I’ve had to kiss
40 toads waiting for a book like this to be selected by our betters at
headquarters. It was worth the
wait. Now I can only pray that I am able
to do justice to this magnificent book: capture the euphoria enveloping me as I
read each line, each paragraph of this lyrical, sometimes haiku-like prose; conveying
the enrapturing power of the author’s metaphorical ballet while he weaves his
literary web to draw together millennia of eastern and western culture; all the
while simultaneously and expertly constructing a well-detailed story with well-developed
characters, prize-worthy simile, and convincingly fated plotline. A 10 out of 10 book. It still puts me in a yoga-like,
deep-breathing state when I think about the book.
Well, why are
books like this so popular and revered?
Many reasons come to mind. The
book, its 1940’s action-line, and its contemporary retelling gimmick both
revere the elderly. The world has lost a
lot of “revered values” this past century.
We longingly grasp at this current reverence. This 75-year-old war has been thought of for
decades as a good versus evil war, as is the right of the victors, until they
all die out. These past few years, literary
readers enjoy books about the periphery of WW-II: the U.S. interment camps,
NAZI post-war friends, the horrors of the Soviet front. This book clarifies that all sides, and there
were dozens, were ignorant of their enemies, stupid about their own actions,
and to the greatest extent, caught up in a maelstrom of God’s making which left
all humanity with no option other than to survive, and start the cycle
anew. We are experiencing part of that
renewal. Good and evil exist in all
cultures. Skin color, religion, and
lineage do not really separate us. We
are all the same.
As Cher sang, “Love one another; sisters and brothers”.
The writing of
this text is moving and I must take a few words to quote a paragraph [p.236:
p.6] of it:
“It was quite chilly, the wind
carrying a trace of the rain that now fell almost as unseen as the baby crabs,
as though the clouds had been scraped through a fine grater. A solitary figure stood staring out to sea as
waves unrolled themselves around his feet like small bundles of silk. I walked up to him, feeling the coldness of
the water.”
No movie for
this book. The Japanese are sadistic war
criminals: the Chinese are either looney Communist Reds or opium-smoking Imperial
slaves: the British are colonial exploiters: the Malays are ignorant wretches.
The only “good guys” in this book are so by a self-reappraising and revisionist
history of the times. They are those who
survived.!!: the well-bred, well-educated, property and business owners, who
stuck it through the “bad” years to come out the other end as the history
writers, a silk purse from the war’s ear.
And yet it is a cautionary
tale for immigrants to America this past half century: Koreans, Vietnamese, and
Central Americans: establish yourselves; hang on through thick and thin; and
you may eventually persevere to write your own fate.
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