I almost love this book, but a few things keep me from it.First, though, I'll tell you why I love it. I love the way the story unfolds. Chang-rae Lee takes his time revealing the story. It comes out in bits and pieces from the first-person perspective of Doc Hata, just as a person would generally reflect on his own life. A scene comes to mind, then something else jumps in and we follow that thread for a bit, then back to the original scene, which is now colored by the tangent. I luxuriated in the language and found myself hypnotized by the writing. I closed the last page and looked at the clock and did a double-take: it was 2am. I love when a book transports me like that.One of the little pebbles in my shoe along the journey of this book is a time issue. I had (and still have) a lot of trouble figuring out how old Sunny is at the end of the book. Doc Hata says at one point that he hadn't seen her in nearly 13 years and that now she would be twenty-two. Except that we know he saw her when she was 18. Maybe he meant that he hadn't really seen her since she was 9, before the rift between them began to widen? Maybe he meant she was thirty-two? This would make more sense given that he mentions a few wrinkles and grey hairs, which are more common in the over-thirty set than the twenty-two-year-olds I've known. Maybe this is just an editing snafu, but man does it rankle me.The other part that keeps me from loving this book is the despair of it. Doc Hata is a man who has lived a number of identities, all shaped by and for the culture around him. He's Korean and works to become Japanese. He's Japanese and works to become an American. He's a medic and becomes a doctor (at least in the eyes of the people in his town). He's a chameleon, which is, I think, why it's so hard for anyone to get close to him. How can they know who it is they're dealing with? How can they put their trust in someone whose identity is so slippery?Then there's Hata's sense that, because he's around when tragedy strikes those around him, he somehow attracts tragedy (cum hoc, ergo propter hoc). He sees himself as the opposite of a lucky rabbit's foot, and he convinces himself that those around him would be better off without him. He seems to feel as though he's unintentionally deceived them into believing that he's helping them through their misfortunes when they wouldn't have had any misfortunes at all if he'd kept his distance.While it's illogical, it's not unrealistic that Hata believes this. On the contrary, his world-view and his view of himself are all the more tragic because they're totally realistic, and all the more unsettling because of the personal connection I feel to these beliefs. I can relate to Hata's search for a place and an identity, and I can relate to his attempts to make some order out of the causes and effects in his life. I've not experienced anything to the degree that Hata has, but as a life-long nomad, I've done my share of trying to fit in and trying to discover who I am in relation to the wheres and whos of my current stop, wherever and whenever that might be.This was a beautifully written gut-punch of a story, but I couldn't love it because it carried the much-too-real aroma of the despair and futility that lurks just beneath the surface. Acknowledging that despair by loving this story seems too dangerous; I prefer to keep my distance from it.
A Gesture Life is a beautiful and subtle novel, one of the best I read this year. It is the story of "Doc" Hata , a Korean raised as Japanese who moves to New England after serving as a medic for Japan in WWII. Since childhood Hata has made fitting in and being accepted and respected the single goal of his "gesture" life. In doing so he betrays the three women who are most important to him.Told in Hata's voice the "Doc" is a classic unreliable narrator . His inaccurate perception of events is a brilliant way of showing that it is the appearance of things and not the truth that is important. It takes active reading to really know what is going on.The story of K, the comfort woman, was very hard to read. It is a part of history that I needed to learn. Hata tells us and believes himself that he loves K yet he uses her and is unable to come to her defense. Similarly he betrays Sunny, his adopted daughter, when he forces her to have a late term abortion in her late teen years. When he has the opportunity for happiness later in his life with Mary he remains emotionally distant and loses her.The turn around in his life comes when Sunny and her young son return to the area. He also has a chance for redemption when he stands behind the family who buys his store. Lee uses some beautiful water symbolism in the novel. At one point Hata takes a scalding bath and both Hata and Mary have near drownings in the pool. When Hata gains insight into what is truly important he facilitates two rebirths; he saves his grandson and his friend from drowning.This is a book that will stay with me for a long time. I am definitely a Chang Rae Lee fan.
Do You like book A Gesture Life (2000)?
A elderly Japanese man who lives in a well-to-do town in America, who is well-respected in his community and has had success in business, tells his story in a soft voice of philosophical rambling. It is the kind of story where nothing much happens and when things do happen they are ghastly - suddenly and arbitrarily grossly violent and disturbing. All is not as it seems: first of all he is not Japanese, he is Korean. He has relationship problems and abandonment issues. Lest you think I exaggerate, he says of himself, "in fact I feel I have not really been living anywhere or anytime, not for the future and not in the past and not at all of-the-moment, but rather in the lonely dream of an oblivion, the nothing-of-nothing drift from one pulse beat to the next, which is really the most bloodless marking-out, automatic and involuntary." This sentence, which is actually only part of a sentence, is typical of the writing in this book. I didn't like the book very much. The only value was to learn of the "comfort women", an appalling policy of the Japanese military to supply young virgins to the officers and enlisted men in order to stop the spread of venereal disease. But that was history.
—Chana
Chang-rae Lee is an amazing writer. I can’t remember the last time I read writing this good from a Contemporary writer, his prose are beautiful. The story itself is rather secondary to the writing, and honestly in a lesser writer’s hands I would have stopped reading it. The story line is basically two-fold, Franklin Hata’s experience as a Japanese military field medic during WWII where he falls in love with a Korean Comfort woman, and his life in an upper middle-class NY suburb after the war. The story lines are rather depressing and not particularly compelling. I can see why some people have said in reviews that it is boring, and disjointed, but he does such a wonderful job of getting in the skin of Franklin Hata that he pulls you into the character makes you feel Hata’s own quiet desperation.Lee explores many themes in this book, identity (racial and social), what makes up a life?-is it one that you set up as a window display, or is it one that you actually live and experience without thought of the consequences, and of course it is about relationships; father-daughter, friendships, and romantic love.I would recommend this book to people who enjoy reading excellent writing, and it would make a good book club selection to explore and discuss the many themes and Hata’s character. This is a book that will no be everyone’s cup of tea though.
—Trish
It starts out as a deceptively easy to read book, which later becomes at times unbearable, while still remaining easy to read. Amazing writing, amazing craftsmanship with regard to the plotting and timing of the revelations. I would have liked to know more about the story of Doc Hata's childhood (my ignorance regarding pre-war adoptions of Korean children by Japanese couples, but also who were his parents both biological and adopted), what drove him to adopt Sunny (trying to find a replacement for K?), why exactly did Mary Burns leave him? But maybe I missed some of the answers, as the book requires v. careful reading and maybe I was too sloppy. Critical information is often slipped in unobtrusively. My library copy had a lot of the key points underlined and explained (e.g. on p 305 elfin form underlined with baby!!! written in the margin), so that was helpful! :)
—Kat
