Writer, painter, designer, photographer, literary professor, butterfly scholar, environmental activist, traveler and blogger rolled into one, Wu Ming-Yi is very much a modern Renaissance Man. Over the last decade, he has produced an impressive body of work, especially with his fiction and nature writing.
Wu Ming-Yi (b.1971) studied advertising at Fu-Jen Catholic University and has a PhD in Chinese Literature from National Central University. He has been teaching literature and creative writing at Dong Hwa University since 2000 and is now Professor of the Department of Chinese.
Wu’s literary reputation was first established by his nature writing. In THE BOOK OF LOST BUTTERFLIES (2000) and THE WAY OF BUTTERFLIES (2003), he chronicles his lifelong fascination with this beautiful creature and contemplates the invisible bond between man and nature. He wrote, designed, and provided drawings and photographs for the books, as if crafting works of art. Both books made the “Best of the Year” lists, with THE WAY OF BUTTERFLIES winning China Times’ Open Book Award and being chosen as one of the ten most influential books by Kingstore Bookstore.
In 2006, juggling academic life and the need for a period of uninterrupted time for his writing and traveling, Wu decided to resign from his teaching post. This is unheard of in a country where almost no one can make a living writing full-time and many would fight for a stable teaching job. In the end, Dong Hwa University gave Wu a year of sabbatical leave – they didn't want to lose him.
A year later, Wu published two books: his third collection of nature writing, SO MUCH WATER SO CLOSE TO HOME, and his debut novel, ROUTES IN THE DREAM. DREAM re-imagines Taiwan’s complicated history as a Japanese colony and examines the relationship between fathers and sons, memory and dreams. Hailed as a groundbreaking work of literary historical fiction, it was nominated for every major award and was chosen as one of the ten best Chinese-language novels of the year by Asian Weekly magazine (along with Ai Mi’s Hawthorn Tree Forever, Liu Zhenyun’s My Name Is Liu Yuejin, and Dai Sijie’s Once on a Moonless Night) . Wu was the only Taiwanese author on the list.
It is his eco-fantasy novel THE MAN WITH THE COMPOUND EYES (2011), however, that has gained Wu international recognition, with major English and French translations appearing in 2013 and 2014. A “Taiwanese Life of Pi”, it is an ambitious exploration of Taiwan's island identity, the cost of environmental degradation, and how humans make sense of the world around them, at once poetic, philosophical and far-reaching. It has already caught the attention of major writers in the genre such as Ursula K. Le Guin.
Book Review: [Taiwanese literature] Wu Ming-Yi's The Sea Breeze Club (吳明益-海風酒店)
I chose this novel not because I was interested in Wu Ming-Yi, but because I paid attention to Asia Cement Corporation occupying the lands reserved for Taiwanese indigenous peoples (Truku/太魯閣族). At first, I was attracted to this issue as the subject matter of the novel. Unexpectedly, when I read the first chapter, I found myself walking into this small village (海豐村) near the sea without even noticing.
Wu Ming-Yi's writing created a world of its own. In this novel, between nature and human beings, between indigenous peoples and outsiders, between big businesses and locals, between Indigenous elders and the youth—there were both convergence and conflict. Nothing was simply black and white. The confusion, struggles, powerlessness, and myriad emotions in people's hearts felt so real. In The Sea Breeze Club, they were vividly described.
The characters in this novel all hid a dim and complicated humanity. I especially liked one part—a little boy and a little girl met in a dark cave. I believe that was the seed of hope in the whole novel—the children struggled against their "destiny." Wu Ming-Yi allowed this destiny, which was not subverted directly, to come to an end in the novel. Because the seed grew into a great tree—in the local residents of this village (海豐村), in every subtle observation and action.
"If we do not tell our stories, no one will remember these things."-Wu Ming-Yi's The Sea Breeze Club
The characters felt pretty flat, and some of them made decisions that just didn't quite make sense to me? Like how That part of the book just didn't sit right with me.
I thought the writing style where we go back and forth between past and present was nice, and I usually can enjoy that style. In fact, it put me in mind of 《鬼地方》, which was a book I really loved. The difference, however, is that 《鬼地方》 uses this style to slowly build up a web of complex relationships between the characters while hinting at secrets from the past throughout the book, all finally culminating in everything getting revealed to the reader and the characters coming to some sort of resolution.
This style didn't work for me in《海風酒店》. I think it jumped between characters a bit too much, sometimes switching between different people in the same chapter. I also don't think the characters are very compelling. The prose is nice, but the book was a slog because I didn't care about any of the characters except for maybe one.