War Trash : A novel

Rating:
Summary: Unsettling Memoir Powerful Indictment
Review: "Who can bear the weight of a war?" asks Yu Yuan. "To make witness is to make the truth known, but we must remember that most victims have no voice of their own, and that in bearing witness to their stories we must not appropriate them."

Yu has borne such weight for fifty years. Conscripted by the then newly-founded Chinese Communist Party into fighting in Korea, captured and thrown into a POW camp, he became caught between allegiances, his fate determined by warring political ideologues who viewed his skills as an English translator as a tool for their own ends.

Ha Jin's novel, War Trash, is a most unsettling book; a fictional memoir so seamless and genuine it reads as non-fiction. Fusing violent history and glowing imagination, written in the first-person style of a man translating his Chinese thoughts into English phrases, War Trash is so finely hued, so real, it takes one's breath away.

Yu, now an elderly teacher writing his account "in a documentary manner so as to preserve historical accuracy," is hardly a vibrant character. A natural sceptic, Yu is an unassuming man whose only wish during his internment was to return to China.

Life as a POW is not forgiving to those who would remain neutral, as the politics of prisoners serve to form a dangerous microcosm of battling belief systems. Pro-Nationalists treat Communist Party members as traitors to China, dealing out horrific brutalities to loyalists of Mao's philosophy.

The Communists, however, judge their principles more important than the safety and security of their soldiers, their leaders fixated on propaganda and grabbing headlines. Yu witnesses scores of his comrades slaughtered in tragic prison uprisings designed to promote ideology, fuelling Yu's reflection that "war was an enormous furnace fed by the bodies of soldiers."

Jin, National Book Award winner for his novel The Waiting, has fashioned a delicate novel that functions on many levels. As moral allegory, War Trash serves as warning to those who blindly obey, realizing that the path to self-realization is best served by one's own judgements, and not the dogma of others.

Likewise, as political commentary, the parallels to the abuses of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay scarcely need mentioning. When Yu comments on the Koreans' hostility toward the Chinese, "To them we had come here only to protect China's interests - by so doing, we couldn't help but ruin their homes, fields, and livelihoods," a more apt description of the current Iraq war there couldn't be.

War Trash is not meant as polemic; it is a story first, told by a man whose mere survival speaks volumes to his courage. Like Thomas Keneally's recent, unfairly ignored work The Tyrant's Novel, it is a tale of man's awakening to the world state, and his fight to make peace within himself when all about is chaos.

Completing Yu's tale with a perfectly tuned atmosphere of sorrow, Jin writes an ending of haunting simplicity. "Do not take this to be an "our story"," Yu writes. "I have just written what I experienced." What Yu experienced was terrifying. What Jin presents is phenomenal.

Rating:
Summary: Trapped
Review: After finishing this book, I feel finally released from the hellish nonexistence of POW life. This novel is almost unbearable in its grim, relentless depiction of the thousands of men held captive for years in Korea as they awaited the results of endless negotiations on their fates. Although their lives are individualized by the novel's narrator, Yu Yuan, an English-speaking graduate of the prestigious Huangpu Military Academy of Nationalist China, these POWs are nothing more than pawns in a geopolitical power struggle between Maoist mainland China and Nationalist China (and the U.S), represented by Chang-kai-shek and Taiwan. In the long run, no one really cares much about these thousands of displaced souls. And Yu Yuan, shifting loyalties in a dangerous but practical attempt to stay alive, finds himself trying to return to what life he had in mainland China: his old mother (he was an only child), and his fiance, who he misses terribly. But what Yu Yuan struggles to return to proves to be an illusion. Through Yu Yuan's eyes we see the corrosive effects of war, and the utter loss of identity and of meaning it produces. Although such themes have been voiced many times before in many other novels, War Trash is unique in portraying this historic period, the Korean War, and in its single-minded focus through the eyes of its all-too-human narrator.

Rating:
Summary: Elegant and terse rumination on war
Review: Although Ha Jin writes in English, it is apparent from page one that he is a Chinese writer. His writing is similar in form to other popular Chinese writers like Yu Hua. Short, dynamic sentences using mostly active voice. There are also awkward phrases where it is apparent Ha Jin is translating Chinese sayings into English, often an ill fit. Though this can subtract from the rhythm of the book, it is a tiny complaint, and it is just about the only thing wrong with this book.

The narrator was a Chinese POW in an American camp during the Korean War. He is telling his story years later, when he is an old man living in America. In short, this is a story of the dehumanizing effect of war on man. It is not a completely depressing read, however. Through certain characters, the reader gets glimpses of hope and light: in the American soldier who befriends the narrator to discuss their girlfriends; the American general who is torn between bad international publicity and doing the right thing; and the young Chinese prisoner who the narrator takes under his wing and teaches to read. These are the individual faces of war, and where they exist, the novel is full of emotion. However, Ha Jin can turn a touching chapter into a tragedy in the blink of an eye, which is what makes this book so gripping and frightening.

I have heard Ha Jin compared to Dostoevsky. I have not read Dostoevsky's war memoirs, but have read his novels, and am strained to see any literary comparison, though I can see a philosophical one, I suppose...the struggle of the individual to come to terms with the madness around and inside of him.

Warning: This book is wonderful, but I wouldn't call it a page turner. Be patient with it.

Rating:
Summary: If War Is Hell, then POW Camp Is Limbo
Review: Catholic theologians have long theorized an in-between state of being called Limbo, derived from the Latin word for edge or fringe. Ha Jin's WAR TRASH introduces us to another form of Limbo, occupied in this case by Chinese prisoners of war surviving on the fringes of conflict during the Korean War.

The novel opens with the elderly Yu Yuan visiting his son and two grandchildren in the United States, promising to tell the story behind the offensive, anti-American words tattooed on his stomach. The setting then reverts to 1951 and Yu's involvement as a member of the Chinese Communist Army in Korea, from his capture and imprisonment, first in Koje Island, then on Cheju Island, to his tortured decision whether to go to Taiwan or return to the Maoist mainland (and his mother and fiancée), and finally, to his release in 1953.

Along the way, Yu is befriended by a female American doctor, assists an American priest, develops his English language skills enough to become an indispensable asset to his superiors, and learns to assert himself on his compatriots' behalf. More important, he realizes that he and his fellow soldiers are just pawns in a whole series of struggles, some propelled by individual self-interest, others originating from larger geopolitical issues. Regardless, the rank and file POW's are reduced in his estimation to valueless "war trash," human rubbish left in the wake of military clashes.

WAR TRASH is a story of survival, yet it never becomes preachy or maudlin or heroic. It is also a story about war's paradoxical ability to simultaneously dehumanize its participants and yet elevate the lowliest soldier to great acts of courage and humanity.

Most important, however, WAR TRASH is a story about identity. Yu Yuan is known in the camps under the alias Feng Yan, and at another time, he assumes the identity of a fellow prisoner, Chang Ming. But identity is more than just a name for Ha Jin, it is about roles and responsibilities. For Yu Yuan, that means alternately being a graduate of a Nationalist military academy, a lukewarm Communist, a devoted son and fiancé, an English-speaking interpreter, an intending repatriate to the mainland, and an intending emigrant to Taiwan. Even the tattoo on his stomach changes its meaning as Yu's identity changes. For the Chinese people at the time of Mao's Liberation, identity was among each person's most malleable possessions, and choosing correctly became a matter of survival as well as a determinant of one's future.

Ha Jin tells the POW story with straightforward simplicity, dwelling more on events and human relationships than on interior dialog or extended description of the camp conditions. The author creates a compelling story, speaking to us through an empathetic main character and surrounding him with intriguing personalities, from the scheming Commissar Pei and the loyal young Shanmin to his close friend Bai Dajian. His narrative is strongest when he talks about the small battles and triumphs in POW life: the value of a pencil, the warmth of canine friendship, the schemes for establishing communication, the pleasure in a bit of meat or barley.

In WAITING and CRAZED, Ha Jin addressed the great questions of life from the simplest of story lines and the most ordinary of human characters. This time, he has broadened the scope of his narrative setting, yet he has remained true to his practice of focusing on average people and the small details of their lives. His storytelling is always engaging, but it is his ability to reveal the profound in the mundane, the universal in the local, and the complex in the simple that makes each of his works a rewarding reading experience. I heartily recommend WAR TRASH for its human drama in the most uncertain of settings.




Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: I some time felt that I am not reading a fiction rather a true life account of struggle against evil. This story shows how the warriors in a war are just pawn of the national leaders. How you give everything to your mother land and still branded as traitor. I am amazed that this book is so getting so little attention.


Rating:
Summary: MOVINGLY WRITTEN FACT BASED WORK OF FICTION
Review: In his author's notes, Ha Jin states that although this is a work of fiction and that all of his main characters are fictional, "most of the events and details are ... factual."

The novel's focus is the Korean War experiences of a Chinese soldier named Yu Yuan who was forced by the Communist regime to become part of the "volunteer" Chinese Army sent to fight in Korea and eventually to raid South Korea.

This "volunteer" army is poorly trained, inadequately armed and equipped, and so poorly fed that many men die of starvation. In addition they are instructed that they must fight to the death, because to be captured will be considered an act of treason. They are told that the "Yankees" are "Paper Tigers" and will turn and run at the sight of the heroic Chinese troops.

Ha Jin's descriptions of Yuan's experience in a series of battles directed from afar by leaders who have no concept of fighting a war have to be read in order to understand the sheer horror of the living conditions. Tens of thousands of Chinese troops die because of conflicting orders that put them in untenable positions where they are fodder for the enemy's superior firepower. The troops who bear the brunt of the horror of this situation, soon learn that their enemy soldiers are not the paper tigers they were led to expect, and that, in addition to well armed, well trained ground forces, the enemy has overwhelming air power and artillery support.

Yuan is severely injured in battle, captured, and sent to an American Hospital, where his shattered leg is saved in a series of surgical procedures performed by a caring American surgeon.

This hospital experience is, however, the last nurturing experience he will receive while in captivity.

He is sent to a prison camp where there is a power struggle going on between the Nationalists, who are loyal to Chiang and want to go to Taiwan rather than be repatriated to China, and the Communists, who wish to go back to China. In many ways Yuan is caught in the middle. He wants to reurn to China because he has a fiancee and an aging mother there, but he is not a Communist.

The Nationalists are in the majority in his first compound, and treat those who wish to return to mainland China with ferocious brutality. The Americans generally turn their backs on what is going on within the barbed wire compound, and by their intential neglect allow murder, mutilation and mayhem to be the everyday experience.

Yuan is caught in the middle of this because his command of the English language makes him valuable to both sides. One method used by the Nationalists to coerce him and several others is to forcibly tattoo them with anti-Communist slogans which would make them suspect if they were ever repatriated. (As an aside, neither side really considers him as an individuual, but rather as an asset to be used at will.)

Eventually, he ends up in an all Communist compound where his life is a little better. Living conditions are still terrible, and their captors often resort to humiliation and torture as forms of contral.

Eventually, after the completion of the Peace Talks, he gets back to China, but only after several more humiliating prisoner of war camp experiences, only to find out that he, along with all of the others who chose repatriation are considered traitors for allowing themselves to be captured. He is put through months of official "questioning," is stripped of all his medals, and is considered an undesireable. For good measure, his mother, who was one of the main reasons he wanted to return, had died while he was a prisoner, and his fiancee, who was the other reason, will have nothing more to do with this "undesireable traitor."

The upside is that he does get a teaching position, eventually marries, has children and grandchildren, and much later is able to emigrate to the U.S.

While I have given a general outline of the plot, this book must be read to get the feeling of the horrors of his wartime experiences from battle to prison to his return home. Ha Jin has taken true incidents and details and written a truly moving condemnation of war and how so many unwilling people become the victims of what happens in a wartime atmosphere. Based on my own reaction to both the facts and the emotions Ha Jin's writing brough out, I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Novel
Review: This book is worth the purchase in every way. It is powerful, moving, and the words just flow out of the pages. If you're anything like me, you'll sit down with this book and finish it all in one day. I don't usually do that with books, so consider that a glowing complement to Ha Jin's mastery of the written word.

Rating:
Summary: ...No Victors
Review: This important novel which masquerades as the memoir of the eponymous Yu Yuan, a Chinese POW and repatriate of the Korean conflict, may deceive you in its simplicity. It is anything but simple. There are no clear cut lines drawn, no obvious "good" or "evil" characters portrayed here. The reader is only made painfully aware of the complex politics of waging war and its profound influences on the common soldiers, the everyman, the "war trash" of this novel's title.

Ha Jin evokes a visceral hatred of war itself simply by revealing one human being's struggle in its midst. Yu Yuan faces many challenges as an English speaking Chinese POW, who yearns for his fiancée and old mother back on the mainland. Ha drags the reader through each of his hero's agonizing dilemmas only to release her with the infused notion that perhaps none of Yu's choices were made by him but, contrarily, for him.

I recommend this book wholeheartedly, not just to anyone who might deplore war and its odious affects, or just to the "everyman" it documents, but also to those who would presume to wage war even though some of those individuals may not particularly care to read books.


Rating:
Summary: How can a great book be ignored
Review: This powerful, subtle, and brilliantly written novel about the Chinese POW's in Korea has so many levels of significance, it's hard to believe no one I know has even heard of it outside the glowing but obscure literary reviews it has received (I guess the NYT is now obscure). If this book is not widely received I can only blame it on its intelligence, detailed historical research (and accuracy), and its grasp of what humanity really means under different circumstances. I guess not enough sex and car crashes.

Rating:
Summary: A powerful tale of survival, repression and imprisonment
Review: Yu Yuan, 73, narrator of the latest novel from National Book Award-winner Ha Jin ("Waiting," "The Crazed"), contemplates the ugly tattoo that has dogged all the steps of his life and determines to write his memoir while he is visiting his son in America. This is a project long planned.

"I'm going to do it in English, a language I started learning at the age of fourteen, and I'm going to tell my story in a documentary manner so as to preserve historical accuracy. I hope that someday Candie and Bobby and their parents will read these pages so that they can feel the full weight of the tattoo on my belly. I regard this memoir as the only gift a poor man like me can bequeath his American grandchildren."


The tattoo, stretched under his navel, curses the U.S. Scarring shows the tattoo has been altered, but what it says on its face is all that matters. "Like a talisman, the tattoo has protected me in China for almost five decades." This is the first of many ironies. Of course, coming to America, it became a liability. He might be refused entry if it was discovered on him. But if he had it removed the authorities would assume he was not returning and refuse permission for his trip.

The tattoo dates to the years that set Yuan's fate: 1951 to 1953, the Korean War. An educated man, a college graduate from the military academy, Yuan's tone is formal. His prose is dispassionate, plain and understated. This careful voice serves to underscore the dignity of a man describing experiences of overwhelming indignity, privation and powerlessness.

The Chinese army in Korea is isolated. Supposed volunteers without the official backing of their new Communist government, the men don't speak the language or know the landscape. There is no mail. Power is centralized and their orders, coming from afar, are often confused or contradictory. But the men know their government expects them to die rather than be captured; to do less is to show cowardice and shame their country. Yuan is unconscious at the time of his capture, wounded in the leg. But he knows the extenuating context will never be taken into account. He is a POW and that is a shameful fact.

In the American prison camp the political factions jockey for power. With his education and his English, Yuan is a magnet for both the Nationalists and the Communists. Yuan is neither, though he feels the Communists are less corrupt than the Nationalists and have bettered the lot of the common man. But mostly he is loyal to something more personal: his mother and fiancée are back home in China.

The Nationalists bribe him with food and dreams of a prosperous life in Taiwan and threaten him with violence and the bleak prospect of life in China branded as a POW. "History has shown that the Communists always treat their significant enemies more leniently than their own people," they remind him, a maxim that hits home, but does not change his mind.

The Communists do much the same, though with less fervor. Everyone has family back in China and a reminder that those at hand will suffer for the perfidy of those not at hand serves to keep most people in line. They work at maintaining discipline and stoke the revolutionary fire with slogans and organized demonstrations.

These can cause sometimes deadly clashes with the Americans, who are also outnumbered foreigners in an inhospitable land. The dynamics between captor and captive and between their very different cultures run as an undercurrent through the narrative, increasing the tension and uncertainty.

Yuan gropes for survival, feeling his way behind the words of those more powerful than he, attempting always to strike a balance between duplicity and truth to keep himself safe. He feels himself an outsider by virtue of his education, and is less willing to abandon his individuality to the community than others. Proud of his intellect, he can sometimes out-think himself. But he holds paramount his loyalty to his loved ones and his determination to return to them, and lets himself by guided by that steadfastness. This is a source of many of the book's inevitable ironies.

Like Ha Jin's previous novels this is a story of human nature's adaptation to the political repression society forces upon its members. Manipulation, intimidation and emotional blackmail are the tools the powerful use to advance their interests. People adapt and endure according to their individual personalities. Some are swept up in passionate political fervor, others are opportunists, some go along out of fear, others resist out of pride, some are sadists, others cowards. But most are a confused jumble of all these things; even those in power swagger only until the balance shifts.

It's also a vivid portrait of life in the camps: the physical privations and miseries, the bad, inadequate food, and cold and crowded conditions; and the mental privations, the lack of communication with the world outside the camp, the total isolation from loved ones, the fear of the uncertain future. It's a novel as complex and layered as the human heart.