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.
Wu Ming-yi excels at 细微平常 observations and solitary musings. Alas, I've yet to be impressed by other aspects of his storytelling: plotting, characterization and dialogue, among others. Unfortunately, kyzd amplifies many of these shortcomings.
云端裂缝 is indeed a poetic idea, and eye-catching when it first emerged. But, appearing over and over again, without being critically examined, without evolving (save for a cosmetic increase in complexity), it gets demoted to a contrived plot device. How is the giant ethics elephant in the room not addressed? What do the dead feel about this giant violation of privacy? The creators of the virus? The key recipients?
I would probably have enjoyed kyzd more if it had been straight-up nature writing. Some passages are really delicate, but the plot detracts from the experience. Hard-earned tension is callously destroyed.
There’s a fable-like quality to the stories, so I tried not to be bothered by characters being flat. But bothered I was anyway. The characters might hail from different places and pursue different obsessions, but their personalities are indistinct. Their speech, inner and spoken, is indistinguishable. This is… fine for single-protagonist stories (after all many of them are about social recluses, who do share traits), but 恒久受孕的雌性 does get very confusing (Wait who did this? Who spoke this?). I was indubitably bothered by the unexamined stereotypes though. This was already evident in 天桥魔术师, and continued here.
The last story reminds me of what I loved about 魔术师. It’s clearly rooted in the author’s personal experience, so 细微平常 observations get to shine. The author’s 平淡 tone works so much better with slice-of-them themes, in almost-real life settings.
Asides: Gorgeous, gorgeous illustrations and cover. Not a fan of the English titles though. What do they add to the story? Why the stilted word choice (e.g. seven juveniles)?
Six subtly interconnected short stories. This is I think the softest sci-fi I’ve ever read, as if stories from the near future, and I love it. It’s about Nature, animals, marginalised people (by perceived body, by unusual interest, by trauma, by colonisation). Also geographically and culturally specific to the islands of Taiwan, I love it when fiction shows me facts and sentiments from a part of the world that’s not predominant in our collective consciousness.
Black Night, Black Earth, Black Range 23 幾天後從未獨自離家的儒良失蹤了,索菲以她的動物直覺跑到森林瀑布去,在一處長滿灌木的低矮樹叢下找到了牠。牠的姿勢就像牠想討人撫摸時躺在地上的樣子。儒艮始終是一副孩童般的面容,讓人忘了牠的年紀,索菲以為自己可以哭出一個淚池,但此刻她一點都哭不出來。
How the Brain Got Language? 46 愛是一種需要強大能量,像鳥類順利換羽所需要的那類事物。愛會鬆弛,愛會失能,愛也會被烏雲遮蔽。此時奧杜邦扮演了不為人知的援助角色,牠把巨大的身軀挪到狄子面前,用光澤滑順的體毛吸��狄子的痛苦,用巨大的頭顱溫暖他的胸口。