Tree of Heaven

Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary
Review: This book is an extraordinary reading experience. During the Japanese invasion of China in the late 1930's, there were examples of the most extreme barbarity by Japanese soldiers, comparable to the inhumanity practiced against Jews in the Holocaust. This book is set during that period and describes in novel form a relationship that develops between a Japanese soldier and a Chinese woman whom he rescues.

I have rarely read a book that creates such a complex relationship between two people. The plot could so easily have become a melodrama about war, subservience, man and woman. Instead it felt like real lives being lived - so much ambiguity, so many things unresolved. Both the captor and the captive are strong and weak in surprising ways, experience fear and ultimately a kind of love, remember their families with deep and often conflicting emotions, feel so damaged by the horrors around them that they have trouble understanding who they are.

The writing is exquisite, much of the description in simple declarative sentences that give every physical detail, every thought and emotion, tremendous immediacy.

Rating:
Summary: powerful
Review: This is a powerful book about atonement and the alienation from the self that occurs as we are first enculturated by our families, culture and nation.

Rating:
Summary: Complexity of compassion in the clash of cultures
Review: This is one of the most remarkable love stories I have ever read, partly because you are never sure how much these two people from different worlds can transcend their Japanese and Chinese natures to merge in a truly intimate way. Both Kuroda and Li have debts to pay, not only to each other but to those people to whom they have previously been connected. How can Kuroda express his personal compassion when he must also be true to his cultural imperatives and the men under his command? How can Li repay him for saving her life and then coming to truly love her, a lowly Chinese woman held in contempt not only by the soldiers but by her own people? There is a high price to pay, and it is paid in full. I will never forget this book and what it has taught me about the best and worst in humanity.