Waiting

WAITING:Ha Jin: Pantheon: Fiction: 308 pgs.

Ha Jin was born in Northern China in 1956. At age 14 he joined the People’s Liberation Army, a background that perfectly suits him to understand the dilemmas and the sufferings of the Chinese people. Waiting is a quiet novel that portrays Lin Kong, an army medical doctor in China during the Cultural Revolution, who is trapped in multiple dilemmas. As an army officer he must abide by the regulations of the army and party leaders, yet he surreptitiously maintains a private library of forbidden books. Trapped in a loveless arranged marriage with a woman from his home village, he finds a measure of freedom in his life at an army medical facility. There he meets a nurse and falls in love, but such relationships are strictly forbidden by Communist Party rules and by ancient ties of tradition. Year after year he returns to his home village to obtain a divorce and year after year his wife agrees and then changes her mind once they are before the village judge. For 18 years, Lin’s love is kept waiting.

The final chapters are full of irony, does what men wait for ever truly satisfy? This is a powerful work of fiction that won the National Book Award in 1999. Since an unhappy marriage and a frustrated love relationship are the main plot elements, the reader should expect that there will be sexual content.

SH