"I'm fine here, Lenny. I'm discovering who I am without all my ornaments and accessories. It's quite a slow process, but a very useful one. Everybody ought to do the same at the end of their life. If I had any self-discipline I would beat my grandson to it and write my own memoirs. I have time, freedom, and silence, the three things I never had amidst all the noise of my earlier life. I'm preparing to die."
-Alma Belasco, from the novel
This novel was selected for our Page Turners group for May because we could get multiple copies from our local library, known as a "book bundle." From the short description offered on the library site, it sounded interesting and indeed it was.
The story begins with 23-year-old Irina Bazili working at Lark House, a retirement community. There she meets aging resident Alma Belasco who hires Irina to be her personal assistant. The two become emotionally attached as Alma tells her story of being sent to the U.S. from Poland in 1939, living a good life with her aunt and uncle and falling in love with Ichimei Fukuda, the gardener's son, as a very young girl. This would end up being a 'love affair for the ages," literally.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor when the Fukuda family is relocated to Topaz in Utah, one of several internment camps, Ichimei and Alma are cruelly separated. This part of Ichi's story reminded me of a Japanese-American friend who has shared the story of his family's internment when he was young so it seemed very real to me and was quite personal. Alma and Ichi are reunited from time to time through the years and the plot is interspersed with letters to her from him. So one might think from that and the title that the whole plot is summarized but then secrets are revealed one by one, from Alma but also Irina.
In The Japanese Lover, Allende has woven together stories of two unique women, one young and one old, both survivors of the problems life has thrown their way, and she has done it in her very engaging style. I enjoyed the book and have rated it a 4.
More after our meeting....(caution: spoilers ahead)
We had a great discussion today even though the book received very mixed reviews. The group average rating is 3.3, ranging from 4's to one 2. A couple of people agreed that if they had liked the main character, Alma, more they might have enjoyed the book more. Some of us thought she was very self-absorbed. Someone brought up the fact that she did not have the courage to take her relationship with Ichi to the next level although Ichi's sister Megumi absolutely did. A few people questioned whether Alma's meetings with Ichi were even real. We used discussion questions from the publisher which hardly even mentioned Irina. A couple of our members thought she was contrived. I personally found her more likeable than Alma.
Some in the group admitted to being confused about the timing of the events. The author's style received comments both positive and negative. Several folks had read her work before and liked it but some had not enjoyed her other novels. Her addition of ghosts left us wondering...
It is strange that normally we would rate a book higher AFTER the discussion but in the case of The Japanese Lover we thought we might rank it lower!
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