Ha Jin

A Free Life is a 660-page treatise on dramatic irony. I am impressed at the editor who got this manuscript (or maybe it was longer to begin with?!?!) and who decided to print it in all its slow, plodding glory.

Nan, a Chinese student studying in the US, is left with a decision after Tiananmen Square: continue his studies or re-envision his life as an immigrant, not a temporary student (there were favorable immigration policies enacted for Chinese students who chose to stay in the US in that show more era). He quits his studies, brings his son from China to the US, and then has a mostly unremarkable life, which is written in great detail. The entire book is written from Nan's point of view, and he seems to be completely unaware of his useless obsession with his former girlfriend, his incredibly shoddy treatment of his wife, and his circular pattern of commitment, despair, surrender, re-commitment, etc.

Nan reminds me of several characters in Margaret Atwood's books, or Edith Wharton's: the man who slowly sucks the life out of the female protagonist, except slightly edgier. He's clearly making Pingping miserable, but there is an abusive dimension: he keeps on recommitting to her when she has health issues, or when others point out that she's extremely loyal, and then he has these sporadic violent outbreaks (e.g. when he burns the cash register money towards the end of the novel).

Ending with Nan's poetry is a brilliant move: the author spends some time making the reader aware that Nan's poetry is not great. He has a few pieces accepted here and there, but he mostly toils in obscurity. And then you can see in the poems that same pattern: some of the lines sing ("Another rain will burst them— / full of teeth, they will grin / through the tiny leaves") and then some are just abjectly awful ("I swear I'll never say good-bye / to my son again, not until / he graduates from Parkview High"). What fun it must be to write bad poetry! show less

Thoughtful, easy-to-read novel about the accidental journey of Tian Yao - from celebrated and acclaimed singer with a thriving career in China to struggling, impoverished, but ultimately grateful citizen of the US. I was constantly on edge waiting for the story to become a nightmarish, Kafka-esque tale of persecution and treachery, yet it was never that. The author does something different. He simply tells the story straightforwardly and lets Tian's evolution unfold, showing the reader that show more here is a person of great character and integrity. His relationships with family and friends are sometimes moving, sometimes perplexing, but always interesting. The descriptions of food are a nice bonus! show less

Initially, I was not very engaged by Ha Jin's WAITING (1999), which won the National Book Award, but the deeper I got into it, the more compelling it became. A simple tale, set in the China of Mao's cultural revolution, the protagonist, Lin Kong, is a college educated medical doctor in the Army, trapped in an unhappy marriage that was arranged to have someone to look after his aged parents. He is posted at an urban military hospital, far from his home village where his wife, daughter and show more parents live, and only gets back there once a year for ten days. He falls in love with Manna, a nurse at his base, but they comply faithfully with all the rigid regulations that forbid any and all relationships outside of marriage. So every summer for the next eighteen years he goes home and takes his wife to the nearest courthouse and requests a divorce. It is never granted. Finally, after eighteen years of being separated, the divorce is granted and Lin and Manna are married. That's a lot of waiting. Lin is portrayed, however, as a kind, honorable and very patient man, mild-mannered, bookish and not particularly passionate. His new wife, who has changed and grown old waiting, is quite the opposite, nearly wearing Lin out in bed in the early days, weeks and months of their marriage. There's a lot more to the story, obviously, but to go into more detail might spoil the story for potential readers, so I won't. I learned much about commissars and political officers and the regimentation of life in Mao's China of the sixties and seventies but there wasn't so much of it that it became tedious or slowed the narrative.

WAITING is the second Ha Jin novel I've read. The other was WAR TRASH, which I did not enjoy nearly as much as this one. I'm twenty-five years late to the party, but this is a damn good book. Great characters and a compelling story that soon draws you in. Very highly recommended.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less

I always approach books of short stories with a little trepidation. Sometimes I feel very unfulfilled by the short form, sometimes I feel like I get worn out reading and situating my self over and over in stories by the same author. Historically, its been really hard for me to make it through a short story collection without taking long breaks or getting burnt out or bored in the process.

This was an exception.

I read straight through this and really really enjoyed every story. Jin's show more characters are so well formed. The stories were all distinct and all of them were arced in a way that felt really satisfying. I love stories that give me insight into other people lives - these all succeeded in really giving some light to lives very different from mine and I really appreciated all the stories and felt like I knew the characters well. I haven't read Jin before this - and will definitely seek out his other works. show less