Waiting: Amazon.de: H. Jin: Englische Bücher

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Taschenbuch, 5. Oktober 2000

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Amazon.co.uk

"Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu." Like a fairy tale, Ha Jin's masterful novel of love and politics begins with a formula--and like a fairy tale, Waiting uses its slight, deceptively simple framework to encompass a wide range of truths about the human heart. Lin Kong is a Chinese army doctor trapped in an arranged marriage that embarrasses and repels him (Shuyu has country ways, a withered face, and most humiliating of all, bound feet. Nevertheless, he's content with his tidy military life, at least until he falls in love with Manna, a nurse at his hospital. Regulations forbid an army officer to divorce without his wife's consent--until 18 years have passed, that is, after which he is free to marry again. So, year after year Lin asks his wife for his freedom and year after year he returns from the provincial courthouse: still married, still unable to consummate his relationship with Manna. Nothing feeds love like obstacles placed in its way--right? But Jin's novel answers the question of what might have happened to Romeo and Juliet had their romance been stretched out for several decades. In the initial confusion of his chaste love affair, Lin longs for the peace and quiet of his "old rut". Then, killing time becomes its own kind of rut and in the end, he is forced to conclude that he "waited 18 years just for the sake of waiting".

There's a political allegory here, of course, but it grows naturally from these characters' hearts. Neither Lin nor Manna are especially ideological and the tumultuous events occurring around them go mostly unnoticed. They meet during a forced military march and have their first tender moment during an opera about a naval battle (While the audience shouts, "Down with Japanese Imperialism!" the couple holds hands and gaze dreamily into each other's eyes). When Lin is in Goose Village one summer, a mutual acquaintance rapes Manna; years later, the rapist appears on a TV report titled "To Get Rich is Glorious" after having made thousands in construction. Jin resists hammering ideological ironies like these home, but totalitarianism's effects on Lin are clear:

Let me tell you what really happened, the voice said. All those years you waited torpidly, like a sleepwalker, pulled and pushed about by others' opinions, by external pressure, by your illusions, by the official rules you internalized. You were misled by your own frustration and passivity, believing that what you were not allowed to have was what your heart was destined to embrace.

Ha Jin himself served in the People's Liberation Army, and in fact left his native country for the US only in 1985. That a non-native speaker can produce English of such translucence and power is truly remarkable--but really, his prose is the least of the miracles here. Improbably, Jin makes an unconsummated 18-year love affair loom as urgent as political terror or war, while history-changing events gain the immediacy of a domestic dilemma. Gracefully phrased, impeccably paced, Waiting is the kind of realist novel you thought was no longer being written. --Mary Park -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine andere Ausgabe: Gebundene Ausgabe .

Amazon.com

"Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu." Like a fairy tale, Ha Jin's masterful novel of love and politics begins with a formula--and like a fairy tale, Waiting uses its slight, deceptively simple framework to encompass a wide range of truths about the human heart. Lin Kong is a Chinese army doctor trapped in an arranged marriage that embarrasses and repels him. (Shuyu has country ways, a withered face, and most humiliating of all, bound feet.) Nevertheless, he's content with his tidy military life, at least until he falls in love with Manna, a nurse at his hospital. Regulations forbid an army officer to divorce without his wife's consent--until 18 years have passed, that is, after which he is free to marry again. So, year after year Lin asks his wife for his freedom, and year after year he returns from the provincial courthouse: still married, still unable to consummate his relationship with Manna. Nothing feeds love like obstacles placed in its way--right? But Jin's novel answers the question of what might have happened to Romeo and Juliet had their romance been stretched out for several decades. In the initial confusion of his chaste love affair, Lin longs for the peace and quiet of his "old rut." Then killing time becomes its own kind of rut, and in the end, he is forced to conclude that he "waited eighteen years just for the sake of waiting."

There's a political allegory here, of course, but it grows naturally from these characters' hearts. Neither Lin nor Manna is especially ideological, and the tumultuous events occurring around them go mostly unnoticed. They meet during a forced military march, and have their first tender moment during an opera about a naval battle. (While the audience shouts, "Down with Japanese Imperialism!" the couple holds hands and gazes dreamily into each other's eyes.) When Lin is in Goose Village one summer, a mutual acquaintance rapes Manna; years later, the rapist appears on a TV report titled "To Get Rich Is Glorious," after having made thousands in construction. Jin resists hammering ideological ironies like these home, but totalitarianism's effects on Lin are clear:

Let me tell you what really happened, the voice said. All those years you waited torpidly, like a sleepwalker, pulled and pushed about by others' opinions, by external pressure, by your illusions, by the official rules you internalized. You were misled by your own frustration and passivity, believing that what you were not allowed to have was what your heart was destined to embrace.

Ha Jin himself served in the People's Liberation Army, and in fact left his native country for the U.S. only in 1985. That a non-native speaker can produce English of such translucence and power is truly remarkable--but really, his prose is the least of the miracles here. Improbably, Jin makes an unconsummated 18-year love affair loom as urgent as political terror or war, while history-changing events gain the immediacy of a domestic dilemma. Gracefully phrased, impeccably paced, Waiting is the kind of realist novel you thought was no longer being written. --Mary Park -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

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A deceptive love story 9. Juli 2000

Von April Koh

Format:Gebundene Ausgabe

"Waiting" to me , is on a whole a deceptive romantic love story. Initally, through reading the first two parts of the novel, the reader will get an idea that she is reading an enduring love story where love can conquer all odds.However, at the end of the novel, I get the idea that no love exist at all between Lin Kong and Manna. They are just together because they have been Wating for each other for so long. "Waiting" thus gives the reader a depressing view of love in the end. To me, no true love exists in the book and the last line of the novel clearly illustrates the idea that Lin is just waiting for Manna to die so that he can return to Shuyu.The protagonist is selfish and crowdly to the very end and he is a pathetic character who does not know what he wants.This book is a fine literary read that offers many ideas about human emotions . It is a must read for anyone who wants to think about the issues of love and the selfish nature of man. I truly enjoyed this book although it is , on the whole, a really bleak portrayal of human nature and love.Ha Jin's simple and direct prose also assists in bringing his ideas more closely to the reader .

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Waiting (used) 29. Februar 2012

Von Andrey Vyshnepolsky

Format:Taschenbuch

The used book came in two days in an almost new appearance. Perfect!!

The book tells a typical Ha Jin story. Always to the point without any glorification, just the real hard life without any happyend. And this all with the background of the chinese cultural revolution.

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slow, but a good book, though 14. August 2002

Von Holger Feroudj

Format:Taschenbuch

"Waiting" from Ha Jin is truly a slow book... like some people here said. Also, I found that 'mytical voice' in Lin's head which is asking questions about his deeds and which is explaining what Lin really is like a bit unfitting. I would have preferred another way of how the author reveals the inside of that character.
Yet it is a good book, the story is interesting (though slow and tedious at times) and you sure wouldn't think of thit end when you have read the first half of the book. It comes unsuspected which brings a fresh breeze into the slow way of telling this story. Also, Lin is a character I could identify myself with and I will sure think about him and the book for some more days now (I finished reading it today)... So, after all, it's a worth reading book though there are better ones - you have to like this kind of story or you won't be able to read more than 20 pages at once.

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