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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