Ernest's review
Waiting: A Novel
by Ha Jin
I couldn't agree more. Boring, stilted dialogue... I don't want to spoil plot details, but there is a violence scene that almost made me laugh in its lack of verisimilitude... Wooden characters I never cared about... a waste of time.
Ernest's review
Waiting: A Novel by Ha Jin
Ernest's review
rating:
The onslaught of awards and critical acclaim this book has garnered (including the biggie, The National Book Award of 1999) epitomizes the most lamentable trend in such current practices: pandering political correctness.
Despite featuring wooden dialogue spoken by boring characters I could care less about and descriptions that rival phone book listings in their vividness, Waiting DOES conform to pre-existing, fetishized Western notions of Chinese culture. Thus, delighted progressive (probably white, perhaps guilt-ridden) tastemakers were all too eager to reward such an "exotic" tale of unrequited love even though the surface originality of an actual Chinese romance (!) from an actual Chinese guy (!!) written in English (!!!), barely conceals the amateurish, mundane disposability that is the book's true nature.
To its supporters, the spare minimalism of the writing matches generalized perceptions of the Asian aesthetic forging a sort of modern, Eastern Hemingway in whic...more
Despite featuring wooden dialogue spoken by boring characters I could care less about and descriptions that rival phone book listings in their vividness, Waiting DOES conform to pre-existing, fetishized Western notions of Chinese culture. Thus, delighted progressive (probably white, perhaps guilt-ridden) tastemakers were all too eager to reward such an "exotic" tale of unrequited love even though the surface originality of an actual Chinese romance (!) from an actual Chinese guy (!!) written in English (!!!), barely conceals the amateurish, mundane disposability that is the book's true nature.
To its supporters, the spare minimalism of the writing matches generalized perceptions of the Asian aesthetic forging a sort of modern, Eastern Hemingway in whic...more
I couldn't agree more. Boring, stilted dialogue... I don't want to spoil plot details, but there is a violence scene that almost made me laugh in its lack of verisimilitude... Wooden characters I never cared about... a waste of time.