I reviewed 11 books, all Taiwan-related, this year, plus Alan Hollinghurst’s new and excellent UK-based novel The Sparshalt Affair. Of the 11, several stand out in the memory.
Camphor Press is currently dominating the Taiwan English-language book scene, following its acquisition of the rich backlist of Eastbridge Books in the UK, all Asia-related. The most extraordinary of these so far has been Party Members by Arthur Meursault (a pseudonym), a novel that’s savagely satirical of virtually every aspect of Chinese life (reviewed & March 2). I found it too harsh at the time, but now I find I can’t stop thinking about it.
Also from Camphor was a classic Korean novel, Everlasting Empire, about one day in that country’s court life 200 years ago. It’s hard going in places, but would undoubtedly be a major work in any country’s literature (reviewed Aug. 31). Murders and schemes to flee persecutors are only a half of it. If you want something solid to read over the New Year, this could well be it.
From Columbia University Press came a belated translation of Remains of Life by Wu He, an attempt by a well-known writer in Chinese to get to the truth of what happened in the notorious Wushe Incident (霧社事件) where many Japanese and others were killed by militant sections of the Aboriginal community (reviewed May 18).
On the eccentric margin was David Barton’s Lazar and Leper, a small picture-book with laconic texts in accompaniment about, well, you’ll have to make your mind up on that. Surrealism blends with the cartoon format in what is sometimes an indigestible mix from someone who’s been dubbed “Taiwan’s Samuel Beckett” but I consider more akin to William Burroughs (reviewed June 5).
Lastly, the most impressive book I’ve read on Chinese literature was Zhu Shoutong’s New Literature in Chinese (reviewed Jan. 19). Professor Zhu, who teaches at the University of Macau, argues for the inclusion of books written in Chinese from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore, as well as further afield, in a category that has often been taken to refer only to literature from China. His prose is suave and lucid, and his mind and sympathies clearly wide-ranging and humane. In the final analysis, this would be my number one choice for 2017.
Every now and then, it’s nice to just point somewhere on a map and head out with no plan. In Taiwan, where convenience reigns, food options are plentiful and people are generally friendly and helpful, this type of trip is that much easier to pull off. One day last November, a spur-of-the-moment day hike in the hills of Chiayi County turned into a surprisingly memorable experience that impressed on me once again how fortunate we all are to call this island home. The scenery I walked through that day — a mix of forest and farms reaching up into the clouds
With one week left until election day, the drama is high in the race for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chair. The race is still potentially wide open between the three frontrunners. The most accurate poll is done by Apollo Survey & Research Co (艾普羅民調公司), which was conducted a week and a half ago with two-thirds of the respondents party members, who are the only ones eligible to vote. For details on the candidates, check the Oct. 4 edition of this column, “A look at the KMT chair candidates” on page 12. The popular frontrunner was 56-year-old Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文)
“How China Threatens to Force Taiwan Into a Total Blackout” screamed a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) headline last week, yet another of the endless clickbait examples of the energy threat via blockade that doesn’t exist. Since the headline is recycled, I will recycle the rebuttal: once industrial power demand collapses (there’s a blockade so trade is gone, remember?) “a handful of shops and factories could run for months on coal and renewables, as Ko Yun-ling (柯昀伶) and Chao Chia-wei (趙家緯) pointed out in a piece at Taiwan Insight earlier this year.” Sadly, the existence of these facts will not stop the
Oct. 13 to Oct. 19 When ordered to resign from her teaching position in June 1928 due to her husband’s anti-colonial activities, Lin Shih-hao (林氏好) refused to back down. The next day, she still showed up at Tainan Second Preschool, where she was warned that she would be fired if she didn’t comply. Lin continued to ignore the orders and was eventually let go without severance — even losing her pay for that month. Rather than despairing, she found a non-government job and even joined her husband Lu Ping-ting’s (盧丙丁) non-violent resistance and labor rights movements. When the government’s 1931 crackdown
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