Waiting

By: Ha Jin

Narrated by: Dick Hill

National Book Award, Fiction, 1999

This is the story of Lin Kong, a man struggling with the conflicting claims of two utterly different women as he moves through the political minefields of a society designed to regulate his every move and stifle the promptings of his innermost heart.

For more than 17 years, this devoted and ambitious doctor has been in love with a modern woman, Manna Wu. But back in the traditional world of his home village lives the wife his family chose for him when he was young - a humble and touchingly loyal woman, whom he visits in order to ask, again and again, for a divorce.

In a culture in which the ancient ties of tradition and family still hold sway and where adultery discovered by the Party can ruin lives forever, Lin's passionate love is stretched taut by the passing years. Every summer, his compliant wife agrees to a divorce but then backs out. This time, Lin promises, will be different.

Tracing these lives through their summer of decision and beyond, Ha Jin vividly conjures the texture of daily life in a place where the demand of human longing must contend with the weight of centuries of custom. Waiting charms and startles us with its depiction of a China that remains hidden to Western eyes, even as it moves us with its piercing vision of the universal complications of love.

©2000 Ha Jin (P)2004 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Ha Jin's book could hardly be less theatrical, yet we're immediately engaged by its narrative structure, by its wry humor and by the subtle, startling shifts it produces in our understanding of the characters and their situation." (The New York Times Book Review)
"A deceptively simple tale, written with extraordinary precision and grace. Ha Jin has established himself as one of the great sturdy realists still writing in a postmodern age." (Kirkus Reviews)

Relatively generic

The 3rd person omniscient view is not engaging, and the story lacked a thrust or any sort of unique component. It is very jarring to know what every character is thinking at all times, because at that point you're not experiencing the story with the characters, and may as well cut to the chase, since if you were omniscient you would know how the story ends...

An amazing piece of work!

An amazing piece of work! The story itself is beyond culture, country and time. It happens everywhere.

Nice idea... but...

Let's just say, I appreciate the thought, but as far as mysteries and believability go - not so much. Did it make the time pass, sure. Did it pass well because I was enraptured in the tale, not so much. And i knew how it would end to boot. Could have been worse i guess.

Lyrically beautiful storytelling

This book reads so lyrically that it is a real pleasure to listen to as an audible. Beautiful description and phrasing. I will surely be looking for other works by this author. The narration was perfectly done for the sense of this story.

TRUTH IN FICTION

Ha Jin's book, "Waiting", reminds one of our misogynistic world. Ha Jin is the pen name of Jin Xuefei, a Chinese American poet and novelist. Jin's father was a military officer in China. At 13, Jin joined the "People's Liberation Army" during the Cultural Revolution in China. He left the army at nineteen to earn a bachelor's degree in English at Heilongjiang University and a master's degree in Anglo-American literature at another Chinese university. He went on to Brandies University to extend his education.

"Waiting" is about a 23-year-old nurse in the Peoples Liberation Army that falls in love with a doctor named Ha Jin, who is already married with a daughter who lives with her mother. The mother and daughter live in a village away from Ha Jin while he serves in Mao's Cultural Revolution. Ha Jin may be viewed by a reader/listener as either a strong moral character or a weak "go along to get along" Maoist survivor.

The story ends with Ha Jin leaving China and becoming a professor at Brandies University in the United States. The listener is left to ponder which of these personalities, the husband, or the nurse and ex-wife are the strongest mental and physical humans in this battle of the sexes. At the very least, what is clear in "Waiting" is that misogyny is a multicultural reality.