Water Lily

Rating:
Summary: interesting insight into the cultural aspects of Japan
Review: Runa Wong is a Japanese woman in her mid-twenties who teaches in a private high school English to fifth year male students. She is having an affair with one of her pupils until she receives a letter threatening her with death and accompanied by a photograph showing her and the student leaving a love motel. Rather than face the consequences, Runa flees to Shanghai where she hopes to meet a friend.

Ralph is an Englishman who owns an art supply store, lives in Carlisle and owns a four-bedroom house. He once had a Thai wife but it didn't work out and she disappeared. However Ralph has not given up his quest for a docile Asian bride. He contacts an agency that specializes in fixing up Japanese women with English or American males but the females want nothing to do with him. He decides to see if an Internet woman in Shanghai would be acceptable to him as he takes the ferry over there. He meets Runa, fixates on her, and decides to marry her until she reveals her true colors. The explosive results turn tragic for both of them.

Susanna Jones gives readers an interesting insight into the cultural aspects of Japan as she displays her talent as a fine storyteller. However neither of her protagonists feels likable and consequently fails to engage reader's empathy. Readers will feel that Ralph and Runa live too much inside their head and do not interact enough with other characters including one another. The plot moves passively slow until the action occurs in the last few pages.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: interesting insight into the cultural aspects of Japan
Review: Runa Wong is a Japanese woman in her mid-twenties who teaches in a private high school English to fifth year male students. She is having an affair with one of her pupils until she receives a letter threatening her with death and accompanied by a photograph showing her and the student leaving a love motel. Rather than face the consequences, Runa flees to Shanghai where she hopes to meet a friend.

Ralph is an Englishman who owns an art supply store, lives in Carlisle and owns a four-bedroom house. He once had a Thai wife but it didn't work out and she disappeared. However Ralph has not given up his quest for a docile Asian bride. He contacts an agency that specializes in fixing up Japanese women with English or American males but the females want nothing to do with him. He decides to see if an Internet woman in Shanghai would be acceptable to him as he takes the ferry over there. He meets Runa, fixates on her, and decides to marry her until she reveals her true colors. The explosive results turn tragic for both of them.

Susanna Jones gives readers an interesting insight into the cultural aspects of Japan as she displays her talent as a fine storyteller. However neither of her protagonists feels likable and consequently fails to engage reader's empathy. Readers will feel that Ralph and Runa live too much inside their head and do not interact enough with other characters including one another. The plot moves passively slow until the action occurs in the last few pages.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: An Interesting Work
Review: The underlying theme in Susanna Jones's Waterlily seems to be that no matter how far you run, you cannot run from your true self. Ralph and Runa, the lead characters in the novel, are both in search of a new life.

Ralph has traveled from England to Japan in order to find a bride. He has lost the woman he brought home from Thailand and his loneliness and self-doubt lead to his wish for a new companion.

Because of their reputed docility and beauty, Ralph longs for another Eastern Blossom similar to his first bride. At first, his hopes are high, and he feels great affection for the women the Japanese agency introduces to him.

Unfortunately, the women do not feel the same affection in return, which leaves Ralph despondent. The saving grace is a picture of a woman he corresponded with in China, so he sets up a meeting with her and boards the boat that will take him to this new country.

Runa has ended up on the same boat, for different reasons. She began an illicit, and illegal, affair with one of her students. They are happy for many months, until someone discovers the affair and threatens to make the information known to those in the school and surrounding community.

In desperation, Runa devises a plan. She runs to her sister, steals her passport and heads to China. A friend of hers from school days lives there and will be able to get her a new identity.

On the boat from Japan to China, the characters of Ralph and Runa come together. They meet while unwittingly drawn into a fight by two other passengers, whom they end up somewhat befriending.

Ralph feels that Runa (using her sister's name and attempting to use her identity) could be the woman he is looking for and Runa believes that Ralph is a way out of her current situation. The reader wishes that each is the answer to the other's problems, but knows that in the end, these two characters coming together is not a good thing.

Susanna Jones does an excellent job in making these characters real and gets us to feel sympathy for what should be unlikable characters.

Despite Ralph's view of women, we want him to overcome his fears and find happiness. With Runa, we want her to realize that she is not trying to escape some unseen enemy, she is escaping herself. If only both characters could see into and beyond themselves, they would not set themselves up for the inevitable disastrous conclusion.

Jones is able to bring the reader into the story, and into her characters' minds, with a few well-chosen words. She weaves a spell for the reader, bringing them into the action and the story itself. Jones spent many years in Japan and now lives in Brighton.