false 235773 25 "Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu." Like a fairy tale, Ha Jin's masterful novel of love and politics begins with a formula--and like a fairy tale, <I>Waiting</I> uses its slight, deceptively simple framework to encompass a wide range of truths about the human heart. Lin Kong is a Chinese army doctor trapped in an arranged marriage that embarrasses and repels him. (Shuyu has country ways, a withered face, and most humiliating of all, bound feet.) Nevertheless, he's content with his tidy military life, at least until he falls in love with Manna, a nurse at his hospital. Regulations forbid an army officer to divorce without his wife's consent--until 18 years have passed, that is, after which he is free to marry again. So, year after year Lin asks his wife for his freedom, and year after year he returns from the provincial courthouse: still married, still unable to consummate his relationship with Manna. Nothing feeds love like obstacles placed in its way--right? But Jin's novel answers the question of what might have happened to Romeo and Juliet had their romance been stretched out for several decades. In the initial confusion of his chaste love affair, Lin longs for the peace and quiet of his "old rut." Then killing time becomes its own kind of rut, and in the end, he is forced to conclude that he "waited eighteen years just for the sake of waiting." <p> There's a political allegory here, of course, but it grows naturally from these characters' hearts. Neither Lin nor Manna is especially ideological, and the tumultuous events occurring around them go mostly unnoticed. They meet during a forced military march, and have their first tender moment during an opera about a naval battle. (While the audience shouts, "Down with Japanese Imperialism!" the couple holds hands and gazes dreamily into each other's eyes.) When Lin is in Goose Village one summer, a mutual acquaintance rapes Manna; years later, the rapist appears on a TV report titled "To Get Rich Is Glorious," after having made thousands in construction. Jin resists hammering ideological ironies like these home, but totalitarianism's effects on Lin are clear. Ha Jin himself served in the People's Liberation Army, and in fact left his native country for the U.S. only in 1985. That a non-native speaker can produce English of such translucence and power is truly remarkable--but really, his prose is the least of the miracles here. Improbably, Jin makes an unconsummated 18-year love affair loom as urgent as political terror or war, while history-changing events gain the immediacy of a domestic dilemma. Gracefully phrased, impeccably paced, <I>Waiting</I> is the kind of realist novel you thought was no longer being written. <I>--Mary Park</I> 985211 1999 Waiting: A Novel total:4035|5:555|4:1439|3:1371|2:516|1:154| 4035 13830 5167 497 1 7 false false Fri Apr 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Fri Jan 04 18:14:31 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 05 00:18:07 -0800 2008
Despite featuring wooden dialogue spoken by boring characters I coul...more...]]> 3 4 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Aug 03 01:32:54 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 03 01:35:15 -0700 2008 ...more...]]> 4 4 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Aug 18 08:33:20 -0700 2007 Sat Aug 18 08:46:25 -0700 2007 more...]]> 1 4 false false Sat Apr 19 08:04:24 -0700 2008 Sat Apr 19 08:08:57 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 2 false false Sat Aug 23 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Mar 19 11:14:25 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 24 06:59:28 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 2 false false Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Apr 16 15:32:34 -0700 2007 Sun Apr 22 09:12:48 -0700 2007
in fact, hardly any of the characters are like...more...]]> 4 2 false false Thu Apr 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Sun Oct 05 19:07:32 -0700 2008 Sun Oct 05 19:12:17 -0700 2008 2 more...]]> 4 2 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Sun Oct 28 22:12:29 -0700 2007 Sun Oct 28 22:21:37 -0700 2007
But I think that is what the author was trying to tell us-that the system reduced eve...more...]]> 4 2 false false Thu Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Wed Jun 06 10:53:04 -0700 2007 Wed Jun 06 11:12:19 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false true Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 10 07:01:19 -0700 2007 Tue Jun 17 12:23:12 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 2 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 01 08:33:52 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 01 08:50:18 -0700 2007 more...]]> 1 1 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Wed Jan 16 15:03:24 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 16 15:09:41 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 1 false false Wed Dec 19 13:06:41 -0800 2007 Sun Jan 27 16:40:48 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Mar 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Mar 14 23:37:56 -0700 2009 Sat Mar 14 23:52:00 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Oct 03 13:27:42 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 03 14:23:47 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false true Sun Jul 26 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 08 01:08:30 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 08 01:12:37 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Aug 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 28 09:08:53 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 28 09:10:12 -0700 2009 Waiting (1999). The beginning must rank as one of the most striking openings in English-language fiction. Persuaded by his parents, Lin married Shuyu so that she could loo...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 23 11:26:43 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 23 11:26:55 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jun 16 11:24:38 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 11:34:04 -0700 2009
Two questions:

1) why didn't i...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Jun 09 09:50:51 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 09 10:34:54 -0700 2009 Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife.

That's the intriguing first sentence in Waiting. In a novel, the value of a high-quality opening line cannot be underestimated. Great introductory sentences, like one finds in the works of Orhan Pamuk or Gabriel Marque...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=235773