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A review by elenajohansen
A Free Life by Ha Jin
1.0
DNF @ page 101.
This narrative has no subtlety, no room for reader interpretation. Everything is a series of recited events, occasionally with named emotions attached. "This thing happened; then that thing; Nan felt angry about it. Then his wife said something; he wondered why he married her if he didn't love her. Then he remembered how heartbroken he was over a past lover. Then he remembered he married his wife out of convenience and hope that he could forget his past lover. Then he was angry about his job again."
I wanted to read this because it was about an immigrant man from China struggling with how to cut ties with his past and his country of origin, how to become American, how to balance pursuit of his interest (writing poetry) with the need to bring in a salary and support his family; all in all, an experience of an immigrant's American Dream. I thought that would be a valuable story for me to read.
However, Nan is cynical about the Dream most of the time, bent under the realities of earning a paycheck, envious of those around him doing better than he is by exploiting typical capitalist behaviors. And the story is pretty critical of capitalism, which is worth examining; America is not perfect and it is not depicted as such.
But it's just such a trial to read, because I'm being spoon-fed everything I'm supposed to think. There is no subtlety, no room for reader interpretation; there is only one way, the author's way, to read this. If that's somehow a metacritical comment on Chinese government and society, well, sir, bravo; but that makes the book awfully boring to read.
This narrative has no subtlety, no room for reader interpretation. Everything is a series of recited events, occasionally with named emotions attached. "This thing happened; then that thing; Nan felt angry about it. Then his wife said something; he wondered why he married her if he didn't love her. Then he remembered how heartbroken he was over a past lover. Then he remembered he married his wife out of convenience and hope that he could forget his past lover. Then he was angry about his job again."
I wanted to read this because it was about an immigrant man from China struggling with how to cut ties with his past and his country of origin, how to become American, how to balance pursuit of his interest (writing poetry) with the need to bring in a salary and support his family; all in all, an experience of an immigrant's American Dream. I thought that would be a valuable story for me to read.
However, Nan is cynical about the Dream most of the time, bent under the realities of earning a paycheck, envious of those around him doing better than he is by exploiting typical capitalist behaviors. And the story is pretty critical of capitalism, which is worth examining; America is not perfect and it is not depicted as such.
But it's just such a trial to read, because I'm being spoon-fed everything I'm supposed to think. There is no subtlety, no room for reader interpretation; there is only one way, the author's way, to read this. If that's somehow a metacritical comment on Chinese government and society, well, sir, bravo; but that makes the book awfully boring to read.