The award-winning author of Waiting and War Trash returns to his homeland in a searing new novel that unfurls during one of the darkest moments of the twentieth century: the Rape of Nanjing.
In 1937, with the Japanese poised to invade Nanjing, Minnie Vautrin—an American missionary and the dean of Jinling Women’s College—decides to remain at the school, convinced that her American citizenship will help her safeguard the welfare of the Chinese men and women who work there. She is painfully mistaken. In the aftermath of the invasion, the school becomes a refugee camp for more than ten thousand homeless women and children, and Vautrin must struggle, day after day, to intercede on behalf of the hapless victims. Even when order and civility are eventually restored, Vautrin remains deeply embattled, and she is haunted by the lives she could not save.
With extraordinarily evocative precision, Ha Jin re-creates the terror, the harrowing deprivations, and the menace of unexpected violence that defined life in Nanjing during the occupation. In Minnie Vautrin he has given us an indelible portrait of a woman whose convictions and bravery prove, in the end, to be no match for the maelstrom of history.
At once epic and intimate, Nanjing Requiem is historical fiction at its most resonant.
Nanjing Requiem: A Novel
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“Since Ha Jin won the National Book Award for Waiting, his writing keeps opening up like a big, beautiful fan; this book sounds as far-reaching as anything he has ever written. And even bolder about looking into last century’s heart of darkness. Essential where good literature is read.” –Library Journal
"Jin describes horrible acts in a style bordering on reportage, lending bitter realism to his chronicle of violence and privation.... Jin paints a convincing, harrowing portrait of heroism in the face of brutality." –Publishers Weekly
“Ha Jin brings a cool, spare documentary approach to this rich trove of material…a book that renders a subtle and powerful vision of one of the 20th century’s most monstrous interludes.” –New York Times Book Review
“Jin continues his scrupulous excavation of buried truths about Chinese life…eviscerating… Writing with unnerving austerity, Ha Jin resolutely addresses inexplicable terror and miraculous resistance.” –Booklist, starred review
“Requiem is necessary testimony…Jin’s loyal readers will notice a bluntness—jarringly effective here—different from his previous works, as if Jin, too, must guard himself against the horror, the horror.” –Library Journal, starred review
“The novelist’s subtle mastery enriches the work…A matter-of-fact, plainspoken narrative that has a profound impact.” –Kirkus, starred review
“Should be required reading for anyone who isn't familiar with what happened at Nanjing…Courageously and unflinchingly, Ha Jin has taken an important step in remembering both the victims and the heroes of that senseless slaughter.” –Associated Press
“Profoundly moving.” –Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Manages to deliver glimpses of the massacre in all its reeling madness: the young woman who is driven insane by her manifold violations; the ways violence can smite the spirit, even when the body is spared; the sight of ‘shells bursting in the air like black blossoms.’ Nanjing Requiem makes the most of Vautrin’s sad fate: the grotesquely unjust accusation by her supervisor that she didn’t do enough, that she was ultimately ‘a traitor to the Chinese people.’ Ha Jin gives us a poignant twist in the fate of our narrator Anling, whose grown son just happens to be in Tokyo taking a Japanese wife when all hell is being unleashed in his homeland.” –Washington Post
“Jin, who has eloquently chronicled the Chinese experience both at home and in the United States, fastens on a single drama within the larger one of the massacre…staggering.” –Obit Magazine
“Jin has done a wonderful job of weaving an ordered tapestry from the phantasmagoric fog of that episode. His control over his characters is masterful; Japanese officers can be kindly, victims can be stridently impatient for vengeance. All are human.” –Washington Independent Review of Books
“Nanjing Requiem remains muted in memory. What you most remember, once you put down the book, is not agony and hopelessness, not darkness and blood, but rather the reach of human goodness…When we leave this crushingly beautiful, crushingly sad book, Ha Jin leaves us with the memory of good work, people saving lives, the worth of reaching out, even when death and despair prevail.” –Pop Matters
“Exquisitely painful…creates an unforgettable impression.” –St. Louis Dispatch
“An affecting, insightful portrait of Minnie Vautrin.” –Oregonian
“Nanjing Requiem is both plainspoken and revelatory, the saddest of Ha Jin’s novels. After this past decade of armed conflict, which has put millions of civilians at risk, his reminder of the human costs of war is also, unfortunately, timely.” –Boston Globe
“Sparse and unadorned, his prose refuses to call attention to itself. Jin’s angles are rarely oblique, and his economy of words feels almost utilitarian: his is a concern with precision, honesty, and direct description… Nanjing Requiem’s restraint is deliberate, and its narrative simplicity proves not a fault, but an achievement… Though his subject of choice is deeply disquieting, Jin does not set out to shock. Shying from bombast and hyperbole, his syntax relishes the minimal and leaves few words out of place. The power of his prose lies not in any self-indulgent flourish, but in its far-reaching resonance.” –Open Letters Monthly
“The deeper the reader delves into the book, the greater the sense of illumination…Jin again shows himself to be one of our most humane writers, maintaining an honesty that just can't be faked.” –Barnes & Noble Review
“Captivating…In Jin’s conscientious hands, Vautrin becomes someone the reader can identify with—and a timeless hero to remember.” –Ms. Magazine
“A tale worth retelling.” –Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Jin describes horrible acts in a style bordering on reportage, lending bitter realism to his chronicle of violence and privation.... Jin paints a convincing, harrowing portrait of heroism in the face of brutality." –Publishers Weekly
“Ha Jin brings a cool, spare documentary approach to this rich trove of material…a book that renders a subtle and powerful vision of one of the 20th century’s most monstrous interludes.” –New York Times Book Review
“Jin continues his scrupulous excavation of buried truths about Chinese life…eviscerating… Writing with unnerving austerity, Ha Jin resolutely addresses inexplicable terror and miraculous resistance.” –Booklist, starred review
“Requiem is necessary testimony…Jin’s loyal readers will notice a bluntness—jarringly effective here—different from his previous works, as if Jin, too, must guard himself against the horror, the horror.” –Library Journal, starred review
“The novelist’s subtle mastery enriches the work…A matter-of-fact, plainspoken narrative that has a profound impact.” –Kirkus, starred review
“Should be required reading for anyone who isn't familiar with what happened at Nanjing…Courageously and unflinchingly, Ha Jin has taken an important step in remembering both the victims and the heroes of that senseless slaughter.” –Associated Press
“Profoundly moving.” –Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Manages to deliver glimpses of the massacre in all its reeling madness: the young woman who is driven insane by her manifold violations; the ways violence can smite the spirit, even when the body is spared; the sight of ‘shells bursting in the air like black blossoms.’ Nanjing Requiem makes the most of Vautrin’s sad fate: the grotesquely unjust accusation by her supervisor that she didn’t do enough, that she was ultimately ‘a traitor to the Chinese people.’ Ha Jin gives us a poignant twist in the fate of our narrator Anling, whose grown son just happens to be in Tokyo taking a Japanese wife when all hell is being unleashed in his homeland.” –Washington Post
“Jin, who has eloquently chronicled the Chinese experience both at home and in the United States, fastens on a single drama within the larger one of the massacre…staggering.” –Obit Magazine
“Jin has done a wonderful job of weaving an ordered tapestry from the phantasmagoric fog of that episode. His control over his characters is masterful; Japanese officers can be kindly, victims can be stridently impatient for vengeance. All are human.” –Washington Independent Review of Books
“Nanjing Requiem remains muted in memory. What you most remember, once you put down the book, is not agony and hopelessness, not darkness and blood, but rather the reach of human goodness…When we leave this crushingly beautiful, crushingly sad book, Ha Jin leaves us with the memory of good work, people saving lives, the worth of reaching out, even when death and despair prevail.” –Pop Matters
“Exquisitely painful…creates an unforgettable impression.” –St. Louis Dispatch
“An affecting, insightful portrait of Minnie Vautrin.” –Oregonian
“Nanjing Requiem is both plainspoken and revelatory, the saddest of Ha Jin’s novels. After this past decade of armed conflict, which has put millions of civilians at risk, his reminder of the human costs of war is also, unfortunately, timely.” –Boston Globe
“Sparse and unadorned, his prose refuses to call attention to itself. Jin’s angles are rarely oblique, and his economy of words feels almost utilitarian: his is a concern with precision, honesty, and direct description… Nanjing Requiem’s restraint is deliberate, and its narrative simplicity proves not a fault, but an achievement… Though his subject of choice is deeply disquieting, Jin does not set out to shock. Shying from bombast and hyperbole, his syntax relishes the minimal and leaves few words out of place. The power of his prose lies not in any self-indulgent flourish, but in its far-reaching resonance.” –Open Letters Monthly
“The deeper the reader delves into the book, the greater the sense of illumination…Jin again shows himself to be one of our most humane writers, maintaining an honesty that just can't be faked.” –Barnes & Noble Review
“Captivating…In Jin’s conscientious hands, Vautrin becomes someone the reader can identify with—and a timeless hero to remember.” –Ms. Magazine
“A tale worth retelling.” –Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
About the Author
HA JIN's previous books include the internationally best-selling Waiting, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award and the National Book Award; War Trash, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award; the story collections Under the Red Flag, which won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and Ocean of Words, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award; and three books of poetry.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
38 of 40 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
First, a few words on my background with this author. I was required to read Waiting: A Novel in college, and while I didn't mind reading it, I found it pretty dry and knew I would never have chosen to read it on my own. I did choose to read War Trash a few years ago when it was recommended by a coworker after we toured the Korean DMZ together one weekend. I started it, and while I didn't dislike it, it didn't grab my interest. Eventually I gave up on it somewhere in the middle chapters when another book which I'd been dying to read for months finally came out. I told myself I would return to it after I finished the new book, but I never did.
So I was a bit ambivalent about reading another Ha Jin book; somewhere along the line I came to associate him with dry, slow-paced, mediocre writing. The subject matter did grab my attention this time: A literary celebration of the heroes of the Rape of Nanjing is certainly an interesting premise. But I wondered whether the author could do it justice.
Did he ever! This is a wonderful book. It tells the tale of Minnie Vautrin, an American missionary and acting president of Jinling College during the Japanese capture of Nanjing. Vautrin joins a number of other Westerners in making property in the Western district available for refugee camps, banking on the hope that Japan will be too concerned with maintaining good relations with the West to violate Western property. Chinese from other neighborhoods in the city as well as the surrounding countryside came pouring into the Safety Zone these foreigners established and soon every refugee camp was filled to capacity several times over. Discipline broke down in the Imperial Army's ranks after China's Republican capital fell, and soldiers engaged in a stomach-churning orgy of violence throughout the region that lasted for months. They sometimes respected the Safety Zone's neutrality, but often they did not. Minnie Vautrin and others like her were constantly confronting Japanese soldiers within their refugee camps, trying to repel them with bluster and bluff and little else. Complaints were lodged with the Japanese authorities, but nothing came of them. Evidence of war crimes was quietly gathered, but by the time Japan had been defeated and the war crimes tribunals were seated, the West was more concerned with the Cold War and went easy on prominent Japanese officials so as not to antagonize a strategically-significant potential ally.
The first forty percent of the book or so tells of refugees seeking admission to the Safety Zone and of desperate attempts to protect these refugees from harm. Jinling admitted only women; the only males in the camp (aside from staff) were boys under thirteen fleeing with their mothers. This made the camp a particular target for Japanese who looked forward to the opportunity to carry out sexual assaults without the danger that their victims would be defended by adult male relatives. So much rape in those chapters, and we see Minnie Vautrin come to regret her decision to set up an all-female camp, as well as wrestle with impossible moral dilemmas in the interest of protecting as many women as she can.
The remaining three fifths of the book deal with the aftermath of the Rape of Nanjing. Discipline in the ranks was eventually restored, and the refugee camps finally emptied as civilians could feel relatively safe. But the occupation continued, and the destruction of property and farmland left so many people displaced and impoverished. Among some characters there's a sense of "The worst is over, time to move on." I realized with a bit of a shock that their side had won the battle to write history: I was familiar with the orgy of violence that followed the fall of Nanjing, and as I read the first two sections of the book much was familiar to me; but the rest of it was completely unknown to me, and I realized I'd never thought to ask how long the aftermath and privations lingered on.
Minnie starts two new programs at the once-exclusive women's college designed to equip poor women with economically valuable skills so that they can survive the bold new world in which they find themselves. She eventually meets stiff resistance in the form of Mrs Dennison, the retired President of Jinling who was in America during the Rape of Nanjing and returns unable to understand the depth and breadth of the inhumanity that had so recently visited the city. She is determined to see Jinling regain its elitist college reputation as soon as possible and fights Minnie's attempts to minister to Nanjing's destitute. She, the Japanese authorities, and various Chinese all attack Minnie's reputation, asking painful questions about impossible decisions Minnie made in the heat of the moment, all of which were intended to minimize refugee suffering but many of which had unfortunate side effects. Minnie is already haunted by the memories of the many refugees she couldn't save, and this defamation of character overwhelms her. . . . But then, I'd better not spoil something so close to the novel's ending.
Minnie Vautrin and the Americans and Germans with whom she coordinates attempts to save refugees were all real, as were a host of other VIPs who appeared or were referenced in various roles. Ha Jin researched Vautrin extensively, using her diaries as well as primary sources of people who knew her during the crisis. We are also introduced to a range of Chinese characters who suffer mightily and tell stories full of pathos. I'm not sure whether any given one of them was historical or fictional; I am sure that they are moving and sympathetic.
The viewpoint character is Anling, forewoman of Jinling and Minnie's tireless assistant. I don't know whether she is historical either. I found her less well-realized than many of the characters with whom she interacted. She just didn't come across as being all that interesting, and my interest definitely tended to flag during chapters where she attended to her own affairs instead of helping Minnie attend to hers.
Otherwise, my judgment that Ha Jin's writing is slow-paced and dry has not been borne up by this book. The post-Rape of Nanjing storylines develop at a slower pace than those that developed during the hectic worst of the crisis; indeed, they feel downright leisurely by comparison. But they never feel like they're dragging. Despite what I said in the previous paragraph about Anling-centered chapters, none of the subplots ever feel dull. Characters, especially Minnie herself, are strong, and carry many a scene that might otherwise have fallen flat. Also, the book's pacing is helped by the fact that the slightly less than 300 pages are divided into no fewer than fifty-two chapters. As I've said elsewhere, I heartily approve of short chapters; they prevent a book from bogging down and indicate that the author has put a great deal of thought into what he or she wants to say, what is relevant to a given subject, what is not, and how different aspects of the narrative should lead from one to the next.
There is room for a bit of nitpicking: The book got Shiro Ishii's rank wrong, and in one very odd scene, Anling and her daughter--both Christians--suggest that their son/brother--also a Christian--might want to consider becoming a polygamist. Umm. . . .
I'm not inclined to criticize, though. The stronger a story is, the more willing I am to overlook such pecadilloes, and this is an extremely strong story, one of the strongest I've read this year. It carries my highest recommendation.
So I was a bit ambivalent about reading another Ha Jin book; somewhere along the line I came to associate him with dry, slow-paced, mediocre writing. The subject matter did grab my attention this time: A literary celebration of the heroes of the Rape of Nanjing is certainly an interesting premise. But I wondered whether the author could do it justice.
Did he ever! This is a wonderful book. It tells the tale of Minnie Vautrin, an American missionary and acting president of Jinling College during the Japanese capture of Nanjing. Vautrin joins a number of other Westerners in making property in the Western district available for refugee camps, banking on the hope that Japan will be too concerned with maintaining good relations with the West to violate Western property. Chinese from other neighborhoods in the city as well as the surrounding countryside came pouring into the Safety Zone these foreigners established and soon every refugee camp was filled to capacity several times over. Discipline broke down in the Imperial Army's ranks after China's Republican capital fell, and soldiers engaged in a stomach-churning orgy of violence throughout the region that lasted for months. They sometimes respected the Safety Zone's neutrality, but often they did not. Minnie Vautrin and others like her were constantly confronting Japanese soldiers within their refugee camps, trying to repel them with bluster and bluff and little else. Complaints were lodged with the Japanese authorities, but nothing came of them. Evidence of war crimes was quietly gathered, but by the time Japan had been defeated and the war crimes tribunals were seated, the West was more concerned with the Cold War and went easy on prominent Japanese officials so as not to antagonize a strategically-significant potential ally.
The first forty percent of the book or so tells of refugees seeking admission to the Safety Zone and of desperate attempts to protect these refugees from harm. Jinling admitted only women; the only males in the camp (aside from staff) were boys under thirteen fleeing with their mothers. This made the camp a particular target for Japanese who looked forward to the opportunity to carry out sexual assaults without the danger that their victims would be defended by adult male relatives. So much rape in those chapters, and we see Minnie Vautrin come to regret her decision to set up an all-female camp, as well as wrestle with impossible moral dilemmas in the interest of protecting as many women as she can.
The remaining three fifths of the book deal with the aftermath of the Rape of Nanjing. Discipline in the ranks was eventually restored, and the refugee camps finally emptied as civilians could feel relatively safe. But the occupation continued, and the destruction of property and farmland left so many people displaced and impoverished. Among some characters there's a sense of "The worst is over, time to move on." I realized with a bit of a shock that their side had won the battle to write history: I was familiar with the orgy of violence that followed the fall of Nanjing, and as I read the first two sections of the book much was familiar to me; but the rest of it was completely unknown to me, and I realized I'd never thought to ask how long the aftermath and privations lingered on.
Minnie starts two new programs at the once-exclusive women's college designed to equip poor women with economically valuable skills so that they can survive the bold new world in which they find themselves. She eventually meets stiff resistance in the form of Mrs Dennison, the retired President of Jinling who was in America during the Rape of Nanjing and returns unable to understand the depth and breadth of the inhumanity that had so recently visited the city. She is determined to see Jinling regain its elitist college reputation as soon as possible and fights Minnie's attempts to minister to Nanjing's destitute. She, the Japanese authorities, and various Chinese all attack Minnie's reputation, asking painful questions about impossible decisions Minnie made in the heat of the moment, all of which were intended to minimize refugee suffering but many of which had unfortunate side effects. Minnie is already haunted by the memories of the many refugees she couldn't save, and this defamation of character overwhelms her. . . . But then, I'd better not spoil something so close to the novel's ending.
Minnie Vautrin and the Americans and Germans with whom she coordinates attempts to save refugees were all real, as were a host of other VIPs who appeared or were referenced in various roles. Ha Jin researched Vautrin extensively, using her diaries as well as primary sources of people who knew her during the crisis. We are also introduced to a range of Chinese characters who suffer mightily and tell stories full of pathos. I'm not sure whether any given one of them was historical or fictional; I am sure that they are moving and sympathetic.
The viewpoint character is Anling, forewoman of Jinling and Minnie's tireless assistant. I don't know whether she is historical either. I found her less well-realized than many of the characters with whom she interacted. She just didn't come across as being all that interesting, and my interest definitely tended to flag during chapters where she attended to her own affairs instead of helping Minnie attend to hers.
Otherwise, my judgment that Ha Jin's writing is slow-paced and dry has not been borne up by this book. The post-Rape of Nanjing storylines develop at a slower pace than those that developed during the hectic worst of the crisis; indeed, they feel downright leisurely by comparison. But they never feel like they're dragging. Despite what I said in the previous paragraph about Anling-centered chapters, none of the subplots ever feel dull. Characters, especially Minnie herself, are strong, and carry many a scene that might otherwise have fallen flat. Also, the book's pacing is helped by the fact that the slightly less than 300 pages are divided into no fewer than fifty-two chapters. As I've said elsewhere, I heartily approve of short chapters; they prevent a book from bogging down and indicate that the author has put a great deal of thought into what he or she wants to say, what is relevant to a given subject, what is not, and how different aspects of the narrative should lead from one to the next.
There is room for a bit of nitpicking: The book got Shiro Ishii's rank wrong, and in one very odd scene, Anling and her daughter--both Christians--suggest that their son/brother--also a Christian--might want to consider becoming a polygamist. Umm. . . .
I'm not inclined to criticize, though. The stronger a story is, the more willing I am to overlook such pecadilloes, and this is an extremely strong story, one of the strongest I've read this year. It carries my highest recommendation.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
The intent of Ha Jin's new novel "Nanjing Requiem" is to bring the atrocities of the Japanese, during what is know as 'The Rape of Nanjing" to a wider public, as well as to celebrate the bravery of several Westerners who lived through this period and sought to stand up to the Japanese and protect innocent Chinese from slaughter. In particular the novel focuses on real life, Minnie Vautrin, an American missionary and the Dean of Jinling Women's College, which she used to shelter thousands who sought to escape the atrocities.
"Nanjing Requiem" is a piece of historical fiction. In this genre an author takes a story of real and or imagined characters and brings the immediacy of their historical period to life through the interplay of history and the intimacy of the characters lives. Unfortunately as a pice of historical fiction "Nanjing Requiem" fails. There is no underlying intimate storyline. We merely have here a seemingly endless recitation of facts. For example on Dec. 8., Minnie went here and confronted the Japanese authorities. On Jan. 10 she went there and confronted the Japanese. There is no underlying story that holds the historical facts together and makes those facts real and immediate to the reader. The writing is so wooden that the endless description of brutality loses all emotional power to move the reader. I can only compare this novel to another work of historical fiction which is vastly superior, Ballard's 'Empire of the Sun", also concerned with Japanese brutality.
"Nanjing Requiem" sadly is a terrible disappointment, as The Rape of Nanjing is a story that needs to be told.
"Nanjing Requiem" is a piece of historical fiction. In this genre an author takes a story of real and or imagined characters and brings the immediacy of their historical period to life through the interplay of history and the intimacy of the characters lives. Unfortunately as a pice of historical fiction "Nanjing Requiem" fails. There is no underlying intimate storyline. We merely have here a seemingly endless recitation of facts. For example on Dec. 8., Minnie went here and confronted the Japanese authorities. On Jan. 10 she went there and confronted the Japanese. There is no underlying story that holds the historical facts together and makes those facts real and immediate to the reader. The writing is so wooden that the endless description of brutality loses all emotional power to move the reader. I can only compare this novel to another work of historical fiction which is vastly superior, Ballard's 'Empire of the Sun", also concerned with Japanese brutality.
"Nanjing Requiem" sadly is a terrible disappointment, as The Rape of Nanjing is a story that needs to be told.
26 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Ha Jin's new novel, "Nanjing Requiem" recounts the Nanjing (or Nanking) Massacre (often called the Rape of Nanking) and its aftermath centering around the real person of Minnie Vautrin who was an American missionary and a founder of the Jinling College for Girls in Nanjing.
The narrator of the novel is a fictionalized assistant at the college, Anling, and it is through her eyes we witness the horrific atrocities that the Japanese army perpetrated on the Chinese. Minnie Vautrin, and others, are credited with saved many many Chinese lives as they ran a bursting-at-the-seems refugee camp during the massacre.
Interestingly, Ha Jin's prose style, through Anling's narration, is rather dry and unemotional. It reads like a straight-forward litany of facts from a daily journal: "this happened then that happened"...yet the reader can't help but be horrified by the descriptions of brutal and sadistic rapes, mass killings and putrefying bodies polluting the water systems. I assume that Jin's stylistic remove is intentional; the facts speak for themselves, no sentimentality is required, but I found it off-putting and, since this is a novel and not a history text, I longed for a more "interior" view of the characters. A passage about a mix-up in apartments reads with the same dispassion as the horrors of germ warfare practiced on the insane.
Also disconcerting was the slang used in the narration. It seemed out of the 50s and 60s, and I suppose it was meant also to affect the remove...as if all was being told after much time had gone by to fog the emotions. I'm afraid that these stylistic quirks did not work for me, preventing me from feeling truly "in" the story. Others may prefer it as it makes the story more like a historical account full of facts and figures.
The narrator of the novel is a fictionalized assistant at the college, Anling, and it is through her eyes we witness the horrific atrocities that the Japanese army perpetrated on the Chinese. Minnie Vautrin, and others, are credited with saved many many Chinese lives as they ran a bursting-at-the-seems refugee camp during the massacre.
Interestingly, Ha Jin's prose style, through Anling's narration, is rather dry and unemotional. It reads like a straight-forward litany of facts from a daily journal: "this happened then that happened"...yet the reader can't help but be horrified by the descriptions of brutal and sadistic rapes, mass killings and putrefying bodies polluting the water systems. I assume that Jin's stylistic remove is intentional; the facts speak for themselves, no sentimentality is required, but I found it off-putting and, since this is a novel and not a history text, I longed for a more "interior" view of the characters. A passage about a mix-up in apartments reads with the same dispassion as the horrors of germ warfare practiced on the insane.
Also disconcerting was the slang used in the narration. It seemed out of the 50s and 60s, and I suppose it was meant also to affect the remove...as if all was being told after much time had gone by to fog the emotions. I'm afraid that these stylistic quirks did not work for me, preventing me from feeling truly "in" the story. Others may prefer it as it makes the story more like a historical account full of facts and figures.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Excellent Read
I have never been disappointed by any of Ha Jin's books and Nanjing Requiem is no exception. It's a compelling novel about foreigners running a school in China when it was invaded... Read more
Published 9 days ago by Gypsy Laurie
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great historical event, but fails to come alive as a novel
The Japanese slaughtered and raped the civilian population as they stormed Nanjing at the beginning of what would become World War Two. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Alan Mills
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not Ha Jin's Best Work
While I found this historical topic very interesting, this is not the author's best work, in part because he seems to focus more on the historical details of the moment, instead of... Read more
Published 1 month ago by HardyBoy64
3.0 out of 5 stars
Where's the Emotion?
I am giving this book a 3, because I'd known nothing about this situation and am always glad to gain knowledge. Read more
Published 2 months ago by B. S. Diederich
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ha Jin's Tribute to the Survivors and Victims of Nanjing
Ha Jin tells the story of Nanjing through the life of an American missionary named Minnie Vautrin. Before the Japanese invade, she is the principal of a women's college in the... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Lynn Ellingwood
3.0 out of 5 stars
About Cuisinart Griddler:
I need a transformer in order to use this article; the electricity in Europe (not Great Britain) is different from USA; I need a transformer for the plug attached to the griddler,... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Eleni Prenzel
1.0 out of 5 stars
Big Disappointment
I read "Nanjing Requiem" authored by Ha Jin whose books had in the past received many awards and honors because its description leads me to believe that it is an epic which sooths... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Dichou
1.0 out of 5 stars
A Question of Integrity
December 13, 2012 is the 75th anniversary of the Rape of Nanking. By posting this review now, I hope not to discourage so much as to encourage more fledgling writers to tackle... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Ivy Lee
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing
Having read all of the other books by this author I expected more. The characters in the novel are boring, predictable, and did not interest me a great deal. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Oma4
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting
Liked the way the author told the story from a participant point of view. The book was easy to read and understand. The historical facts were true. Read more
Published 7 months ago by irishmom
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