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The Man with the Compound Eyes by Wu Ming-Yi: book review



The Man with theCompound Eyes (2014) was first published in Taiwan in 2011 as Fuyanren. Set in modern-day Taiwan, it commences with an earthquake and tsunami.

Detlef Boldt is a Danish tunnel-boring machine consultant in a mountain cave in Taiwan with his colleague Jung-hsiang Li when the earthquake strikes.

Professor Alice Shih’s Danish husband, Thom Jakobsen, a mountain climber, had taken their 10-year-old son Toto to the mountains. There was an accident and Thom was killed, but Toto was never found. She had wanted to be a writer, but was teaching at the university instead. She couldn’t live like this anymore; she resigned, and now she just wantd to die. But then the earthquake struck, and she needed to survive. Her house was by the sea and the rising ocean made her home dangerous to live in, but she was not leaving it in case Toto returned.

On an island, Wayo Wayo, far from Taiwan, the inhabitants never knew any other island existed. It was so small that residents could walk all the way around the island by lunchtime. On the island was a youth called Lau Kiyadimanu Atile’i. All the girls loved him, even the most beautiful girl on the island, Rasula. The custom was that the second son had to be sacrificed to the Sea Gods on his 15th birthday to ensure abundance for the family. He would be put to sea, never to return.

The tsunami waves save Atile’i. Instead of drifting out to sea, he was washed up in Taiwan, right into Alice’s place. Alice tries writing fiction again: she begins with the first sentence. Atile’i tries to understand his new home – he has never seen chairs, tables, or even pens before, and there are foods he doesn’t know, nor does he speak the same language as Alice. As they come to know and trust each other, Alice and Atile’i set out to the mountains to find her son Toto.

What happened to Detlef and his colleague in the cave during the earthquake? Does Alice, with her 15-year-old companion, find Toto? And who is the man with the compound eyes?


The novel is written primarily in the third person. When Atile’i and Alice connect, the novel changes, briefly, to the first person – both Atile’i and Alice become narrators. The stories of Detlef, the island boy, Alice, and the two men in her life – Thom and Toto – all have their own separate stories, each of them intertwined until the ending reveals the outcome. Beautifully written with exquisite imagery, it is a tale that keeps the reader intrigued throughout.


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