“仿佛在一个将熄未媳的炉火前，为那小小的，围聚的听众，编织一个故事。“ ——吴明益
To Some I Have Talked With By the Fire
In the article titled To some I have talked with by the Fire by Wu Mingyi, a Taiwanese novelist, he stated that the idea of his novel The Man With the Compound Eyes was first inspired by one piece of news talking about the Great Pacific Trash Vortex. Later on, his imagination about this huge Trash Vortex carrying all people’s garbage would appear in his mind whether he was out in the wild or by the sea or walking through those small towns. With time goes on, Wu started to mention this event in his lectures and speeches. Then there was a young man appearing in Wu’s imagined island, and he named the boy Ateli’e. Eventually, the book “was well on the way to being born.” Different from Wu’s other fictions arose from his previous memory, the writer did not presuppose any of the characters in The Man With the Compound Eyes which indicates none of the events in the book purely belongs to the writer’s memory. Therefore, it took Wu a long time to narrate the entire story. As he said, “During the writing process I would finish a section and the story would stall.” Then, only the appearance of a new character could lead the writer and his story in a new direction. The writer did not intend to write the reality into the book. Instead, he was simply applying the materials in his mind into the storytelling.
The Man with the Compound Eyes
In this novel, besides the complex storylines and the switch of the narrative point of views, the most amazing part is Wu Mingyi’s description of the nature. As we all know, Wu Mingyi as a environmental activist, is also one of the representative writers of nature writing in Taiwan. Therefore, the majority of his literary works are aiming to communicate the ecological concepts with the readers. For instance, it is easy to find that Wu Mingyi has put lots of efforts in the study of butterfly while reading this book. As he claimed in the video, only when we remember the names of the species can we better protect them. Of course, what the novel carries is not only a simple environmental protection issue. Wu Mingyi considers more about the interdependence between human beings and the relationship between humanity and nature.
At the end of the novel, the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s classic song A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall is quoted in large part.http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/hard-rains-gonna-fall/ These lyrics are as poetry as they are full of rich images and surreal symbolism, depicting a doomsday scene. This song was adopted as the unofficial theme song of the UN Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009, hoping to awaken people’s environmental awareness. The lyrics constantly repeat the image of “the rain is coming”, appearing many times in the novel as well, showing a sense of oppression and urgency to life.
WU Mingyi, “The Mysterious Revelations of Nature Writing”
- Wu Mingyi believes that ecological literature and natural writing are not “hard science” or “soft science”, but rather a special narrative mode and a personal emotional expression.
- Literary writers cannot hide in the study. Writers can’t hide in the study room to write lyric poems. They must visit the scene. He explained that this sentence means: If a person wants to know thousands of things like Guoguang Petrochemical The complicated question of the investment case of 100 million yuan, is it possible to imagine the opinions of local residents in the study room, and the ecological environment impact of thousands of hectares of wetlands? “These are not necessarily understood when you go to the scene, but at least you can have a deeper feeling when you go to the scene.”
- Wu Mingyi asked: “Do you believe in a writer who is lazy to enter the heart of the problem and live in the lives of various characters?”
- Four Characteristics of Nature Writing: First, the main axis of the interaction between nature and human beings; second, the “non-fictional” experience of gaze, observation, record, inquiry and discovery; third, the use of natural knowledge codes, and objective intellectual understanding become the text In the muscle; fourth, is a writing based on personal narrative; five, has gradually developed into a literary combination of history, biology, ecology and ethnology and other interdisciplinary unique genre; six, awakening and respect – Presenting the awareness of human beings about the environment in different periods [VIII].
- Aboriginal literature is the embodiment and practice of natural culture. Its connotation has the sustainable meaning of maintaining ecological balance. The so-called natural culture is not a symbol in the aboriginal literature. It is a symbol of survival and an ethic of life. We can not erase the memory from them, and pretend they are aphasia or amnesia.
- In short, the author is personally involved in the writing environment and creates works with personal style. Therefore, the author must be involved in nature, and write the practical experience he has experienced in a literary and scientific language.
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