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What Members Thought
At first the first person plural narration bugged me, but as I got into it and started thinking about major experiences in life and how they are most often "we" experiences rather than "I," I felt captivated.
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Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #40: A Novella from Your Favorite Genre
(literary fiction/historical fiction are not my favorite genres, but I had trouble finding a fantasy/sci-fi novella after I discovered the one I'd been planning to read all year was nowhere to be found)
The prose in this book is beautiful. In fact, I'd call it more of a prose poem than a novella. It is told from a collective "we" consciousness and goes through the experiences of Japanese women who immigrated to the Unit ...more
(literary fiction/historical fiction are not my favorite genres, but I had trouble finding a fantasy/sci-fi novella after I discovered the one I'd been planning to read all year was nowhere to be found)
The prose in this book is beautiful. In fact, I'd call it more of a prose poem than a novella. It is told from a collective "we" consciousness and goes through the experiences of Japanese women who immigrated to the Unit ...more
Even though I thought this was a well written book and and interesting look at Japanese women coming to the united states in the 20's/30's, I felt like I was waiting for something to happen through the book... I think that's because it's written in the first person pleural, and I was waiting for her to switch to first person singular... but by the end I got used to it. I've never read something written like this before and it was an interesting perspective.
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While reading this novel, I couldn't help but think of the first chapter of The Things They Carried. Just as the soldiers carried physical and metaphorical burdens as they fought in Vietnam, so too do the women who came from Japan to America. The Buddha in the Attic has one of the most original voices as the women as a whole become the protagonist, a body whose voice has been silenced in history. This would be a great text for the classroom.
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I feel like this was the score for a Greek chorus singing about the internment of Japanese in WWII. Very moving.
Oct 15, 2011
Heidi
marked it as to-read
Dec 10, 2011
Laura
added it
Dec 15, 2011
corky
marked it as to-read
May 17, 2012
Mary
marked it as to-read
Mar 12, 2013
Sophie
marked it as to-read
Dec 15, 2013
Becca
marked it as to-read
Aug 25, 2015
Chinoiseries
marked it as to-read
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review of another edition
Shelves:
historical-fiction,
owned
Oct 03, 2015
Anna West
marked it as to-read
May 27, 2016
Anne Clair
marked it as to-read
Apr 19, 2017
Colleen
marked it as to-read
Jun 28, 2022
Meg
marked it as to-read
May 06, 2023
knittingmami
marked it as to-read
