impression on the art level. The author references the discussion of Said to Adorno, Beethoven, Ibsen and other artists, and combines with the impact of Flowers of Shanghai to Eileen Chang, to explain the reason and essence of the impression.On one hand, this paper summarizes the similarities and differences between Eileen Chang’s early novels and later novels. On the other hand, it summarizes late autobiographical novels in what degree to reference Said’s concept of Late Style, in what way to escape the scope of Late Style and enrich the connotation of Late style. |
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