Wearing black-rimmed glasses and an earth-toned shirt, and speaking in a soft voice, 41-year-old writer Wu Ming-yi (吳明益) projects a personality that is approachable, sensitive and modest. The job titles he can claim extend from novelist, professor, graphic designer and photographer to nature lover, butterfly expert and environmental activist. Moreover, his unassuming manner masks a no-nonsense attitude that helps him push the envelope in any of those roles.
Now Wu’s role as novelist has led to a defining moment for Taiwan’s publishing industry. In November 2011, Harvill Secker, a London-based subsidiary of publishing giant Random House and one that specializes in foreign-language works, acquired the global English rights to Wu’s fourth novel, The Man with the Compound Eyes, which had been published in Chinese earlier that year. In 2012, the American rights were sold to publishers Pantheon/Vintage. Then Stock, an illustrious French publishing house founded in 1708, acquired the French rights.
Certainly, this is not the first time a Taiwanese title has been translated into a foreign language and released in another country, but none of those earlier books were procured by a publisher through the regular commercial bidding process, according to Wu’s literary agent, Gray Tan (譚光磊). In the past, translations of classic or modern works from Taiwan have been funded by the government or published via academic liaisons, Tan says.
Set in 2029, The Man with the Compound Eyes is an ecological fable centered on an ocean trash vortex. The story follows the dual narratives of a youth, Atoll, from a fictional primitive island in the South Pacific, and Alice, a literature professor from Taiwan who lost her husband and son in a mountain accident.
The title character—the man with compound eyes—does not appear until halfway through the novel and whether he is a personification of God, nature or anything else is left up to the reader. A diverse array of secondary characters enriches the storyline as does the remarkable imagery of many of the scenes.
While the underlying themes are based on environmental issues, the work reaches far beyond an environmental allegory. No one knows this better than the editors who are determined to promote the book in the international market.
Michal Shavit, editorial director of Harvill Secker, describes the novel as “a futuristic fairy tale at once poetic, sad and beautiful.”
“The Man with the Compound Eyes is an extremely unusual and striking book that we’re thinking of as a kind of cross between Life of Pi, a recent very successful Korean novel, Please Look After Mother, and Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood,” Shavit says.
A self-portrait by Wu, who often takes photos of the cityscapes, rather than the people, he observes when walking the city at night. (Photo Courtesy of Wu Ming-yi)
The calm tone of the book’s narrator, which inspires trust, along with precise details and vivid descriptions of scenes help readers suspend doubts and become engaged in the narrative despite a surreal storyline. Wu’s erudition also keeps the fantasy grounded, as the historical facts strewn here and there range from references to the work of Swedish architect Gunnar Asplund (1885–1940) to the operation of gigantic tunnel boring machines, and from seal hunting to the Crystal Night pogrom against Jews throughout Germany in 1938. Wu’s seamless blend of fact with spellbinding fiction creates a page-turner, and readers are left on the edge of their seats, eager to know what happens next.
Local Taiwanese writer Hao Yu-hsiang (郝譽翔) highlights this aspect of Wu’s works of fiction, saying that a “rational and scientific attitude distinguishes Wu from most of his contemporaries, whose works are predominated by lyrical expression or explorations of personal sentiment.”
“By introducing the intellectual level into his fiction, Wu certainly adds another dimension to his writing,” says Hao, who is also a professor in the Graduate Institute of Taiwan Literature at National Chung Cheng University in Chiayi County, southern Taiwan.
For all its natural or historical context, The Man with the Compound Eyes remains rooted in the tales of its ethnically and professionally diverse human characters. There is an aboriginal mountain guide, a Norwegian marine biologist and her whale-hunter-turned-anti-whaling father. Alice’s lost husband was a Danish adventurer, and there is a German civil engineer among other individuals. While these characters have their own fascinating stories to tell, eventually their paths cross and the stories merge.
The author says his intention is to spotlight diverse perspectives on nature. “I consider employing the foreign characters as foils to the local characters, thereby counterbalancing locals’ perspectives toward nature and the environment,” he says.
Literary agent Tan sees additional merit in the approach, saying it “can help foreign readers relate to the novel.” Shavit also praises the broad vision revealed in the book, saying that “it combines the best of speculative fiction and nature writing while addressing environmental issues with a truly global vision.”
Amazingly, Wu says he did not devise the story’s characters to fit the plot, nor did he try to carve them from personal memories. “I wrote the story pertaining to a certain character, then stopped when that story ended. Then I waited and waited until one day, another character emerged and told me where the story was going.”
An illustration by Chang Yu-jan for The Man with the Compound Eyes. The novel, which has been described as “a futuristic fairy tale,” will be released in English in fall this year. (Photo by Chang Yu-jan)
Wu’s writing career to date has been characterized by crossing between works of fiction and non-fiction. After publishing his debut title, No Business Today, a compilation of short stories in 1997, he shifted to nature writing. The Book of Lost Butterflies was published in 2000, followed by The Dao of Butterflies (2003), both of which display his extensive scientific knowledge of the species, and So Much Water So Close to Home (2007), a book exploring the relationship between people and a number of Taiwan’s rivers and coastline areas.
Such changes are natural, Wu says, as his life has changed. The author says his love of the natural world started after a month-long stint as a guide at an insect exhibition center in 1997. “One of the regular tasks involved cleaning up the shattered wings and broken bodies of the butterflies,” he says. “Witnessing the way in which very living butterflies were maimed and mutilated, turned into wreckage [by visitors], I started to reconsider humans’ relationship with other living beings. Do we consider our relationship with flora and fauna as I and ‘it’ or I and ‘thou’? Can we see things only from our own point of view?”
A Knack for Nature
Although he was disillusioned by what he saw at the center, the experience started a long-term fascination with butterflies. He began to read nature books and essays avidly, in addition to general science texts on ecology and related fields. His explorations, initially just an amateur’s hobby, soon turned into something much more rigorous. His computer files relating to wildlife, for example, are sorted according to kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species. Nor does his research end with secondhand knowledge, as he makes it a point to explore and experience the fields and waters in person. Before committing to writing So Much Water So Close to Home, he traced 12 rivers. He also walked 200 kilometers of Taiwan’s northeast coast from Hualien to Taipei in order to observe the ecology of the shoreline, carrying just a backpack containing a few clothes, a camera, three lenses, a lightweight tent and some dried food. Nevertheless, in the preface to the book, Wu worries that the work might be “too shallow” as he spent a “mere” four years exploring the waterways.
Wu has also been active in environmental protection, joining the lobby against the construction of a petrochemical industrial park in a wetlands area on the west coast of Taiwan from 2010 until the project was scrapped in 2011.
The sincere and serious attitude toward both nature and writing is impressive and has made a deep impact upon many of his students at National Dong Hwa University in Hualien, eastern Taiwan, where Wu has taught literature and creative writing since 2000. Chen Tsung-Hui (陳宗暉), who studied at Dong Hwa and is also a literary award winner, describes a writing class with Wu as an eye-opening experience. “Even though we were Sino literature majors, we also had assignments based on science readings. Then, in addition to investigating the depths of the human heart, we were required to think from the perspective of a tree or fish.”
“This was not to merely personify the subject observed or project oneself onto it,” Chen explains. “Wu was talking about the scientific basis on which our thinking process or imagination ought to be built.” The former student also admits that before meeting Wu, he reckoned writing as an occupation that occurred primarily behind a desk. In contrast, classes with Wu included field trips on foot that involved close contact with and learning from diverse peoples and species. “Wu has totally expanded the possibilities of what it means to be a ‘writer,’” Chen says.
In 2007, Wu took a year-long sabbatical from his full-time teaching position. In addition to So Much Water So Close to Home, he completed his second book of fiction, Routes in the Dream, which re-examines Taiwan’s history during the period of Japanese colonial rule (1895–1945), father-son relationships and the interaction between dreams and memory. The book was named one of the top 10 Chinese-language novels of the year by Hong Kong-based magazine Asia Weekly.
The Illusionist on the Skywalk. The stories in the book mix memories of a vanished landmark with fanciful images and surrealistic plots. (Photo Courtesy of Book Republic)
Despite the ubiquitous nature themes in his works, however, Wu is a bona fide urbanite. Born and raised in the bustling commercial center of Taipei, Wu spent most of his early childhood and teens in his family’s shoe store, one of more than 1,000 shops then located in the city’s Zhonghua Market. The eight-building complex near Taipei Railway Station housed the likes of tailors, fortune-tellers and restaurants among numerous other kinds of small businesses from 1961 until it was demolished in 1992. The three-story buildings were connected by skywalks, so that the whole area had an appearance more like that of an indoor bazaar. The Wu family’s store was on the ground floor, with the 150-centimeter-high crawlspace above the shop floor serving as the only bedroom for the nine family members.
Wu’s childhood lacked both material comfort and, despite being the youngest of seven children, playmates. Unlike his elementary school classmates horsing around at the playground after school, Wu had to return to the 10-square-meter shoe store to help out. With no toys or children’s books for entertainment, Wu spent much of his time reading the books belonging to his eldest brother, who was then a university student. The boy devoured the likes of Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West (1918) and Cao Xue-qin’s The Dream of the Red Chamber, a classic of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911).
When he put the books down, he would take up a pen to transform the words into comic strips drawn on the back of the shoebox lids. “The customers went home with my doodles in the shoeboxes as a free gift,” Wu says, almost beaming with pride. Today, his artistry includes the designs for his book covers, which incorporate his drawings and photographs.
Accidental Education
In spite of his early predilection for literature, after gaining entry to Fu Jen Catholic University in New Taipei City in 1991 he majored in mass communications. His parents considered taking a subject as “impractical” as literature out of the question, he says.
In retrospect, the choice turned out to be serendipitous. “Indeed, it was studying mass communications that guided me into the world of literature,” Wu says, of the field where writing about movies and shooting photos were regular assignments. “[Watching movies] taught me a lot about literary devices. Actually learning those [devices] from movies is much faster than from literature. For example, story boards can be employed in developing narratives, while camera-work techniques such as slow motion, fast forwarding, zooming and fading can be transferred to scene transitions.”
Wu worked part-time jobs during his time at Fu Jen, and continued to help in the family’s shoe store throughout his Ph.D. study in Chinese literature at National Central University in northern Taiwan. He says his experience in business since a young age enhanced his perspicacity of human nature, while years of dealing with customers have honed his skills of persuasion when facing various kinds of people. “The similarity between a businessman and a novelist is that they’re both excellent liars,” Wu says, laughing but not joking. “They can make you believe whatever they say.” He confesses that he dislikes life as a merchant though, explaining that what interests him is trying to understand people from different backgrounds.
Just as Wu walks a great deal in order to learn about nature firsthand, he does the same to understand people. Once in a while, he walks from his home in New Taipei City’s Danshui District to Taipei City’s downtown area. While the distance would take around five hours for most pedestrians, it usually takes Wu double that time. He says his purpose is not to arrive at a specific destination, so he takes his time to explore small alleys, make stops and talk with people along the way, observing the city after dark. His wanderings usually take in the peddlers, homeless people and sex workers of Taipei’s Wanhua District, a world forgotten or even forsaken by the people earning their keep by day. “It seems we are afraid to recognize the existence of such a rotten and decadent world,” Wu says.
Wu’s office at National Dong Hwa University in Hualien, eastern Taiwan (Photo Courtesy of Wu Ming-yi)
He notices street vendors who take up their usual stations as early as 3 a.m., with goods ranging from secondhand shoes and appliances to jewelry. Of the few clients, some even carry their own flashlight to scrutinize the merchandise. In the dark alleys, aged sex workers, perhaps in their 60s, take breaks on stools, dozing off with weariness from time to time.
Wu carries a camera, but rarely has the heart to take pictures of the people he observes for fear of hurting their pride, although he sometimes snaps a photo of the scene or the cityscape from their perspective. It is the same sympathy recognizable in the tender tone with which he depicts the characters in his works.
Wu’s early experiences and adult understanding of the city’s marginalized people scratching out a living gave rise to The Illusionist on the Skywalk (2011), which tells the stories of nine children coming of age in the Zhonghua Market, tales interconnected by the enigmatic “illusionist on the skywalk.” Leaving aside questions about the degree to which the book mirrors Wu’s own life, it definitely brings back memories for the generation who dined, shopped or took their sweethearts on dates to the commercial center. While the physical market is gone for good, Wu’s novel creates a lasting impression that is intertwined with readers’ imagination.
Master of the Surreal
Like The Man with the Compound Eyes, The Illusionist on the Skywalk is a work of magical realism. For instance, the illusionist can make a paper cutout of a little man dance and demonstrates the life cycle of a bird, from fledgling, to adult, to death and back to life, before a spellbound crowd. In another scene, a child missing for three months reappears and relates how he turned a stall in a public toilet into an elevator that took him to the 99th floor, simply by drawing the numbers of floors next to the toilet door. Somehow, Wu is able to evoke a strong sense of realism and even nostalgia from the strangest of plots.
Wu created a number of the stories as improvisations during a series of lectures to promote The Man with the Compound Eyes; others were told in class to coax students to do their assignments. “All of them are deeply rooted in the bright but sombre, crowded but lonely, prosperous but decrepit commercial center, in my sentimental childhood, in my ability to twist memories and in my desire to become a novelist or a magician,” Wu says. “It’s not hard for me to tell a story. The question is how to make it grow a life of its own.”
Some of the stories in The Illusionist on the Skywalk have already been translated into English and Japanese. Several local directors have made initial inquiries into movie rights for the book. Meanwhile, the English version of The Man with the Compound Eyes is slated to be released in fall this year. The French version is expected by spring 2014.
Despite all of the attention, Wu seems little affected. Surprisingly, he says writing does not bring much pleasure. “Granted, I feel happy when I have things written, but the joy is short-lived,” he says. “Writing is always painful as, in addition to bearing my own pain, I have to carry the pain suffered by the characters in my books.”
Wu’s love of writing overpowers such difficulties, however. It extends from his short stories and novels, to his works of non-fiction including nature essays and articles on environmental protection. He says committee members reviewing his scholarly papers often complain that his style is much too lyrical or romantic for academic publications. “But if you can make your writing more enjoyable and beautiful, why keep it bland and dull?” Wu asks.
______________________________
Wang Fei-yun is a freelance writer based in Vancouver, Canada.
Copyright © 2013 by Wang Fei-yun