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Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet – Jaime Ford
January 15th, 2010
Read: January 7 – 13, 2010
Overview: Loved it by the end
Read again? Possibly
In 1942 in Seattle, a young Chinese-American boy meets a young Japanese-American girl. This novel reflects on the ideas of patriotism, racism, and love during the days of the Japanese internment camps in World War II.
Initially slow for me to love, by the last few pages, I found myself wishing the story would continue.
Spoiler Alert: If you’re going to read this, don’t read any futher! I tell all!
Jaime Ford’s novel begins with Henry, a Chinese-American man living in Seattle in the 80s. The Panama Hotel has just been purchased, and a shocking discovery is made. The basement is full of suitcases and boxes and bags, containing the most precious photos and beloved items from Japanese families who had been ‘evacuated’ to internment camps during the later days of WWII. For the first few chapters, we’re not clear why this discovery meant so much to Henry, but we soon find out that his first love – even before he knew what love was – was a Japanese girl named Keiko, one of the thousands who were put into the camps.
As the story progresses, Ford switches between the war days and the 80s, as Henry falls in love in the past, and moves slowly through the present world, searching for a precious record that he gave to Keiko and taking care of the eldery jazz saxophonist who became his friend as a child.
While the ultimate outcome of the plot – that Henry indeed be able to find the record, and seek out Keiko after forty years – could be predicted, the way the story gradually unfolds is beautiful, compelling and full of hope.
The only real criticism of the book, for me, is that Henry’s dialog can come across as too staged, too awkward. I could easily hear his ‘voice’ when reading the exposition, but when he spoke, it sounded less like conversation and just like more exposition. His quiet personality was so clear through the book, and I wanted the dialog to be equally reflective.
I wouldn’t place “Hotel” on the list of my top ten reads ever, but it is one of those rare stories where the final chapters are perfectly crafted and entirely satisfying. Initially slow to get into, the more I read, the more I was compelled to keep reading. By the end, I found myself closing the book and smiling through slightly teary eyes.
(Also posted on Shelfari.)
Sarah’s Key – Tatiana de Rosnay
January 12th, 2010
Read: January 1 – 6, 2010
Overview: So-so
Read again? No thanks.
Intertwining the stories of two characters, one living in Paris during the Nazi occupation, and the other going through a mid-life crisis in modern-day Paris, de Rosnay’s novel is full of potential that, for me at least, was never realized.
Spoiler Alert: If you’re going to read this, don’t read any futher! I tell all!
Paralleling the lives of 45 year old American expat (and writer) Julia with Sarah, a 10 year old arrested and deported during the 1942 Vel d’Hiv roundups seems unbalanced. In one chapter, Julia struggles with a decision to abort her long-desired baby or lose her jerk-wad of a husband. In the next, Sarah survives the knowledge that she killed her little brother by locking him in a cabinet for “safety” and fights to escape the Nazis. Hmm. Gee. Yeah. That’s a comparison alright.
de Rosnay highlighted that parallel by switching from Julia’s story to Sarah’s story nearly every chapter… for the first half of the book, any way. With a hundred or more pages left, suddenly, Sarah’s voice disappears. I could understand this if it was a symbol of her life in some way. Perhaps she had been captured by the Nazis again? Perhaps she had gotten sick? Moved away? Died? Closed the door on her struggle to accept the death of her family? We find out the entire trajectory of Sarah’s life at the end of the book, after Julia meets Sarah’s surviving relatives in the United States, but I could see no real reason for the jarring and unsatisfying narrative shift.
On top of the concept, the utter predictability of Julia’s plot line was compelling in a train-wreck sort of way. I kept reading strictly to see if I was right in guessing every “twist”. For example, Julie spends several chapters casually mentioning her family’s upcoming move into an old apartment in central Paris. What a coincidence! Sarah’s apartment is in the very same neighborhood! Naturally, when Julia began to research the Vel d’Hiv, it was no surprise that she found Sarah’s family had been the original owners of her swanky new flat. And then, when Julia got divorced, common sense would guess she’d fall in love with Sarah’s son. At one point, I mentioned one of my guesses to Sandra, saying I’d have to throw the book across the room if Julia named her new daughter “Sarah”. It’s probably no surprise that I ended up tossing the book, nearly missing two dogs and a Swedish vase in the process.
Although I enjoyed the historical background to the novel, I consistently wished that the story had been honed and delivered by a more talented storyteller. The life that de Rosnay created for Sarah was full of tragedy and intrigue and excitement. Julia, as a character, was harder to enjoy. She had nothing positive to say about her brute of a husband from the beginning of the story. So, how are we to empathize with her debate whether to choose him or her unborn child? Worse, the character of Julia seemed to repeat herself a lot, to hit the reader over the head with her situation or thoughts. After spending several chapters thinking about being pregnant, talking about her previous horrible miscarriages, and wondering whether or not to abort or get a divorce, she actually states, “I ordered apple juice instead of wine because I was pregnant.” Did she really need to point that out again?
I found myself wishing the story was truly about Sarah alone, and once Sarah’s voice disappeared from the narrative, I raced through the remaining chapters in hopes that the story would improve or be redeemed by a unique and unpredictable turn.
It may sound like I’m being overly harsh for my first book review here, and the first of 2010. Maybe I am. I wanted to like this novel, and that’s the heart of the problem. We’re always more critical when the room for improvement is obvious, and in this case, I felt left down that the high potential for a groundbreaking and eye opening work was never achieved. I was too distracted by the imbalance in language and voice, and too discontent with the predictable plot.
What I’ve been up to:
April 21st, 2007
Celebrating the arrival of my second book! Yes, you can get it from Amazon by clicking that link over at the right. Want it autographed? You can also order from my store, Make One Yarn Studio. (That way I can sign it and ship it out to you! Yay!) If you’re in Calgary, please do come to the official Book Launch Party, next Saturday April 28 at the store from 7pm – 10pm. We’ll have nibbles and wine and all kinds of good fun.
Starting another Emerald! I’ll be teaching a class on this baby starting on Thursday, so thought it prudent to cast on last night. I also really wanted to try out another size of the Lantern Moon Ebony circulars. Man, I love these needles. I’m generally quite addicted to my Addis, but these really are making me think twice. The cable is so unkinky without any manipulation or work, and the joins are quite good. The cable twists, ensuring that it’s never in the “wrong” position for very long. I don’t think they’d be as good for knitting fine yarns loosely, as for lace, but for this, they’re a dream! (Plus, they make a nice clicky sound, sort of like what my fingers feel when they play piano. I love it.)
I’m knitting a second Emerald to make this one a smaller size. The old one is now too big and sloppy on me. I’m also trying it out with a belt instead of a button, and maybe without the fold-over collar. While the current pattern is available free on Knitty, I’m planning on releasing an enhanced and updated pattern through indiKnits later in the summer. So. Reworking. It’s not a bad thing.
Working on those argyle knee socks. It’s going well, probably better than these photos suggest. Me and the Intarsia have developed a way of peacefully coexisting… so much so that I’m actually really enjoying this fiddly process. What’s developing is quite beautiful and quite satisfying. But, I can’t say it’s not developing slooooowly.
Finishing up this felted bag. This one is for a crochet class at the shop next Saturday. It is an original design, and I find it quite fun. The best part? The actual crochet took less than 2 hours, as far as I can tell. (I wasn’t really counting.) Seriously, though, it worked up really quickly and was a blast. Considering it looks like I’ll be writing a longish technique article on fulling crochet soon, it was a good warm up to get me thinking.
And now, for a quick medical update… I saw my GP on Wednesday, and really do love her. She doesn’t overreact to things, but she also doesn’t underreact either. We had a nice chat about the mood things, the bleeding, etc, and she suggested I stick through it to the end of this pack… 2 weeks away… and see if things calm down. If they don’t, she thought they’d be unlikely to improve no matter how long I’m on the pill. And if they don’t improve, she suggested I stop the pill next month and then talk to the specialist when I see her in June. Sounds good to me. I can make it through 2 weeks.
For anyone who really cares about such things, the decision to go on the pill to control my bleeding wasn’t a rash decision. I’ve been doing every test and procedure in the book for going on 12 years now to try to get this under control. When I was just not having a period for 6-9 months at a time, that was bearable. But having it constantly for a year has made it a little more urgent to find a solution of some kind. But yes, I have had every possible test and tried about 6 different solutions before going on the pill. I mean, it’s not like I need birth control! So, the next few options may be Metformin, or doing an endometrial ablation. (The D&C did nothing except knock me out of commission for a few days.) In any case, I really relate well to all my doctors right now, probably for the first time in my life. I have a neurologist who I find hilarious, an Ob/Gyn who talks to me like a real person and doesn’t talk down, and possibly the best GP in the world. So. We’ll see. Not rushing into anything, and definitely not jumping the gun. I will just be happy if we find a solution that gets my body back under control.
And I promise, this is the last I’ll be talking about this on here for a little while. At least until there’s something new to report.