Catching young hearts: Pinocha the Plover is my son's favorite book. I felt very proud of him at being able to appreciate a novel so full of humanitarianism and concerned with life. I also want to congratulate the author, Liu Ko-hsiang, for writing with such sincerity as to be able to reach the heart of a young person.
When my son was given the opportunity to meet the author he had admired for so long, I introduced him by saying, "Liu Ko-hsiang, my son really worships you." At this my son immediately made the correction, "No, not 'worships' just 'likes.'"
From that time on my son gradually came to understand the relationship between a writer's self-fulfillment and his own process of growing up. I think that is one of the best ways to get a true understanding of a book.
The first thing I did was to let my son read a report about how Liu Ko-hsiang grew up, get some knowledge of what he had written before Pinocha the Plover, then finally come back to the book itself.
Liu Ko-hsiang once had a Chinese name meaning "shameful capitalism." This was the name given him by his father, who was the only graduate of a teacher's college in Taichung's Wuji. Growing up in such an atmosphere, Liu Ko-hsiang always wanted to be a biology and geography teacher. From childhood, Liu Ko-hsiang saw how his father had been beaten by capitalism, a fate his father believed would befall everyone. Liu Ko-hsiang gradually overcame this defeatist attitude, however, and the result has been the many achievements of his subsequent works.
Realizing the dreams of youth: Before writing Pinocha the Plover, Liu Ko-hsiang's works had never departed from his childhood dreams of biology and geography. These sometimes had taken the form of poetry and sometimes reports of his observations of nature, until he finally turned his attention to history and travel. That Pinocha the Plover was the result of this ten-year period of maturation is not the least bit surprising. If you have read his Following Birds to the Ends of the Earth, The Disappearing Subtropics or Woodcut Records of Taiwan's Birds, then you will know that there has finally been born the rare species of a novelist who can describe zoological ecology. After writing Pinocha the Plover, Lin is going on to write a novel about a whale for which, it is said, he has taken up diving so as to get a true feel of what it is like under the water.
This is the process which has given birth to the novelist, and it is also the process by which Pinocha the Plover was born--it is al the way by which I came to communicate with my son. We eventually discovered that Pinocha the Plover is not just a book about conserving the environment, or merely concerned with the habits of migratory birds, and it is not just talking about the meaning of life. In fact, Liu Ko-hsiang is writing about himself, the person who since childhood was called "Shameful Capitalism Lin" by his father. Liu Ko-hsiang made himself Pinocha the Plover and has in fact written what amounts to an autobiography. Who then is that "dark shadow," the legendary old hero of the book? Of course, it is his father who has already admitted his defeat by capitalism. As for Liu Ko-hsiang, at the bottom of his heart he yearns to be the new hero, he who faces up to the difficulties of the real world, relying on superhuman knowledge and determination to overcome the isolation and dejection that is the fate of the old hero.
Knowledge from experience: Liu Ko-hsiang's knowledge of birds comes from a long period of observation and thinking and, just as with his knowledge of history and geography, it comes from his travels and gathering of evidence. It is this that enables him to add a humanistic vision to the observations of the scientist in writing Pinocha the Plover.
Most people who have studied biology at university or research institute level could not produce a novel showing such a knowledge of the subject. I myself am a living example. I could not even tell you the species of different fish for sale in the market. In fact, when I was a university student, we all had to memorize dead specimens of every kind of fish and could get full points for writing about their families and species and so on. In the end all my knowledge of biology became a kind of dead display which did not shed any knowledge on my own life. If you use this reasoning to categorize the majority of graduates in Chinese or foreign literature, then you will see that they cannot write for the same reason. This is the most bitter fruit of the rigidity of the education system.
Self-knowledge is the aim of study: It is for this reason that I always remind myself to let my son know that knowledge is a living thing. To enable him to appreciate books like Pinocha the Plover I made him get to know the author and his early works. In this way it could be seen that Pinocha the Plover is not just a novel about a bird; it became a way of letting my son get a deep understanding of the relationship between growing up and individuality. His discovery of the relation-ship between Liu Ko-hsiang and Pinocha the Plover could also be a discovery of the relationship between himself and the future course of his life.
When we read a very good book, we should not only read its contents and story. If we try to trace the book back to its origins and find out a bit more about its background, we might arrive at some new realization. Often such a discovery can take the form of new knowledge about one's self. And is that not the ultimate objective of reading--to want to read one's self?
[Picture Caption]
Author: Liu Ko-hsiang
Publisher: Yuan-Liou
Price: NT$140
Pages: 212
