Written as the ludicrous and disturbing ramblings of an errant, pseudo-intellectual urbanite secluding himself from the underworld in an impoverished coastal village of Taiwan in the early 1960s, this novel prompted the first critical discussion of postmodernism in Chinese fiction and still stands as the most provocative and innovative narrative published in Taiwan over the past two decades.

Written as the ludicrous and disturbing ramblings of an errant, pseudo-intellectual urbanite secluding himself from the underworld in an impoverished coastal village of Taiwan in the early 1960s, this novel prompted the first critical discussion of postmodernism in Chinese fiction and still stands as the most provocative and innovative narrative published in Taiwan over the past two decades.