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What Members Thought
Grimly sad and beautifully written with an extra dose of salt-in-the-wound brutality at the end.
I tend to be a plot focused reader, and after reading some of the complaints of other readers about this novel, I feel like maybe I missed something. I liked the characters a lot, and even though the dialog was sometimes plain, i felt that it was realistic. No one actually speaks like the characters in a Dickens novel, anyway. I can't say for sure whether this book as an accurate description of chinese culture during the cultural revolution, but i can say that the social and personal conflicts s
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With it's simple prose, this book captures so many themes. Honoring parents and customs, waiting (truly the most apt-titled book I've ever read) for love, longing for what you don't have, standing by commitments made, and then regretting decisions.
I couldn't help myself from thinking of 2 of my favorite songs. One by Sheryl Crowe with the classic line of "It's not having what you want,
it's wanting what you've got." The other, a favorite by the Eagles, Wasted Time - "And I could have done so many ...more
I couldn't help myself from thinking of 2 of my favorite songs. One by Sheryl Crowe with the classic line of "It's not having what you want,
it's wanting what you've got." The other, a favorite by the Eagles, Wasted Time - "And I could have done so many ...more
Clearly, the two intertwined themes of this novel are "Don't listen to bad advice" and "Don't be friends with assholes."
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This sublime novel is set in communist China in the second half of the 20th century. Torn between tradition and desire, army doctor Lin Kong spends years leading a double life. With simple prose that sounds like poetry, Ha Jin deftly creates an elegant, restrained love story.
It's hard for me to separate my disdain for the main character from the quality of the writing and story, but it was a fascinating glimpse into Revolutionary China, and it was rather grimly humorous.
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I suspect there was a lot more political allegory in the plot than I picked up on. It's a story of love delayed during the Cultural Revolution in China.
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Ha Jin is one of my favorite Chinese fiction writers; he manages to be "lyrical" and "accessible" at the same time.
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Oct 01, 2007
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Feb 25, 2016
Celeste
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