false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166654045m/14729.jpg 14729 12 Ha Jin&#8217;s masterful new novel casts a searchlight into a forgotten corner of modern history, the experience of Chinese soldiers held in U.S. POW camps during the Korean War. In 1951 Yu Yuan, a scholarly and self-effacing clerical officer in Mao&#8217;s &#8220;volunteer&#8221; army, is taken prisoner south of the 38th Parallel. Because he speaks English, he soon becomes an intermediary between his compatriots and their American captors. With Yuan as guide, we are ushered into the secret world behind the barbed wire, a world where kindness alternates with blinding cruelty and one has infinitely more to fear from one&#8217;s fellow prisoners than from the guards. Vivid in its historical detail, profound in its imaginative empathy, <b>War Trash</b> is Ha Jin&#8217;s most ambitious book to date. 1267529 10 5 2005 War Trash total:684|5:135|4:276|3:212|2:49|1:12| 684 2525 1043 82 3 1 false false Thu Nov 13 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Sep 23 12:58:40 -0700 2008 Thu Nov 13 14:06:01 -0800 2008 1 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Sep 24 07:49:01 -0700 2007 Wed Jan 23 10:32:39 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Sep 26 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 25 21:10:45 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 25 21:25:19 -0700 2009
It wasn't my usual idea of grea...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jun 14 21:56:16 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 14 22:10:33 -0700 2009 A college graduate student, Yu Yuan has an uneasy relationship with the communist leadership in the camps, but his knowledge of English makes ...more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:28:12 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:28:12 -0800 2009 Critics agree that War Trash, by the National Book Award-winning author, has an unusual tone. Yu's methodical, even pedantic storytelling of the Chinese soldiers taken prisoner by U.N. forces struck some critics as dull; many complained of slow patches. However, several readers praised this very slo...

more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue May 05 22:19:13 -0700 2009 Tue May 05 22:19:13 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Jan 26 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 19 07:37:45 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 27 13:47:18 -0800 2009 didn't like about it. The prose style is in keeping with the narrator (a non-writer memoirist writing in his second language), but as such leave a little ...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Nov 13 19:32:14 -0800 2008 Mon Nov 17 15:47:54 -0800 2008 1
After Mao takes over China, newly-Communist Chinese soldiers fight in the Korean War as a "volunteer army" (so a...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Sep 05 09:02:28 -0700 2008 Fri Sep 05 09:02:34 -0700 2008
This PEN/Faulkner award-winning novel is ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Sep 07 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 26 23:39:29 -0700 2008 Sun Sep 07 09:58:28 -0700 2008 War Trash's length alone will be enough to turn off a lot of readers. It is very detailed, sometimes a little episodic and disjointed, and occasionally describes long stretches of inactivity.

This is not your standard war prisoner narrative; this is the story of two separate guerrilla in...more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Jun 09 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Mon Jun 02 12:55:59 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 11 10:21:13 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Sep 15 19:11:03 -0700 2008 Tue Apr 01 18:19:51 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 15 19:11:03 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Feb 12 10:47:36 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 01 06:22:39 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 12 12:43:57 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 12 13:01:29 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed May 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue May 05 21:04:31 -0700 2009 Wed May 13 10:27:22 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 30 08:58:56 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 30 08:59:36 -0700 2008 1 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Dec 04 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Aug 07 07:53:43 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 07 07:56:47 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 02 22:54:32 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 02 23:04:32 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue Apr 07 18:09:16 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 07 18:09:16 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 14 10:04:40 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 01 09:22:17 -0700 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=14729