Books Etc's Blog

A Free Life
by Ha Jin
paperback 672pgs.
vintage

Ha Jin's new novel, A Free Life, is a wonderfully meticulous and subtle account of a Chinese Family's experience as immigrants in the United States. The acclaimed author's lengthy work received mixed reviews upon it's initial publication in this country. I believe this is due in large part to it's pointed avoidance of melodrama, in favor of a deliberately paced accounting of the banal details of life's everyday struggles. This thoroughness may not provide a conventionally satisfying dramatic experience but it does authentically portray the rhythms of life and is genuinely moving it this respect.
It tells the story of Nan Wu, his wife Pingping and their son Taotao and their struggle to make ends meet after their immigration to the U.S. in aftermath of the Tainanmen massacre. Nan Wu and Pingping share a fragile relationship complicated by it's lack of romantic love, their bond being forged primarily by their commitment to raising their child. Nan Wu's struggle may be difficult for some readers to sympathize with as he constantly pines for his lost love to the detriment of his marriage and struggles with his ambition to write poetry while facing the practical demands of supporting a family. Yet these concerns are precisely what render the narrative an authentic portrait of life's real tribulations and provide an emotional thread to bind the largely episodic narrative together. A Free Life is Ha Jin's first novel written directly in English and this gives it's language a simplicity which some may find awkward, yet it's crucial in giving the work an authentic clarity. New in paperback, A Free Life is a long and in some ways demanding work that moves at a slow pace but it rewards one's attention thoroughly and leaves the reader pining for more at it's conclusion.

-john