The Man With the Compound Eyes
Wu Ming-Yi
[Vintage]
On the island of Wayo Wayo, 15-year-old Atile’I is cast off to sea by his people as a sacrifice to their Sea God. Meanwhile, in a small village in Taiwan, a grief-stricken academic named Alice is about to end her life. Unbeknownst to both, the Great Pacific garbage patch is about to hit the Taiwanese coast, drastically altering both their lives. Though Wu Ming-Yi’s magical realism has drawn comparisons to Haruki Murakami, The Man With the Compound Eyes belongs more to what has been termed ‘cli-fi’: it is, in essence, a cautionary tale about the effects of climate change. Indeed, the somewhat didactic tone and an overreliance on natural events as plot drivers can make the book read like an environmentalist brochure at times. Fortunately, this is not merely a book with an agenda. Ming-Yi’s world-building is detailed and imaginative, and his descriptions of Taiwan’s changing landscape are plaintively evocative. What Barry Lopez did for the Arctic, Ming-Yi does for Taiwan.
Stylistically, the overwrought, poetic language is hit-or-miss Min-Yi uses an abundance of similes and metaphors that draw inspiration from nature, some deftly employed (Atile’I leaves the island with ‘pale fishbelly dawn on the horizon’) while others decidedly less elegant (‘The two of them stood there as if they had turned into a couple of animals.’). Nevertheless, the book creates a vivid universe that engages the reader and captures the richness of Taiwan’s Aboriginal cultures.
Words: Eliza A. Kalfa
