郭松棻深情訴說著戰前戰後的「臺灣存有」，然而他卻不只是一個傳統的「說故事的人」，因為他同時使得他的小說成為一種隱跡書寫，這些故事之所以被書寫，是為了傳遞另一層更為重要的追問，「為何我要寫作？」文學成為充滿異質疊層與嵌套的地勢學，他的每一篇小說都構成具有當代文學意含的「劇中劇」(mise en abyme)。小說的真正主角是「寫作」，或者應該說，每一個小說主角都離不開郭松棻用以構成他的獨特敘事，這是深深蝕入文字肌理的文學思考，而且正是在此舖展著郭松棻無比重視的「寫作論」。郭松棻更以文字肌里在語言的底層重塑了一種特屬於文學的時間，而小說亦是對這種時間的無窮追問，最終形構了一種獨特的「時間–文字」。

Guo Songfen warmheartedly recounts the mode of being of Taiwan between the pre- and post-war time. However, he is more than a mere classic storyteller: he made the palimpsest of his novella, which is only written to make another inquiry—“Why do I write?” Literature becomes a topography that presents itself through heterogeneous linguistic strata. Guo’s novella is the mise en abyme that constitutes the sense of contemporary literature. The central character of his novella is the “writing,” or rather, each character is inseparable from his own stylistic narrative, which concerns a literary thought in the depths of linguistic texture. Here Guo develops a method of writing that he highly values. Meanwhile, he further employs the linguistic texture in the abyss of language to re-create a temporality that particularly belongs to literature. His novella in the meantime becomes the endless search for this sort of “time,” which finally forms his singular “word-time.”