Customer Reviews

A GESTURE LIFE

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

From its first lines -- in which Lee's Doc Hata falsely states without a touch of irony, "They know me here" -- until the end when he finally begins to know himself, A Gesture Life breaks new ground. It has been a long time since an author, Wallace Stegner comes too mind, has handled the flashback so masterfully. Here the reader won't find himself favoring one story over another, as is usually the case with books that employ the flashback. In his second novel Lee explores the atrocities of the Japanese military, particularly those inflicted on the "comfort women," who were forced to pleasure the officers and enlisted men, through the eyes of Doc Hata, a former Imperial Navy medic who becomes not a physician but a revered small-town medical supplier in upstate New York. But more than simply the horror, this novel explores how these atrocities along with unperformed acts of violence, make it impossible for him to feel joy and pain and love. What happens during World War II is not past, but lives on and has an impact on each one of Hata's post-war relationships. Chang-rae Lee explores so many themes -- among them adoption, friendship, isolation, community, rancor, forgiveness -- and yet succeeds in holding the reader's thrall on every page. Lee delivers so many surprises, not least of which is a hopeful yet realistic resolution. You'll carry the characters, especially its imperfect protagonist, with you for years

During World War II, Korean women were forced to serve as "comfort women," satisfying the sexual needs of the Japanese soldiers to ensure high morale. This exploitation was one of the ugliest wartime acts a country has ever committed against women. Today, many of the surviving women are seeking reparations from the Japanese government. A tragic incident involving a comfort woman forever shapes the life of Franklin "Doc" Hata, the central character in Chang-Rae Lee's moving, gracefully written "A Gesture Life." Hata is a retired Japanese businessman who lives in a quaint, suburban New York village where he is revered as a community leader for his polite, respectful ways. But though his manner has brought respect, it has also brought problems. His cool remove scuttles a love affair with a passionate widow and causes his adopted daughter to rebel and disappear from his life. After Hata nearly burns down his house and is hospitalized, his thoughts drift back to his years in the Japanese army. In the jungles of Burma, Hata makes the mistake of falling in love with a comfort woman he calls "K," who also is the object of a superior officer's desire. Hata, who was born Korean but adopted by a Japanese family, takes a stand to protect K, which results in heart-wrenching viciousness that forever shapes the way he deals with others, particularly women. "A Gesture Life" is not filled with dramatic moments, but the slow, graceful style Lee uses to let Doc Hata tell his story is appropriate and oddly compelling. The book succeeds because it so completely tells the story of an elderly Japanese immigrant facing the last years of his life. It also provides an eye-opening glimpse at one of the cruelest chapters in Japanese history.

Chang-rae Lee's 'A Gesture Life' pulls the reader's mind, emotions, and spirit into the snapshot-world of Doc Hata's town, Bedley Run--a typical American berg on the outskirts of NYC. Here, our senses are soothed by the images of stable, normal Americana, and the successful Japanese-American retiree who is comfortably part of that landscape. It's almost a vision of utter serenity at first, but Lee's transcendent prose makes sure that we recognize another truth: beneath all of this security, there is a drumbeat of primordial heartbreak, and a keening sense of loss. Slowly, expertly, without the reader even expecting it, Lee unfolds a tale of immense but elegant grief. He leads the reader through a veritable labyrinth of shocking regrets, brought on by experiences that hide so perfectly beneath the veneer of the main character's 'life of gesture.' The book is astonishing for its lyrical perfection, its poetic structure, and seamless continuity. It is truly a soul work to be savored and conveys a serious lesson about the tragedy of being human. Five shooting stars.

Chang-rae Lee's second novel, A GESTURE LIFE, covers some of the same territory as his first --- namely, the difficulties encountered by an outsider in our melting pot of a country. Like the narrator of NATIVE SPEAKER, Lee's debut novel, Franklin Hata suffers from a nearly incapacitating sense of reserve. Respected and accepted in his town of Bedley Run, the recently retired Franklin opens this book with quiet reflections on his place in life. The language is careful and wisely restrained, almost wistful in the manner of Fitzgerald. "I think one person can hardly understand why another has conducted his life in such a way, how he came to commit certain actions and not others, whether he looks upon the past with mostly pleasure or equanimity or regret."

This early decorous pace is deceptive, however, and as we follow Franklin through his daily regimen, the tattered edges of his life gradually begin to show through. A late life romance fallen apart and an adopted Korean daughter named Sunny whose bitter rebellion has hurt and confused him; these elements of his American life are revealed more with a sense of fatalism than any anger or disbelief. His stoic, unemotional stance seems surreally distant, until the story of Franklin's service as a medic in World War II emerges in the second third of the novel.

One reason this novel is on so many top ten lists for 1999 is the subtlety with which Lee recounts Franklin's memories of the war. The horror of many war stories resides in the atrocities that the opposing sides inflict on each other, yet man's inhumanity to woman is the central theme of Franklin's experience.

The comfort women, as they were called, were essentially kidnapped from their homes in Korea and brought to the camps, where their service to the war effort consisted of serving as sex slaves to the soldiers. "Although it was the most naive and vacant of notions to think that anyone would willingly give herself to such a fate, like everyone else I had assumed the girls had indeed been 'volunteers', as they were always called. To the men in the queue, they were nothing, or less than nothing; ..."

Young Franklin is assigned to guard one of the girls, whom he calls K, for his Captain's exclusive use. Over the course of her confinement, he falls in love with this desperate girl, with predictably tragic consequences. As he describes his anguished feelings for K, the reader begins to understand what it has cost Franklin merely to survive with his sanity intact.

The relationship between Franklin's past and his Bedley Run present is another intriguing aspect of the novel. It is easy to see a substitute for his beloved K in his adoption of a Korean child, yet his emotional scars prevent him from being an effective father. He sees where he could and should be more insistent, but he always chooses the easiest, least unpleasant path. The consequences of fully committing to an impulse may leave one outside the polite norm of society, and that is a choice that Franklin is unable to make.

Ultimately, his truest desires are in conflict. "In an odd way, I think now that K wanted the same thing that I would yearn for all my days, which was her own place in the accepted order of things... All I wished for was to be part (if but a millionth) of the massing, and that I pass through with something more than a life of gestures." It is a measure of the satisfying complexity of this novel that we are left wondering whether he succeeds long after the last page has been turned.

--- Reviewed by Eileen Zimmerman-Nicol for Bookreporter.

It was perhaps a mistake to read A Gesture Life in one day, immersing myself so totally in the head of protagonist/narrator Doc Hata. His tragically flawed character and the attendant traumas in his life make for an intricately crafted narrative from which I admit I had to take many breathing breaks. But this narrative style, another testament to Lee's incredible capacity for expression, is not about punishing the reader. (By only a scattering of overpacked sentences and some fairly crucial editing mistakes was I ever bothered.) See, this book is not so much about action as reaction, and most importantly, introspection, an obsessive self-examination. It is about a man who has been an outsider on so many different levels, and as such, has been compelled to consider his every action and word, and whether he does or does not fit into his surroundings.

This kind of careful living, this compulsive tiptoeing, is the source of many of the tragedies in this novel. Frustration that readers may feel from the seemingly overwrought writing style is actually empathy that they're sharing with some of the book's other figures who also respond to Hata's way of life. Indeed, it's frustrating and heart-rending to witness Hata beat himself up over his past. This novel, after all, is rife with painful truths that few would like to hear. Thankfully, as always, Lee's poetic sense of language, his skills at creating an entirely visceral set of characters (with telling dialog and physical description), unusual plot situations, and vivid setting -- all down to the most minute and vital details -- made the reading of the novel well worth the heartache and the ten consecutive hours I devoted to it.

Many times, I was reminded of two other masterfully written novels, Philip Roth's American Pastoral (for the bewildering breach of a father's total devotion) and Stewart David Ikeda's What the Scarecrow Said (for the town that smacked of a whitewashed Establishment and for the persistent awareness of being an outsider).

Like Native Speaker, A Gesture Life is a book that will stick with me for a long time and that I will be rereading several times.

"A Gesture Life" is a novel that reads more like a memoir, a sad, melancholic first person narrative by the main characer (Dr. Hata). In a superb elegant style, beautifully written, constrained and at the same time powerfully moving, the author deals with the problem of being an outsider and of conformity in exchange for respectfulness. Dr. Hata is an uneasy psyche, a restrained individual who behind a façade of a well-established and respected person hides a complex and dramatic life struggle. Since his childhood he has felt as an outsider, first as a native Korean who is adopted by a Japanese couple, and then as an immigrant in the U.S.A. With psychological wounds he feels unable to express or integrate the emotion of love into his life, using the shield of politness, of integrity, living his life as a sequence of appropriate "gestures." By acting as such, he describes his life as "something exemplary to the sensation of near perfect lightness of being in a place and not being there... the trouble of finding a remedy but not quite a cure... such is the cast of my belonging, molding to whatever is at hand."
The novel has a double time frame setting, one based on past memories of Hata's experience as a paramedic in the Japanese army, and the second focused on the present. Hata's relationship with the opposite sex has failed (with the comfort women "K," with Mary Burns, and with his own daughter) and when he reviews the outcome he finds guilt and regret, whole-heartedly admitting "there are those who would gladly give up all they have gained in the world to have relented just once when it mattered."
How much can an individual sacrifice his own-self, how high a price must he pay in order to adapt to his surroundings and conform to what is expected from him? How much does evasion of reality affect a relationship? Because of Hata's attitude he has remained detached, never within the full embrace of life, and having to face painful consequences.
This novel is a wonderful psychological drama, artistically performed, poignant, shocking at times, but above all a moving tale of a human condition.

Chang-Rae Lee, in his novel "A Gesture Life," writes about "Doc Hata," a man who is not really a doctor, although he had once aspired to be one. He is the retired former owner of a surgical supply store. The problem with Doc Hata is that he has always been afraid to be himself. His desire has always been to maintain an image of propriety at all times--never to offend, to always blend in with the suburban town where he lives. We find out, in a series of flashbacks, that he has led a tortured life, especially during World War II, and his experiences have maimed him emotionally. Doc Hata has a stormy relationship with his adopted daughter, who ironically is named "Sunny," when she is generally surly. Doc Hata's relationships with his acquaintances , although seemingly pleasant on the surface, tend to be somewhat shallow. As time passes, Doc Hata struggles to find out if there is time for an old man to find some sort of redemption and meaning in his life. Often, the writing in "A Gesture Life" is stunning and brilliant. There were passages that brought tears to my eyes. At other times, however, Lee's writing is cryptic and puzzling. The plot towards the end is a little too complicated and meandering. Too much happens in a short time. However, the book is powerful, especially in the passages that deal with the "Comfort Women" of World War II. This is a complex work that requires a great deal of effort on the part of the reader. However, it is well worth the reader's effort to plumb the depths of "A Gesture Life."

The story in itself is already appropriately described by the editorial and spotlight reviews so this is simply adding my two cents.

As I read some of the reviews given, some said that it was either slow or a very violent read, or portrayed the asian stereotype of an asian man with no heart, and so on. I can only disagree.

To understand and feel for this book, you have to understand the context of which this book works on. It is unfortunate that most people, who live in countries not affected by the atrocities of Japan, do not know that the exploitation of the "comfort women" numbered to be around 100,000. It was an estimated ratio of 1 woman made "available" for 35 soldiers. 80% of them are believed to be Koreans, although others from Taiwan, China, Philippines, Malaysia, and so on were used. Now, add in the cultural mentality existing in those countries and how they would have reacted to such a thing. As a parallel, I highly doubt anyone would say a book under the backdrop of the Holocaust is too slow, too violent to stomach, or show that the protagonist has no heart or feeling.

However, that's all outside knowledge, not even needed to be lured into a beautiful web that Chang Rae Lee spins for us. In fact, the book purposely focuses on one man and lets the history be. It is almost as if saying, what's done is done and what is left is to move on.

The story of course is about Doc Hata, immeasurably weary and filled with his burden. All he can do is raise walls, in fact that is the only thing he can do. Finally, he leaves with a gesture. A mark that needs no explanation and especially no words.

The book is a beautiful and intricate piece that meshes the social and cultural conditions of the past, present, and future into one man. It is his struggle. I believe anyone can relate to that and it simply adds to prove that silent waters do run deep.

This is the story of Franklin Hata, Japanese WWII veteran and American businessman. Through the amazingly beautiful prose of this story, a tale of alienation, heartbreak and lost opportunities slowly unfolds. The novel tells two tales, one of Franklin's American life, and his difficulties raising his adopted Korean daughter, and the story of his experiences in the Japanese army and his involvement with one particular Korean comfort woman. Throughout the stories, we sense the confined parameters Franklin allows for his emotional life, the adjustments he feels compelled to make in order to fit into this life and the losses inherent in those choices. It is in the simple beauty of the telling, the grace of the language that fills each page of this book, regardless of the sorrow or distaste of the scene, that sets it apart.

Hata, the protagonist of Chang-Rae Lee's, A Gesture Life is a complex man. As the reader delves into the story of Hata as he retells his experiences in WWII and his present life, one can actually feel and see the emotions and troubles that Hata goes through.

It is rare for a book to be so well written, that opinions made about certain characters in the book can change by the end. Chand-Rae Lee is right on the money as more is revealed about Hata. As Hata's state of mind changes, the reader's goes along with it.

In the end of the book, Hata states: "Let me simply bear my flesh, and blood, and bones. I will fly a flag. Tomorrow when this house is alive and full, I will be outside looking in. I will be already on a walk someplace, in this town or the next one five thousand miles away. I will circle round and arrive again. Come almost home." Without having read the book, one would state . . ."Wow, how eloquently written." However once you read the book, the reader will be able to fully understand Hata and its' underlying meanings. Right on Hata!