When the Emperor Was Divine in Read a book from each country

Jul 02, 2008 Mostly on Storygraph rated it it was amazing

Shelves: beauty-through-brevity

[Review written by my younger self]
The international conflict that eventually became known as World War II affected more just than the soldiers fighting it: Mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, victims of war and victors of war are all touched by the war and its devastation. It is possible that no novel reflects this so poignantly or poetically as Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor Was Divine, which takes on the point of view of various members of a Japanese family in California during the time o [Review written by my younger self]
The international conflict that eventually became known as World War II affected more just than the soldiers fighting it: Mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, victims of war and victors of war are all touched by the war and its devastation. It is possible that no novel reflects this so poignantly or poetically as Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor Was Divine, which takes on the point of view of various members of a Japanese family in California during the time of Japanese internment in the early 1940s. The family members remain anonymous, though certainly not unfamiliar – Otsuka's method of keeping the family members nameless has the effect of making the readers identify and sympathize with the characters, but also helps readers to view these characters simply as human beings outside of their political, economic or racial identities.

While oftentimes only hinted at, the rage surrounding the Japanese during the war is pervasive. Rocks, bricks and bottles are thrown through windows on multiple occasions, and the Japanese (or even other Asians perceived as possibly being Japanese) find themselves losing jobs and being denied basic services. In spite of this constant discrimination, the picture of the family before the war is a typical one: the nameless characters are depicted by Otsuka as being the all-American family engaged in all the images associated with being American.

The disconnection implied by the anonymity of these characters is in effect both a narrowing of their boundaries to the reader as it is a distancing, both of which appear to be intended by the author. When the family returns home after nearly three-and-a-half years confined to the camp, the mother keeps her head down, unwilling or maybe unable to acknowledge herself to others unless absolutely necessary. In a lecture given to them, the children are taught to become anonymous as a way of self-preservation – to not answer questions in class even when they know the answer, to follow all rules no matter how unusual they may seem, and to remain common, unmemorable, and nameless.

The novel's title, When the Emperor was Divine, hearkens back to a time before the war, when the Japanese American person was allowed to be both Japanese and American without having to contend with the possibility that being Japanese could be construed as being un-American. The family comes out of the experience of the war and the interment as wholly changed and seemingly unrecognizable. The novel exists as a warning that this kind of devastation can be avoided only if people are seen as something more than their names and racial identities. ...more

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Aug 24, 2009 Bonnie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: world-lit-asia, historical-fiction, world-war-ii

A very sparse, poignant little book on the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. I liked that the family the book follows doesn’t get names. They are simply: Mother, Father, Boy, Girl. This might annoy, but for me it shows that this is not a story about the Okadas or the Tanakas. This is the story of any and every Japanese-American family who was put in camps simply for being of the wrong ancestry at the wrong place at the wrong time. I also like that Otsuka didn’t draw things ou ...more

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Aug 13, 2012 Sheila Woofter rated it liked it

A good book, focusing on a part of our history we tend to overlook - the shipping of Japanese-Americans to concentration camps during WWII. This book looks at those years through the eyes of children, for the most part.

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