A Free Life

It’s been crazy-busy around here lately, but I did finish this book recently (A Free Life, Ha Jin, approx. 600 pages). It makes me curious about the author’s many prizes for other books, because although I found the narrator’s story compelling, I never found the language of the author very lyrical, which is something that he is praised for with his other books. At any rate, this book is (must be) a semi-autobiographical account of a couple’s experiences after they immigrate from China to the USA, bringing their son to live with them after the Tianmen Square massacre. Always struggling, the narrator also recounts his efforts to be published as a poet, first writing in Chinese and then moving on to English, a switch that seems to parallel his shifting nationalistic loyalties and ties. This book was evidently written partially due to a grant from the Guggenheim foundation in 2000, and the book was only recently published — during the epilogue I hoped to find the narrator’s response to 9/11, but it wasn’t the case. Timing-wise, this gives the book at dated feel. Again, I wonder what this writer can do with the English language in his other books, but I did find the narrator’s struggles with nationality and love of his art, as well as the struggles to survive in an unknown country, enlightening and inspiring.

Next (for something completely different): Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, by Michelle Goldberg.