本文從班雅明眼中波特萊爾的漫遊者立論,認為朱天心一系列的城市書寫,雖然借用了漫遊者的形象,但和十九世紀巴黎的漫遊者不同,波特萊爾筆下的漫遊者是商品戀物癖者,朱天心的漫遊者卻是文化遺產的戀物癖者,她從城市這些文化古董之中追索城市的身世與歷史,再重建自己的個人身世與歷史。經由城市的漫遊與記憶的書寫,朱天心有意無意間建構出一種城市論述。朱天心的城市論述不是出之以系統的理論,而是以漫遊者的形象滔滔不絕向我們訴說她如何從異鄉而故鄉,從空間而時間,從出走而回歸。藉由異國城市和台北之間的參差對照,今昔對比,朱天心建立起她自己的城市觀,她的城市不是醜陋、商品化、功利性的現代城市,而是寄託想像、記憶、文化遺產的古都,一座心靈的故鄉和烏托邦城市。
This article adopts Walter Benjamin's concept of flâneur to examine the urban flânerie in a series of Chu Tien-hsin's short stories about cities. The concept of flâneur in this study, although derived from Benjamin's concept of urban flânerie, deviates from that of Benjamin. The flâneur in Benjamin's writings is conceptualized as one indulging himself in commodity fetish, but the one in Chu's short stories is one indulging herself in historical and cultural bric-a-brac fetish. In addition, in search of individual and collective memories, Chu attempts to construct her discourse on cities. It was only when Chu left her residential city, Taipei and travelled the cities around the world was she able to build up her personal memory of the home city. Her memory of the home city is not only temporal but also spatial, not only of her childhood and youth, but also of her flânerie of various places in the city.