Review: "Waiting" by Ha Jin

Waiting by Ha Jin just became the first surprise book of the year. It didn’t make much of a buzz on my personal radar, even with its premise and big gold National Book Award sticker on the front. If anything, it detracted me from putting a lot of emotional stock into reading this, since I typically like the finalists for this award more than I do the winners of it, with last year’s finalists, Kevin powers’ The Yellow Birds and Dave Eggers’ A Hologram for the King making my top ten lists about a month ago. So when I started reading this book, and so willfully gave myself over to it emotionally, it came as quite a surprise. It seems to be a theme in Chinese literature to not only be realistic, but almost bleakly so. This book, along with Mo Yan’s Big Breasts and Wide Hips, does away completely with any kind of supernatural elements. You won’t find any talking sheep or metaphysical wells, or things of that sort that you will find in other Asian literature, just stark brutal realism. But unlike Mo Yan’s novel, which is needlessly brutal, it is easy to tell through the writing that Ha Jin has a heart and the same kind of emotional investment that the reader has. This is a novel about desire unmet, a system that, both consciously and unconsciously, get in the way of innocent people’s dreams and the power and fortitude of patience. The synopsis on the back is a bit misleading, because it makes the story out to one of adultery. Thankfully, that is not the case. The novel centers on the relationship between Lin Kong, and army doctor and Manna Wu, a nurse who is stationed at his camp. They form a bond after he helps her escape an attack, and fall deeply in love. The only problem is that Lin Kong is married to Shuyu, a woman he does not love and was forced to marry by his family. Despite not living together, they are still considered married in the eyes of Chinese law, and every year, when Lin goes to the court house to obtain a divorce, and every year Shuyu refuses to agree to one. He comes back every time embarrassed that he was not successful, and the novel follows the eighteen years that need to take place so he Lin won’t need his wife’s permission to divorce her. While it is a novel about patience, it is also a great novel about sacrifice. Through those eighteen years, a lot happens, Lin’s daughter grows up, he tries to get Manna to marry someone else, and Manna herself is subjected to a horrendous act, but all through that they never have sex. The relationship Jin presents is quite pure, but never puerile, based on one another’s attributes that aren’t simply sexually related. It is never boring, and with an ending that resembles Lionel Shriver’s The Post-Birthday World, allows itself to have its cake and eat it to. I highly recommend you check this one out, even with a sometimes misleading gold sticker on the cover.

Rating: 5/5

Review: "Fiskadoro" by Denis Johnson

Even though I have yet to read a home run book by him, I still enjoy reading a Denis Johnson book at least once a year. They may never be masterpieces, at least to me, but they are always a good time, even if that is the only real quality that they possess. It is like that for the novel I just read titled Fiskadoro. It is quite unique, probably the oddest selection in Johnson’s long oeuvre, and as always, it has its fun little moments, but this is probably my least favorite book of his so far, and the reason being is that you can tell that Johnson is out of his element. The books of his I have read, most notably the story collection Jesus’ Son and his first novel Angels (my favorite), have been characterized by a stark realism mixed with a sympathetic look at fatalistic lives. Here, he adds a strong fantastical bent with the story of young Fiskadoro, who becomes a savior to a group of people in rather funny and goofy post- apocalyptic setting, where the gods and idols worshipped after the fall of man aren’t classically religious, but more in line with pop culture icons such as Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix. Also gone from this novel is a strong emotional attachment to any of the characters or events going on. There are a little too many, and the one that is in it the most besides the eponymous boy, Mr. Cheung, is a little more than a two dimensional sage-like figure for Fiskadoro. If this book were adapted into a movie, I think it would translate well, more so for any of the other very cinematic books Denis Johnson writes, but as a book, it left a lot to be desired from an author I enjoy checking out every now and then.

Rating: 3/5

Review: "Satantango" by Laszlo Krasznahorkai

Man, Hungarian literature has to be the most densest I have ever read, like the Italian cinema of the literary world, because even though it clocked in at only 272 pages, Satantango, by the author Laszlo Krasznahorkai, whose name may end up killing my spell check, is quite the feat of intellect, but damn is it far, far from interesting. The only book I can really compare it to is Parallel Stories by Peter Nadas, whose first 100 pages felt like 400 and the other 1000 seemed like a trek through that would bring even the hardest Eskimo down on their knees begging for mercy. There is no real relief from the intellectual marathon that Krasznahorkai is making the reader run. It may have been in his mind as he was writing the book, because it is about systems breaking down in a large farming community over the course of two days, but I don’t really like being beaten over the head by themes and ideas I can hardly grasp. As I said, the story takes place over the course of a few days, as a farming community prepares to sell its land and make a huge profit. When one of there own, who made a similar deal, is said to be returning to town, the news brings with a sense of dread, and soon, apocalyptic violence. The first thing I noticed about the book was there are no indentations for paragraphs, similar to the novels of Jose Saramago, but Krasznahorkai does use punctuation other than commas and periods. It gives the strange affect of a shaky grandiosity as events become more and more malevolent. But this really is a book meant to be read only by literary professors for some obscure class in an Ivy League college, not someone looking to get lost in a book. I can’t imagine if this were twice as long.

Rating: 3/5

Review: "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea" by Yukio Mishima

It is with great surprise to let you know that the Mishima book that I just read, The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea, is one that that I liked very much. Late last year, I read The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, probably his most famous work outside of the story “Patriotism” and The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, and I say, without regret, that it is one of the funniest books I have ever read, even if it is for all the wrong reasons. It took something as innocuous as an obsession with a building, and took itself so seriously and with great importance (not to mention the kind of levity you could only find at a children’s funeral), and never once let any of its silly ideas go. All these qualities make it a laugh riot, and judging from the pictures I have seen of Mishima and how he presented himself in life and death, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t his goal. So I came into this novel ready for more samurai tomfoolery, and what I got was something completely different. It has the same overly serious tone and obsession with ideals as The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, but the subject matter fits well with the somber tone, and touches on some pretty heavy themes that are universal, and deeply conflicting. Despite one scene, a lot of the violence is in the language, and the feelings Mishima convey through this aggressiveness come off as sad sometimes, but also quite moving. There are three central characters in the novel. We first meet Fusako, a widowed woman whose life revolves around her 13-year old son Noboru. They have a very strange attachment to each other. Not so much incestuous as very obsessive, with Noboru sneaking looks at his mom in her own room from a hole in a trunk that is in his room. Eventually, Fusako meets Ryuji, a deeply independent and introspective sailor who is questions what he has been doing with his life. Noboru, along with his gang of very intelligent delinquents, admire Ryuji for his willingness to pursue his own dreams in the adult world, which they see as phony and without virtue. Once Ryuji forsakes life at the see to pursue his love for Fusako, Noboru and his gang feel betrayed and ruined, and decide to punish the sailor for his indiscretions. It sounds a bit nutty, but once you read it becomes quite emotional. It isn’t the conflict between childhood and adulthood, but more ideology versus personal happiness, and how they can’t ever really coexist. While it is important to maintain a sense of independent free thought as you grow into adulthood, it is more important, and nobler to think about your responsibilities to others and how you affect them by your actions. This is a short, shocking novel with an ambiguous ending, and a scene of feline mutilation that rivals the cat-skinning scene in Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore. It’s unpleasant at times, and coldly serious, but it is damn good.

Rating: 5/5

Review: "Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer" by Steven Millhauser

I had heard of Steven Millhauser quite a bit ago, and was struck by how, despite winning a prize as prominent as the Pulitzer, he was not a bigger name than he is. Even after the win, he was still relegated to being a cult author, and the recognition that comes with winning that award did not follow him. Since my good friend Chad is did his dissertation on him, I decided to read that prize winning novel Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer, and I can see why it won such an award. It is a singular story with a great arc and a great lesson to convey that presents something a little meatier than simply showing the evils of capitalism. But I didn’t feel it did much more than that, leaving out a few key elements that would make the story more than just a cautionary tale. The eponymous Martin of the title begins his life as clerk at his father’s cigar shop, and as he grows up in New York in the late 1800’s, he moves up in the world in big ways. He gets a job as a bellboy, and that leads to a managerial position, which leads to him opening up his own hotel, and finally opening the Grand Cosmo, his life work, which ends up costing him the success he has accumulated. In this book, success is like a drug, and Martin is so driven to succeed, he leaves a trail of dissatisfied humans in his wake, most notable are his relationship with his wife Emmeline and her sister Caroline, which is almost like he married two people. But this singular drive makes everyone else in the book seem paper-thin. Martin is the only real character, and all those in his life are bit players. If this book were half as long, I would have given it a much higher praise, but this is a very cool book that offers a unique perspective on success.

Rating: 4/5