A review by silvej01
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

3.0

While it didn’t quite work for me, I give credit to Otsuka for trying an innovative way to combine the shared and individual historical experiences of members of a minority group. The book sets out to capture the lives of Japanese women who came as young mail-order brides to the western states of the US in the early half of the 20th Century. To do this she uses a first-person plural voice in what at times feels like a Greek chorus and at other times like an oratorio. She covers their Pacific crossing, the initial encounters with their various husbands, their (mostly hard) life with work, family, and adjusting to the predominant white majority with their different culture, mores, and prejudices. Ultimately, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the women describe how they and their families were forced into internment camps during the Second World War, in violation of their rights and the supposed values of American system of justice. Despite the collective voice, Otsuka makes efforts to describe a range of experiences (“Most of us on the boat were accomplished…. Some of us came from the mountains…. One of us was from Kumamoto…. One of us was from a silk weaving village....”). The language is lyrical and strong, and there are powerful moments. Just the same, while I found it an interesting and at times beautiful literary experiment, the absence of true individual characters kept me at a distance.