Lost and Found: The Man with the Compound Eyes

This piece gives reflections and personal insights after finishing the novel, “The Man with the Compound Eyes.” Written by the Taiwanese novelist, Wu Ming-Yi 吳明益, I recently finished reading this journey into loss and reorientation alongside my colleagues and fellow book club members from Pershing Technology Services Corporation (PTSC).

I bought this book when I first moved to Taiwan. It was the cover that first attracted me, but it lay buried within my bookshelf for years before I opened it up with my colleagues.

What happens in our last moments? Who do we see? What visions appear in our mind’s eye?

Faced with death, we aren’t able to answer the above questions from the afterlife (if it exists) and say what it is that goes through our heads, and what we experience from our 5 senses in those fleeting moments. Yes, there are those who have brushed with Death and have shared the feeling of their “lives passing in front of their eyes,” where they see a collage of the highs and lows that, before that point, lay strewn about in the forgotten pockets of their subconsciousness. Only in what they think of as their last moments do these long-hidden memories come bobbing back to the surface — flotsam and jetsam from the past, bits of plastic refuse riding the crests of wave upon wave, neglected non-biodegradable emotions, experiences, euphoria, and trauma lost in the vortex of our brains.

The title of Wu Ming-Yi’s book, “The Man with the Compound Eyes,” doesn’t immediately call to mind foreboding of Death, but whenever the figure who goes by this title appears in the dream-like chapters of the book, there is a certain presence of doom combined with the inevitable tranquility and futility of a life ending as it crosses over to the other side. There are multiple chapters where the “man with the compound eyes” appears to certain characters, and the scenes always carry an eerie sort of quality to them — a haunting feeling of limbo and paralysis — much akin to the echoing drill and tinnitus of cicadas in the air.

How often when you hear the sound of cicadas are you able to actually find them in the trees? We know they are there, we hear them, and yet we cannot usually locate their form without deeper inspection. The same is true of the “Man” with the compound eyes — he is potentially ever-present, but we won’t find him when we look for him. As readers, we question the reliability of the narrator whenever this figure appears, we even doubt his existence, and yet we’re pulled further into the vortex as we join the characters on their journeys from life to death while staring into the face of the man with the compound eyes.

“In despair he looks at the man with the compound eyes, as if to use every last once of strength to appeal for assistance, but all he sees is the man’s compound eyes, which seem to change from moment to moment in hallucinatory permutations and combinations. Each seems to be playing a kind of documentary.”

Inescapability from Death, as well as its spontaneous, sudden, and inexplicable nature is one of the central themes of this novel. Each and every character in the book carries the weight and loneliness of their own accumulated experience — even while their stories may seem rich and full at first glance, there is a certain pit in the stomach of their narratives, as if they all swallowed poison at some point and they are each waiting for its time-bomb to take effect. Each of the characters has something weighing him or her down, and Wu Ming-Yi does a superb job of tunneling to the core as we explore themes of abandonment, premature loss of loved ones, environmental destruction, asphyxiation of indigenous cultural heritage, sexual addiction, loneliness, heartbreak, and objectification.

“It was loneliness that made their stories flow like water from an open tap….the true source of culture is loneliness.”

“The Man with the Compound Eyes” often bounces back and forth between the two key themes of Loss and Reorientation. Although the novel is abundant with rich narratives from the supporting cast of characters, each of which could have their own individual novel written about them, the novel primarily revolves around two main characters — the strong-willed, pure, stubborn youth and native from the fictitious island of WayoWayo named Atile’i, and the melancholy and lonesome Alice who lives on Taiwan’s Eastern shore.

From Atile’i and the people of WayoWayo: “People believed that dying while gazing at the sea was the grace of Kabang. Their lifelong dream was to arrive at the moment of death with an image of the ocean in the ocean of the mind.”

At the beginning of the story, the reader is thrust onto a foreign, almost alien world — the island of WayoWayo — where we are introduced to the native inhabitants, their traditions, and their beliefs, worshipping the great “Kabang,” or the almighty Creator who is represented by the power of the ocean. We learn of their closeness to Nature, their reverence, fear, and awe of the Sea, and we get a first-hand experience of their custom where the second son in each family must sacrifice himself to the Ocean as he comes of age. The story begins with Atile’i having to wrench himself from his love as he frantically attempts to impregnate her before he must paddle out into the heart of the Sea, forever leaving this world behind, only hoping that he can live with her through his seed. On his journey across the Ocean, he faces unprecedented loneliness, the only companions are his memories of his love, as well as pods of sperm whales who are the avatars of previously sacrificed 2nd sons. He seems sure to lose his life, until he wakes up on a strange, floating island of manmade trash, which he calls “GesiGesi.”

“Many years ago, I read about trash vortexes in the North Pacific Ocean. Even without photos of it, a sequence of imaginary scenes kept hunting me, night and day. As time passed, those scenes became interconnected and turned into a holistic whole in my mind. “ Wu Ming-Yi as quoted from Artists and Climate Change. Image Source: National Geographic

The story takes us from Atile’i’s unlikely salvation of trash to the island of Taiwan where we meet Alice, a forlorn writer who is recovering from the trauma of losing both her husband, Thom, and her son, Toto, after they disappeared in a mysterious climbing accident. Alice lives in a house that literally teeters on the edge of the Earth where land meets the Sea, her house flooded as the tides come in and out.

“Alice was just a shell through which the air was blowing…「she」felt this might be a sign she was already dead.”

“The Sea House itself half-collapsed, and all its contents — got dumped onto the beach and mixed together with a hodgepodge of smelly plastic refuse that the wave had strewn upon the shore. It was as if all the world’s garbage had been collected here.”

Both Atile’i and Alice come from different literal islands — WayoWayo and Taiwan. Atile’i is carried upon the trash island of GesiGesi to Taiwan as Nature (Kabang) forces his reorientation, bringing together these two wayward souls, in addition to the other supporting characters who play a large part in fleshing out the central themes of the book. The islands of WayoWayo, GesiGesi, and Taiwan all share the common traits of what it means to live “island life,” in its most raw and exposed definition. Rather than a simple and carefree life of leisure, living on an island is dangerous, subject to the elements, and there is constant change — but there are also bursts of beauty. It is the danger that forces the characters to cherish the beauty for all its ephemeral nature. The inhabitants need to be prepared to wake up the next morning to an earthquake, flooding, erosion, or even a disintegration of the island itself. There is a constant threat of loss and destruction — and in those moments the characters either seek solace from another or dive deeper within their own vortexes.

In the novel, loss and survival are often followed by reorientation and rebuilding, as those who do not meet the man with the compound eyes need to go on with their lives, adapting to their new surroundings and state of mind. Some of the characters lose loved ones, and there is a consistent erosion of traditional indigenous culture, but they all move forward with each day bringing a new story. Alice’s life continues without Thom and her son, Atile’i finds himself stranded upon Taiwan and faced with a strange world he must adapt to. There are multiple chapters where we explore different characters’ “islands,” the worlds and mindsets that root them to their past traumas and isolate them from their neighbors. Simultaneously, they move forward and constantly reorient themselves to the reality of an existence they might not have chosen for themselves, but it is an existence, nevertheless.

Alice and Atile’i’s “islands” touch one another, crashing together as the two characters begin to have a greater understanding for one another, as well as an exploration of their own inner journeys. Although they can only communicate through simple words and sentences, the connection that Alice and Atile’i make in their brief shared moments reminds the reader of those times in life where we can see into the soul of another with true empathy.

“Maybe a single sentence could be considered a complete story.”

While bringing the reader closer to Death, “The Man with the Compound Eyes” also helps us to connect with the beauty of life’s fragility and imperfections. As a foreigner living on the island of Taiwan, I have come to appreciate the temperamental nature of the climate that surrounds me, as well as the delicate balance that the people here live with, not only as it pertains to Nature, but also related to the political and historical contexts that color daily life here.

“The Man with the Compound Eyes,” helps to present us with the stark truth that we are fooling ourselves when we believe we are “throwing away” our debris— both physical and spiritual. Nature will bring back and uncover what we think we have discarded. As it returns, it may destroy us — or it may provide us with a second chance of salvation. The tides and undulating waves upon the Sea of our own “inner islands,” meanwhile, are vast and seemingly endless — that is, until we come face to face with the man with the compound eyes.

What happens in our last moments?

Who do we see?

What visions appear in our mind’s eye?