What do you think?
Rate this book
The Boat Rocker
From the universally admired, award-winning author of Waiting and War Trash: an urgent, timely novel that follows an aspiring author, an outrageous book idea, and a lone journalist's dogged quest for truth in the Internet age.
New York, 2005. Chinese expatriate Feng Danlin is a fiercely principled reporter at a small news agency that produces a website read by Chinese all over the world. Danlin's explosive exposés have made him legendary among readers—and feared by Communist officials. But his newest assignment may be his undoing: investigating his ex-wife, Yan Haili, an unscrupulous novelist who has willingly become a pawn of the Chinese government in order to realize her dreams of literary stardom.
Haili's scheme infuriates Danlin both morally and personally--he will do whatever it takes to expose her as a fraud. But in outing Haili, he is also provoking her powerful political allies, and he will need to draw on all of his journalistic cunning to come out of this investigation with his career—and his life—still intact. A brilliant, darkly funny story of corruption, integrity, and the power of the pen, The Boat Rocker is a tour de force.
New York, 2005. Chinese expatriate Feng Danlin is a fiercely principled reporter at a small news agency that produces a website read by Chinese all over the world. Danlin's explosive exposés have made him legendary among readers—and feared by Communist officials. But his newest assignment may be his undoing: investigating his ex-wife, Yan Haili, an unscrupulous novelist who has willingly become a pawn of the Chinese government in order to realize her dreams of literary stardom.
Haili's scheme infuriates Danlin both morally and personally--he will do whatever it takes to expose her as a fraud. But in outing Haili, he is also provoking her powerful political allies, and he will need to draw on all of his journalistic cunning to come out of this investigation with his career—and his life—still intact. A brilliant, darkly funny story of corruption, integrity, and the power of the pen, The Boat Rocker is a tour de force.
Audiobook
First published October 25, 2016
87 people are currently reading
1434 people want to read
About the author
Ha Jin
60 books837 followersHa Jin is the pen name of Jin Xuefei, a novelist, poet, short story writer, and Professor of English at Boston University.Ha Jin writes in English about China, a political decision post-Tiananmen Square.
Ha Jin grew up in mainland China and served in the People’s Liberation Army in his teens for five years. After leaving the army, he worked for three years at a railroad company in a remote northeastern city, Jiamusi, and then went to college in Harbin, majoring in English. He has published in English ten novels, four story collections, four volumes of poetry, a book of essays, and a biography of Li Bai. His novel Waiting won the National Book Award for Fiction, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Ha Jin is William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor in English and Creative Writing at Boston University, and he has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His writing has been translated into more than thirty languages. Ha Jin’s novel The Woman Back from Moscow was published by Other Press in 2023.
Ha Jin grew up in mainland China and served in the People’s Liberation Army in his teens for five years. After leaving the army, he worked for three years at a railroad company in a remote northeastern city, Jiamusi, and then went to college in Harbin, majoring in English. He has published in English ten novels, four story collections, four volumes of poetry, a book of essays, and a biography of Li Bai. His novel Waiting won the National Book Award for Fiction, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Ha Jin is William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor in English and Creative Writing at Boston University, and he has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His writing has been translated into more than thirty languages. Ha Jin’s novel The Woman Back from Moscow was published by Other Press in 2023.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 224 reviews
November 1, 2016
Americans already held little respect for journalists before this presidential campaign dragged their faith to all-time lows. But for all our grousing about bias, corporate concentration and the eye-crossing inanity of what passes for news, the First Amendment still allows us to express ourselves with a presumption of freedom unimaginable to many people around the world. The question of how that precious liberty should be exercised has never seemed more pertinent.
How timely, then, to read this strange, intense novel from Ha Jin about the glories and limits of the freedom of the press. A former Chinese army soldier who chose to stay in the United States after the Tiananmen Square massacre, Ha Jin has lived and worked under two very different sets of rules. He knows the Communist Party’s elaborate control of mass media just as well as he understands the free market’s complicated influence on what we read and watch. That bifocal vision brings uncanny depth to. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
How timely, then, to read this strange, intense novel from Ha Jin about the glories and limits of the freedom of the press. A former Chinese army soldier who chose to stay in the United States after the Tiananmen Square massacre, Ha Jin has lived and worked under two very different sets of rules. He knows the Communist Party’s elaborate control of mass media just as well as he understands the free market’s complicated influence on what we read and watch. That bifocal vision brings uncanny depth to. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
January 15, 2018
I hated every page of this book.
I started hopefully, because I was intrigued by Waiting and have been wanting to read Ha Jin’s other books for a long time. But my hackles went up on the first page—in the second paragraph—and I only got more and more suspicious until finally it was confirmed. I finished the book, because when I hate something like this I need to know that nothing changes toward the end that might have influenced my opinion. It didn’t.
There are minor issues with the book, like the fact that despite being written in English, it has the sound of an awkward translation. But the most significant problem is that the premise is a lie. (I can’t write this post without spoilers, so be aware of that from now on.)
The jacket blurb and online descriptions call it “a lone journalist’s dogged quest for truth,” describing the protagonist as “fiercely principled.” I am at an absolute loss to see how anyone could take this view. Rather than a journalist whose integrity and courage compel him to report truth even in the face of outside pressure, Feng Danlin is, by his own admission, a man getting revenge on his ex-wife. That is literally how he introduces the subject when his boss gives him the news that his ex-wife is writing a book, and the assignment to write on it.
The most frustrating thing is that aside from the flagrant conflict of interest in his taking this assignment, he doesn’t even have a convincing case. Haili, the ex-wife, is publishing a novel that’s getting a lot of hype. Danlin, the clearly objective ex-husband, thinks there’s no way it could be any good, and his boss, Kaiming, tells him—with absolutely no substantiating information—that the ex-wife's publisher and editor, both of whom Kaiming met for the first time within the past month, are “crooks.” It is wholly on the basis of this information that they decide they must “expose this scam,” believing the Communist Party must be supporting the book. They discuss the conflict of interest for approximately four seconds, concluding that the “scumbags” they’re “dealing with” don’t play by the rules, so they shouldn’t either. By this point, on page two, the protagonist has called his ex a bitch twice.
As Danlin and his boss see more promotions for the book, other issues arise, like the fact that it claims to be an autobiographical novel, which Danlin knows it isn’t—but then, it is fiction. (Haili does interviews claiming it’s based on her life, which she says is “part of the conceit”—but again, the book is fiction, so I don't really understand this.) The publisher also claims that it’s being translated by the most famous Chinese translator, which it isn’t, and that there’s a movie deal, which turns out to be true, although it’s not finalized at the time of the announcement. But again, Danlin and Kaiming knew none of these things when they embarked on this campaign, and both declare at different times that if the book were good, they wouldn’t care about how it was promoted. So the entire justification for their vendetta is that, without having read the book, they don’t think it’s any good.
I wonder, sincerely, if there is an element I’m missing to do with the politics of publishing between China and the United States. But Ha Jin does address that in the book, and it never seemed like a good enough explanation for this level of response. In the first place, as far as I can tell, the stakes are . . . very low. What’s the worst that happens if she publishes this book? People read it and are disappointed? They’re out $15 and a few hours of their time? The critics who promoted it are discredited? How is the book not being good a problem worth this level of concern? Are we supposed to believe this is the first time the Communist Party has influenced the publishing of a book by a Chinese author?
But in the second and more important place, regardless of the significance of the issue—none of this is about Danlin’s principles. From page one, he is motivated entirely by hatred of his ex-wife (a hatred which, for the record, goes far beyond her mistreatment of him and into a misogyny that is reflected on the other female characters in the book as well). Later on, as the issue gets more complicated, there are plenty of exchanges about the integrity of journalism, the corruption behind governmental involvement in the arts, etc. But that is not why he embarked on this campaign, or continued it. A person engaged in a principled pursuit of journalistic integrity does not write something like this, intending to publish it:
Thankfully, Danlin’s newspaper does not approve this for publication (though only because they think it would make him too vulnerable by putting him on the defensive), and he muses later that it might be inappropriate to discuss his and his girlfriend's sex life, printing her full name and place of employment in a newspaper, without even asking her.
Finally, after writing one of his many articles denouncing Haili, Danlin is frustrated that the prep school where she works might never hear about this “scandal” if someone didn’t “alert” them—I suppose because tanking her book and humiliating her publicly won’t be sufficient if she does not also lose her day job.
And yet “scruples,” somehow, are exactly what everyone thinks the book is about.
This seems so obvious to me, and I am utterly bewildered by the reception I’ve seen elsewhere. Reviews from The New York Times , The Washington Post , Publisher's Weekly , Kirkus , and BookPage are all positive, and only the latter two are even remotely critical of the protagonist’s reliability. They call it satire, but it's not Danlin’s behavior that’s being satirized. When the reviews talk about “Kafkaesque absurdity,” they seem to be taking the perspective of the protagonist, who has a sort of “I can’t believe this is happening to me” attitude throughout the book—it always seems to be the Chinese government’s behavior they’re referring to, not Danlin’s. If the protagonist is in fact intended to be the subject of satire, Poe’s law must be hard at work, because I cannot tell. Ergo: I do not understand how I’m supposed to read this book and come away thinking it’s about journalistic integrity. If anything, it is about misogyny with a variety of cultural and literary layers, both inside the book and out. It had a good premise, engaged a lot of important and timely issues about journalism and government. It could have been a really great book, if it had been the book it claimed to be.
I started hopefully, because I was intrigued by Waiting and have been wanting to read Ha Jin’s other books for a long time. But my hackles went up on the first page—in the second paragraph—and I only got more and more suspicious until finally it was confirmed. I finished the book, because when I hate something like this I need to know that nothing changes toward the end that might have influenced my opinion. It didn’t.
There are minor issues with the book, like the fact that despite being written in English, it has the sound of an awkward translation. But the most significant problem is that the premise is a lie. (I can’t write this post without spoilers, so be aware of that from now on.)
The jacket blurb and online descriptions call it “a lone journalist’s dogged quest for truth,” describing the protagonist as “fiercely principled.” I am at an absolute loss to see how anyone could take this view. Rather than a journalist whose integrity and courage compel him to report truth even in the face of outside pressure, Feng Danlin is, by his own admission, a man getting revenge on his ex-wife. That is literally how he introduces the subject when his boss gives him the news that his ex-wife is writing a book, and the assignment to write on it.
The bitch will never change, I realized. I wouldn’t let her get away with it this time. I’d figure out a way to expose all her chicaneries and vanity. Even if she begged me on her knees, I wouldn’t relent . . . [My boss] knew how much I hated my ex-wife—that our marriage had lasted only three years before she’d found someone else, and that I couldn’t wait to get even with her.
The most frustrating thing is that aside from the flagrant conflict of interest in his taking this assignment, he doesn’t even have a convincing case. Haili, the ex-wife, is publishing a novel that’s getting a lot of hype. Danlin, the clearly objective ex-husband, thinks there’s no way it could be any good, and his boss, Kaiming, tells him—with absolutely no substantiating information—that the ex-wife's publisher and editor, both of whom Kaiming met for the first time within the past month, are “crooks.” It is wholly on the basis of this information that they decide they must “expose this scam,” believing the Communist Party must be supporting the book. They discuss the conflict of interest for approximately four seconds, concluding that the “scumbags” they’re “dealing with” don’t play by the rules, so they shouldn’t either. By this point, on page two, the protagonist has called his ex a bitch twice.
As Danlin and his boss see more promotions for the book, other issues arise, like the fact that it claims to be an autobiographical novel, which Danlin knows it isn’t—but then, it is fiction. (Haili does interviews claiming it’s based on her life, which she says is “part of the conceit”—but again, the book is fiction, so I don't really understand this.) The publisher also claims that it’s being translated by the most famous Chinese translator, which it isn’t, and that there’s a movie deal, which turns out to be true, although it’s not finalized at the time of the announcement. But again, Danlin and Kaiming knew none of these things when they embarked on this campaign, and both declare at different times that if the book were good, they wouldn’t care about how it was promoted. So the entire justification for their vendetta is that, without having read the book, they don’t think it’s any good.
I wonder, sincerely, if there is an element I’m missing to do with the politics of publishing between China and the United States. But Ha Jin does address that in the book, and it never seemed like a good enough explanation for this level of response. In the first place, as far as I can tell, the stakes are . . . very low. What’s the worst that happens if she publishes this book? People read it and are disappointed? They’re out $15 and a few hours of their time? The critics who promoted it are discredited? How is the book not being good a problem worth this level of concern? Are we supposed to believe this is the first time the Communist Party has influenced the publishing of a book by a Chinese author?
But in the second and more important place, regardless of the significance of the issue—none of this is about Danlin’s principles. From page one, he is motivated entirely by hatred of his ex-wife (a hatred which, for the record, goes far beyond her mistreatment of him and into a misogyny that is reflected on the other female characters in the book as well). Later on, as the issue gets more complicated, there are plenty of exchanges about the integrity of journalism, the corruption behind governmental involvement in the arts, etc. But that is not why he embarked on this campaign, or continued it. A person engaged in a principled pursuit of journalistic integrity does not write something like this, intending to publish it:
Before knowing my current girlfriend, sometimes I did have difficulties with women like my ex-wife, who simply turned me off and made me feel not only henpecked but also emasculated. I couldn’t bring myself to kiss her on the mouth, as though she were ill, her body fluids contagious (including her tears). Now I am proud to say that I am all right between the sheets. You may ask my girlfriend, Katie Torney, a professor of sociology at NYU, how I do in bed if you are not convinced.
Thankfully, Danlin’s newspaper does not approve this for publication (though only because they think it would make him too vulnerable by putting him on the defensive), and he muses later that it might be inappropriate to discuss his and his girlfriend's sex life, printing her full name and place of employment in a newspaper, without even asking her.
Finally, after writing one of his many articles denouncing Haili, Danlin is frustrated that the prep school where she works might never hear about this “scandal” if someone didn’t “alert” them—I suppose because tanking her book and humiliating her publicly won’t be sufficient if she does not also lose her day job.
I’d been debating whether, once the article was out, to pop a copy into the mail to her employer with a letter enclosed, but that would amount to career assassination. So what? I was fighting a war, in which no scruples should apply.
And yet “scruples,” somehow, are exactly what everyone thinks the book is about.
This seems so obvious to me, and I am utterly bewildered by the reception I’ve seen elsewhere. Reviews from The New York Times , The Washington Post , Publisher's Weekly , Kirkus , and BookPage are all positive, and only the latter two are even remotely critical of the protagonist’s reliability. They call it satire, but it's not Danlin’s behavior that’s being satirized. When the reviews talk about “Kafkaesque absurdity,” they seem to be taking the perspective of the protagonist, who has a sort of “I can’t believe this is happening to me” attitude throughout the book—it always seems to be the Chinese government’s behavior they’re referring to, not Danlin’s. If the protagonist is in fact intended to be the subject of satire, Poe’s law must be hard at work, because I cannot tell. Ergo: I do not understand how I’m supposed to read this book and come away thinking it’s about journalistic integrity. If anything, it is about misogyny with a variety of cultural and literary layers, both inside the book and out. It had a good premise, engaged a lot of important and timely issues about journalism and government. It could have been a really great book, if it had been the book it claimed to be.
November 16, 2016
Disappointing
Ha Jin is the author of two of my favorite books: Waiting and War Trash. I've read most of his other work and was excited to see he had written a new novel. The writing in A Boat Rocker is as good as ever and so the book is pleasant reading. What I could not get past was the plot which I can only describe as ludicrous. This book would have been good, even great, had the conflict been about something that made sense. The Chinese journalist who is the protagonist is assigned a story that involves his ex-wife. She has written a book about a character whose husband supposedly dies in the 911 tragedy. She claims the book is autobiographical and that it will be translated into dozens of languages and that she has movie deals being negotiated. The protagonist writes column after column filled with personal details saying that the book is awful, it won't be translated and there is no movie deal. The book has been written in Chinese and will be published there. The author is also writing the movie script. The Chinese government gets involved and the plot thickens as he gets deeper and deeper in a quagmire. The interference of the Chinese government and the discussions about journalistic freedom would all make sense IF the premise made sense. There is no way I could buy into the tempest in a teapot and the journalists willingness to destroy his career in order to criticize his ex-wife's exaggeration of her book and movie deal. His belief that this lie must be exposed and his vigorous and self-righteous attack seemed totally outside logic.
Ha Jin seems to be using the novel to point out various ways that the government controls all of its citizens. He could have made that point had he come up with a reasonable situation that justified a journalist's fight for truth. Even the other characters try to make that point.
Ha Jin is the author of two of my favorite books: Waiting and War Trash. I've read most of his other work and was excited to see he had written a new novel. The writing in A Boat Rocker is as good as ever and so the book is pleasant reading. What I could not get past was the plot which I can only describe as ludicrous. This book would have been good, even great, had the conflict been about something that made sense. The Chinese journalist who is the protagonist is assigned a story that involves his ex-wife. She has written a book about a character whose husband supposedly dies in the 911 tragedy. She claims the book is autobiographical and that it will be translated into dozens of languages and that she has movie deals being negotiated. The protagonist writes column after column filled with personal details saying that the book is awful, it won't be translated and there is no movie deal. The book has been written in Chinese and will be published there. The author is also writing the movie script. The Chinese government gets involved and the plot thickens as he gets deeper and deeper in a quagmire. The interference of the Chinese government and the discussions about journalistic freedom would all make sense IF the premise made sense. There is no way I could buy into the tempest in a teapot and the journalists willingness to destroy his career in order to criticize his ex-wife's exaggeration of her book and movie deal. His belief that this lie must be exposed and his vigorous and self-righteous attack seemed totally outside logic.
Ha Jin seems to be using the novel to point out various ways that the government controls all of its citizens. He could have made that point had he come up with a reasonable situation that justified a journalist's fight for truth. Even the other characters try to make that point.
August 28, 2025
Jesus christ, just a huge fuck noooo. I knew two minutes in, talking about the bitch of his ex wife, that this book was going to be disappointing. I only finished it bc I needed a book published by a Dekalb County author for a reading challenge I’m doing from my library. So there. I finished it.
Book read for Dekalb County 100 Books in 100 Years 2025 reading challenge, item 57, A Book Published by a DeKalb County Author 77/100
https://dekalblibrary.org/100-years-1...
Book read for Dekalb County 100 Books in 100 Years 2025 reading challenge, item 57, A Book Published by a DeKalb County Author 77/100
https://dekalblibrary.org/100-years-1...
January 28, 2018
Feng Danlin is an expatriate Chinese living in New York. He's recently received his new American passport. He has an American girlfriend, and he's absolutely, completely Chinese at heart. There's no way he can let go of the things that irk him about China: its government, its culture of corruption, its unpredictability, its disregard for the individual, or what he misses about home: its wonderful food, its provinces, its people...they all haunt him.
When his former wife writes a terrible novel that is slated for international acclaim and film release, though, his feelings run amok. He must tell the truth, he says, and he must battle the giants who are pretending that the book is great. He sees this situation as reflecting China's loss and lack of culture, its willingness to lie for political purposes. He writes article after article, reporting his investigation into the people who are involved in his wife's project. He finds it exhilarating to both tweak the noses of those involved and worry about what revenge they will take.
He can't stop himself. At times, he's in control and sees himself as a sort of Don Quixote type. At other times, he realizes that he's a bit more like a small child throwing a tantrum. Through it all, he explores what it's like to love one's home, hate one's home, miss one's home, and have all of those things constantly swirling around in his mind. He's obsessed.
Jin often explores the effect of such dramatic conflicts on ordinary men, and uses their stories to reveal the myriad of competing memories and visions of the Chinese diaspora. Jin is a wonderful writer. His characters are deeply conflicted, absolutely believable, and moral in ways not oft seen in contemporary fiction.
When his former wife writes a terrible novel that is slated for international acclaim and film release, though, his feelings run amok. He must tell the truth, he says, and he must battle the giants who are pretending that the book is great. He sees this situation as reflecting China's loss and lack of culture, its willingness to lie for political purposes. He writes article after article, reporting his investigation into the people who are involved in his wife's project. He finds it exhilarating to both tweak the noses of those involved and worry about what revenge they will take.
He can't stop himself. At times, he's in control and sees himself as a sort of Don Quixote type. At other times, he realizes that he's a bit more like a small child throwing a tantrum. Through it all, he explores what it's like to love one's home, hate one's home, miss one's home, and have all of those things constantly swirling around in his mind. He's obsessed.
Jin often explores the effect of such dramatic conflicts on ordinary men, and uses their stories to reveal the myriad of competing memories and visions of the Chinese diaspora. Jin is a wonderful writer. His characters are deeply conflicted, absolutely believable, and moral in ways not oft seen in contemporary fiction.
April 1, 2017
Feng Danlin, the protagonist of “The Boat Rocker” is not only an extremely unreliable narrator but is portrayed as a self-righteous prig with an outsize sense of himself. He thinks he is (and doesn’t hesitate to tell others) a truthful journalist in the midst of a universe of scoundrels and liars. He is a person we may have met, read an article by or heard on the media—the only one who knows what is going on the world, who has the “real” story. At the same time he is an admirable character, one who is willing to defy the official and semi-official (meaning official but not acknowledged as such) agents of PRC policy operating among overseas Chinese in the United States.
Feng writes for a small Chinese language press service in New York City. He writes in Chinese and is assigned to an expose of really execrable romance and as yet unfinished Chinese romance novel, written by his ex-wife, that is being hailed as a combination of “Gone with the Wind” and “Remembrance of Things Past.” According to its unverifiable but constant publicity it has been endorsed by George W. Bush (The Boat Rocker takes place in 2004). There is a lucrative Hollywood movie adaptation based on an unfinished excerpt, publishing deals around the world and support from the Communist Party and its literary apparatus, which has position the book as part of “the cooperative spirit between the United States and China.” Its subject is a beautiful Chinese woman who loses the love of her life in the collapse of the twin towers—“Fifty Shades of 9/11” is suggested (only partially in jest) as a title.
Feng seems delusional in his sense of importance. He is convinced that "My acid tongue was legendary, my comments heart-stabbing, my views uncompromising, and my predictions sometimes even oracular.” He claims that Chinese in the diaspora find his writing to be like discovering a new continent—an unavoidable reference, at least to me, to “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” by Keats. Feng does not suffer from false humility—or feel any kind of modesty or reticence over his literary gifts.
The prose style Ha Jin has chosen for this book is even more laconic and unadorned as that of his other novels—although he does drop a few unexpected poetic visual images into the mix, perhaps just to see if we are paying attention. This style fits perfectly with what we know about the narrator—his written English is labored and clunky, perhaps still influenced from the official Chinese that he wrote as a reporter in China. Feng is still not comfortable with writing in English although when he speaks or thinks his thoughts and words are extraordinarily elegant and to the point. While Feng may have trouble expressing himself in his adopted language Ha Jin does not. With an MFA in creative writing from Boston University, where he currently teaches fiction writing, a Ph.D. from Brandeis in English and American literature and a bag full of luminous poetry in English, Ha Jin knows exactly the words he needs to make his characters and their situations resonate with the reader.
Feng writes for a small Chinese language press service in New York City. He writes in Chinese and is assigned to an expose of really execrable romance and as yet unfinished Chinese romance novel, written by his ex-wife, that is being hailed as a combination of “Gone with the Wind” and “Remembrance of Things Past.” According to its unverifiable but constant publicity it has been endorsed by George W. Bush (The Boat Rocker takes place in 2004). There is a lucrative Hollywood movie adaptation based on an unfinished excerpt, publishing deals around the world and support from the Communist Party and its literary apparatus, which has position the book as part of “the cooperative spirit between the United States and China.” Its subject is a beautiful Chinese woman who loses the love of her life in the collapse of the twin towers—“Fifty Shades of 9/11” is suggested (only partially in jest) as a title.
Feng seems delusional in his sense of importance. He is convinced that "My acid tongue was legendary, my comments heart-stabbing, my views uncompromising, and my predictions sometimes even oracular.” He claims that Chinese in the diaspora find his writing to be like discovering a new continent—an unavoidable reference, at least to me, to “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” by Keats. Feng does not suffer from false humility—or feel any kind of modesty or reticence over his literary gifts.
The prose style Ha Jin has chosen for this book is even more laconic and unadorned as that of his other novels—although he does drop a few unexpected poetic visual images into the mix, perhaps just to see if we are paying attention. This style fits perfectly with what we know about the narrator—his written English is labored and clunky, perhaps still influenced from the official Chinese that he wrote as a reporter in China. Feng is still not comfortable with writing in English although when he speaks or thinks his thoughts and words are extraordinarily elegant and to the point. While Feng may have trouble expressing himself in his adopted language Ha Jin does not. With an MFA in creative writing from Boston University, where he currently teaches fiction writing, a Ph.D. from Brandeis in English and American literature and a bag full of luminous poetry in English, Ha Jin knows exactly the words he needs to make his characters and their situations resonate with the reader.
May 9, 2018
Not much is tied up at the end of the story, which is quiet frustrating. This book is not so much about the fight that they narrator goes through to expose the truth but more about how China fails its citizens and other political inclinations of the author.
February 5, 2022
A Chinese man living in New York gets assigned to write an article on his ex-wife’s book, which is about to be published. He is angry at her for leaving him after a three-year marriage. It is a mixture of politics, publishing, and revenge. The main character expresses a great deal of misogyny, and this gets old very quickly. I think it is intended to speak to government control and journalistic integrity. Unfortunately, it does not do so in a logical or believable way. Perhaps it is intended to be satirical. Whatever the case, I did not like it.
November 19, 2016
The Boat Rocker, Ha Jin, author; Edoardo Ballerini, narrator
Feng Danlin and Yan Haili, were married in China. He was an unsophisticated, aspiring author, and she turned out to be a scheming young woman who also imagined herself as a writer, He loved her and believed her love for him was sincere. Since both partners in a marriage were not allowed to leave China together, she left for America first. After a couple of years, he insisted she bring him over. In China, his superior at work was inferior to him and therefore feared Danlin would replace him. He relentlessly harassed him. Danlin was ready to go to America.
When Danlin arrived in New York, exhausted from the journey, Yan Haili did not want to have a romantic reunion. Instead, she took him to a seedy inn, in Chinatown, gave him some cash and left saying she would return the following day. She did return, but not to reunite. She returned with divorce papers. Danlin was devastated. She had changed; she had moved on and abandoned him. Regardless of his pleas, she turned his own words against him. If he still loved her, how could he not want her happiness? These were the kinds of “inside-out” arguments that pervaded the book as Yan Haili, and those deceitful operatives she had become involved with, began to manipulate the system for their own benefit through lies, intimidation and corruption.
Danlin landed a job as an investigative journalist with GNA, (Global News Agency), known for exposing the truth about the corruption in the Chinese government as well as the media. When it became known to his boss that Danlin’s ex-wife, Haili, was publishing a non-fiction book purporting to be about her own experiences on 9/11, which was totally false, he assigned Danlin, the one who knew her best, to expose his wife and whoever was backing her. At first, he objected. He believed the public would think he was simply being vindictive. Still, his boss, Kaiming, insisted that he take the assignment. Her book, “Love and Death in September”, needed to be exposed for what it was, a lie.
When Danlin discovered that Haili had promoted still more lies, like George Bush was endorsing her book and a major publishing house had already agreed to publish her book, and there was also a major movie contract waiting for her, he exposed her in an article and received great acclaim. No one that she had named had corroborated her claims. Danlin’s fifteen minutes of fame was short-lived and came with huge consequences. When their crimes were revealed, those unsavory characters associated with and backing his wife, those strong arms who were in league with the Chinese government, retaliated against him with more false statements aimed to shame him and blacken his name. The fact that the charges they made against him were false was immaterial. The compatriots of his ex-wife were powerful back in China, and China was promoting this corrupt effort to influence the media and control information. If they controlled information, they could brainwash the public; they could control their knowledge.
Danlin was fighting an unknown establishment with great power to do him harm, yet he innocently seemed to forge ahead, with the encouragement of his boss. He expected to win because he believed that, in America, he had rights, and he was doing honorable work by exposing dishonesty. He believed he would be supported because he was righting a wrong. He believed in freedom; he believed in independence. He believed, that in the end, he would win. America and Americans would be behind him. Did he underestimate the dishonesty that existed even in America? Did he underestimate the idea that everyone was subject to a bribe for the right price? Slowly and subtly, the deceitful and malicious behavior of Haili and her cohorts revealed that the snake oil salesmen were aligned against him with powerful people supporting them. Job-like, he followed truth and justice, but his honesty was paid back with betrayals. The underhanded, secret tactics were revealed, but Danlin seemed to be the only one who cared, the only one who held high values and refused to recant his claims. His life was being turned upside down by his enemies, and he was being betrayed by his friends and fellow workers, yet he stayed the course. The more lies he exposed, the bigger the lies they told. Misinformation was running rampant and giving truth to the theory that a lie told often enough, indeed, does become the truth.
Danlin was maligned by the media and the Chinese government, the same government that had at first praised his efforts. Those with the least scruples were succeeding. Perhaps, he was naïve and honest to a fault, believing in the “goodness” of his new country, without reservation. It seemed that neither America nor China were what they were presented as, instead they conducted underhanded, devious deals, in back rooms, that skirted the law, without the public ever learning about them; if they did learn, it was too late to do anything about it.
The truth in this book is stranger than fiction as evidenced by a recent deal between China and J. P. Morgan that has just become public. In order to obtain financially favorable deals from the Chinese Government, they hired unqualified family members of the ruling class. In much the same way, this book’s plot is about the promotion of an unqualified author in order to gain control of the media industry in America. The Chinese knew if they controlled the media, they could control information; if they could control information, they could certainly control the people.
Since all concerned in the power bases of both countries generally wanted to protect the relationship between them, many injustices were often overlooked. This book surely exposed a clash of cultures in which one pretended to be perfectly high minded while the other blatantly played the game of manipulation. Both get away with their deceptions. However, in America, it is actually possible to expose corruption.
I believe that one truth is exposed, in this book, above all others. The media does control the dispensation of information. Whoever is in charge of the media, will ultimately control the ideas that are published, and the people’s view and understanding of those ideas will be influenced by whatever they choose to cover. The book removed the mask from the face of the government and the fourth estate. Corruption is everywhere. Still, in America, when one fails, one is able to start again, to renew efforts to succeed in a different direction. In China, however, one might be punished in some way, and that mark against them would keep them on the blacklist forever.
Feng Danlin and Yan Haili, were married in China. He was an unsophisticated, aspiring author, and she turned out to be a scheming young woman who also imagined herself as a writer, He loved her and believed her love for him was sincere. Since both partners in a marriage were not allowed to leave China together, she left for America first. After a couple of years, he insisted she bring him over. In China, his superior at work was inferior to him and therefore feared Danlin would replace him. He relentlessly harassed him. Danlin was ready to go to America.
When Danlin arrived in New York, exhausted from the journey, Yan Haili did not want to have a romantic reunion. Instead, she took him to a seedy inn, in Chinatown, gave him some cash and left saying she would return the following day. She did return, but not to reunite. She returned with divorce papers. Danlin was devastated. She had changed; she had moved on and abandoned him. Regardless of his pleas, she turned his own words against him. If he still loved her, how could he not want her happiness? These were the kinds of “inside-out” arguments that pervaded the book as Yan Haili, and those deceitful operatives she had become involved with, began to manipulate the system for their own benefit through lies, intimidation and corruption.
Danlin landed a job as an investigative journalist with GNA, (Global News Agency), known for exposing the truth about the corruption in the Chinese government as well as the media. When it became known to his boss that Danlin’s ex-wife, Haili, was publishing a non-fiction book purporting to be about her own experiences on 9/11, which was totally false, he assigned Danlin, the one who knew her best, to expose his wife and whoever was backing her. At first, he objected. He believed the public would think he was simply being vindictive. Still, his boss, Kaiming, insisted that he take the assignment. Her book, “Love and Death in September”, needed to be exposed for what it was, a lie.
When Danlin discovered that Haili had promoted still more lies, like George Bush was endorsing her book and a major publishing house had already agreed to publish her book, and there was also a major movie contract waiting for her, he exposed her in an article and received great acclaim. No one that she had named had corroborated her claims. Danlin’s fifteen minutes of fame was short-lived and came with huge consequences. When their crimes were revealed, those unsavory characters associated with and backing his wife, those strong arms who were in league with the Chinese government, retaliated against him with more false statements aimed to shame him and blacken his name. The fact that the charges they made against him were false was immaterial. The compatriots of his ex-wife were powerful back in China, and China was promoting this corrupt effort to influence the media and control information. If they controlled information, they could brainwash the public; they could control their knowledge.
Danlin was fighting an unknown establishment with great power to do him harm, yet he innocently seemed to forge ahead, with the encouragement of his boss. He expected to win because he believed that, in America, he had rights, and he was doing honorable work by exposing dishonesty. He believed he would be supported because he was righting a wrong. He believed in freedom; he believed in independence. He believed, that in the end, he would win. America and Americans would be behind him. Did he underestimate the dishonesty that existed even in America? Did he underestimate the idea that everyone was subject to a bribe for the right price? Slowly and subtly, the deceitful and malicious behavior of Haili and her cohorts revealed that the snake oil salesmen were aligned against him with powerful people supporting them. Job-like, he followed truth and justice, but his honesty was paid back with betrayals. The underhanded, secret tactics were revealed, but Danlin seemed to be the only one who cared, the only one who held high values and refused to recant his claims. His life was being turned upside down by his enemies, and he was being betrayed by his friends and fellow workers, yet he stayed the course. The more lies he exposed, the bigger the lies they told. Misinformation was running rampant and giving truth to the theory that a lie told often enough, indeed, does become the truth.
Danlin was maligned by the media and the Chinese government, the same government that had at first praised his efforts. Those with the least scruples were succeeding. Perhaps, he was naïve and honest to a fault, believing in the “goodness” of his new country, without reservation. It seemed that neither America nor China were what they were presented as, instead they conducted underhanded, devious deals, in back rooms, that skirted the law, without the public ever learning about them; if they did learn, it was too late to do anything about it.
The truth in this book is stranger than fiction as evidenced by a recent deal between China and J. P. Morgan that has just become public. In order to obtain financially favorable deals from the Chinese Government, they hired unqualified family members of the ruling class. In much the same way, this book’s plot is about the promotion of an unqualified author in order to gain control of the media industry in America. The Chinese knew if they controlled the media, they could control information; if they could control information, they could certainly control the people.
Since all concerned in the power bases of both countries generally wanted to protect the relationship between them, many injustices were often overlooked. This book surely exposed a clash of cultures in which one pretended to be perfectly high minded while the other blatantly played the game of manipulation. Both get away with their deceptions. However, in America, it is actually possible to expose corruption.
I believe that one truth is exposed, in this book, above all others. The media does control the dispensation of information. Whoever is in charge of the media, will ultimately control the ideas that are published, and the people’s view and understanding of those ideas will be influenced by whatever they choose to cover. The book removed the mask from the face of the government and the fourth estate. Corruption is everywhere. Still, in America, when one fails, one is able to start again, to renew efforts to succeed in a different direction. In China, however, one might be punished in some way, and that mark against them would keep them on the blacklist forever.
February 7, 2017
The Boat Rocker Rocks!
As a writer, it’s impossible for me to read other authors’ works without examining how they create their best effects. For some time, I had wanted to read one of Ha Lin’s novels. I knew that English wasn't his native language, but he seems to have mastered it well enough to receive the National Book Award, two PEN/Faulkner Awards, the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award, the Asian American Literary Award, and the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. Native speakers would have a very difficult time being chosen for all of these prizes, so I assume that Lin has something special to offer.
I chose The Boat Rocker as my introduction to Lin because it was available as an audiobook, and I was able to download it through my library and Overdrive. I’ve found that listening to a novel can be a valuable way for me to quickly tell if a writer can claim my full attention when I’m also either driving, working out at the gym, or working in my kitchen. Lin didn’t disappoint me.
Though The Boat Rocker is a quiet book in that its cadences are low-key and the author isn’t showing off with flowery language or metaphors, its narrative pace keeps the reader engaged in the subtle way it feeds information about the point-of-view character Feng Danlin and his attempts to pursue the truth as a reporter, even if it could come at enormous cost. We soon learn that for someone originally from China, as is true of both the author and Feng Danlin, this quest can be both dangerous and difficult. But Lin leans heavily on subtlety to convey Danlin’s story, and that is a great lesson for me as I work on my own fiction, long and short.
And while I can’t describe how The Boat Rocker ends, again, the understated, surprising ending gives a more powerful emotional punch than if the author had pumped it up and gone for the reader’s throat. So if you both want a good read and a model for your own writing, I recommend reading Lin. I don’t think he’ll disappoint you.
As a writer, it’s impossible for me to read other authors’ works without examining how they create their best effects. For some time, I had wanted to read one of Ha Lin’s novels. I knew that English wasn't his native language, but he seems to have mastered it well enough to receive the National Book Award, two PEN/Faulkner Awards, the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award, the Asian American Literary Award, and the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. Native speakers would have a very difficult time being chosen for all of these prizes, so I assume that Lin has something special to offer.
I chose The Boat Rocker as my introduction to Lin because it was available as an audiobook, and I was able to download it through my library and Overdrive. I’ve found that listening to a novel can be a valuable way for me to quickly tell if a writer can claim my full attention when I’m also either driving, working out at the gym, or working in my kitchen. Lin didn’t disappoint me.
Though The Boat Rocker is a quiet book in that its cadences are low-key and the author isn’t showing off with flowery language or metaphors, its narrative pace keeps the reader engaged in the subtle way it feeds information about the point-of-view character Feng Danlin and his attempts to pursue the truth as a reporter, even if it could come at enormous cost. We soon learn that for someone originally from China, as is true of both the author and Feng Danlin, this quest can be both dangerous and difficult. But Lin leans heavily on subtlety to convey Danlin’s story, and that is a great lesson for me as I work on my own fiction, long and short.
And while I can’t describe how The Boat Rocker ends, again, the understated, surprising ending gives a more powerful emotional punch than if the author had pumped it up and gone for the reader’s throat. So if you both want a good read and a model for your own writing, I recommend reading Lin. I don’t think he’ll disappoint you.
August 7, 2017
This would have been better as a series of essays rather than a novel. Ha Jin has plenty of interesting things to say about the Chinese diaspora, the concept of a 'fatherland,' and the relationship between a country and its government. But here they are packaged in a weak novel populated by two-dimensional characters whose conversations serve only to express Ha Jin's thoughts on the subjects listed above. The pretense of a storyline and half-hearted character development were unnecessary.
November 21, 2017
Abandoned. The plot is silly. Chinese reporter decides to do an expose of his ex-wife’s upcoming novel about which she has made patently false claims. The author uses this novel as a vehicle to explore media relations and censorship in China today. It’s an interesting topic but I’d rather read an article about it than wade through this ridiculous story.
December 17, 2016
I really wanted to like this book but it read like a bad translation although it was written in English. The plot seemed really unbelievable also. Why would anyone care about a badly written book about 9/11? I didn't get it.
January 6, 2018
First, I loved the title. It immediately captured my interest and reminded me of the song, "Rock the Boat" by the Hues Corporation. Second, I am a huge fan of Ha Jin's novels, especially "Waiting" a few years ago. I've read it twice for its penetrating, anguishing, view into the hearts and minds of two people who, separated by circumstances both of their own making as well as beyond their control, cannot be together. Third, I’m a boat rocker too.
The author has written in a very different setting with "The Boat Rocker," but with some of the same interpersonal (and timeless) issues between the male and female characters. Where "Waiting" was set in China during Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s and early '70s, this novel concerns two Chinese immigrants living in contemporary America. Yet it is still fraught with how the heart behaves when damaged by a failed relationship - in this novel, not so well.
Feng Danlin, a purportedly principled investigative reporter is pitted against his ex-wife Yan Haili, who has written a novel (which she claims is autobiographical) ostensibly promoted by the Chinese (read Communist) government in hopes it will further its political ends. Danlin, infuriated at Haili for the failure of their marriage, and now for her selling out to everything he stands for, sets out to thwart her - but inevitably at great cost to his own principles. Think: If words fail, turn to guns and knives. The author artfully and skillfully intertwines their personal conflict with the political clash between "democracy" and "communism," drawing extraordinarily provocative parallels.
What stood out for me in both of Ha's novels is the author's ability to reveal the painful difficulties of human relationships and their implications across time and around the world, and to make them intensely personal. No one is exemplary all the time or in all circumstances; we're all flawed, and often act against our own best interests. Ha understands this conundrum. He writes with clean, sharp prose that reveals him as a master of irony, innuendo and subtlety on the order of Ernest "omit needless words" Hemingway. Danlin puts a lot on the line in order to bring Haili down, losing the larger perspective of the consequences for himself. He becomes like Samson, intent on and apparently willing to bring the house down on his own head. It's these consequences of his actions - and ultimately our own - that we are left to ponder, both for Danlin and Haili and for ourselves, in these increasingly portentous times.
The author has written in a very different setting with "The Boat Rocker," but with some of the same interpersonal (and timeless) issues between the male and female characters. Where "Waiting" was set in China during Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s and early '70s, this novel concerns two Chinese immigrants living in contemporary America. Yet it is still fraught with how the heart behaves when damaged by a failed relationship - in this novel, not so well.
Feng Danlin, a purportedly principled investigative reporter is pitted against his ex-wife Yan Haili, who has written a novel (which she claims is autobiographical) ostensibly promoted by the Chinese (read Communist) government in hopes it will further its political ends. Danlin, infuriated at Haili for the failure of their marriage, and now for her selling out to everything he stands for, sets out to thwart her - but inevitably at great cost to his own principles. Think: If words fail, turn to guns and knives. The author artfully and skillfully intertwines their personal conflict with the political clash between "democracy" and "communism," drawing extraordinarily provocative parallels.
What stood out for me in both of Ha's novels is the author's ability to reveal the painful difficulties of human relationships and their implications across time and around the world, and to make them intensely personal. No one is exemplary all the time or in all circumstances; we're all flawed, and often act against our own best interests. Ha understands this conundrum. He writes with clean, sharp prose that reveals him as a master of irony, innuendo and subtlety on the order of Ernest "omit needless words" Hemingway. Danlin puts a lot on the line in order to bring Haili down, losing the larger perspective of the consequences for himself. He becomes like Samson, intent on and apparently willing to bring the house down on his own head. It's these consequences of his actions - and ultimately our own - that we are left to ponder, both for Danlin and Haili and for ourselves, in these increasingly portentous times.
August 17, 2016
I was initially drawn to "The Boat Rocker" because it involved the world of publishing (and honest reporting - an idea in and of itself that sounded intriguing) and from the summary sounded full of fun and humor.
While I didn't find much out-loud humor, the tone of "The Boat Rocker" is definitely light, poking fun in several places and drawing a smile here and there. But although there is some fun, this is not a fluffy read - it's thoughtful and makes a person think. I enjoyed Chinese expatriate Feng Danlin as the principled reporter who is assigned his ex-wife's upcoming book to investigate for fraud. He's not a perfect guy, but I could sympathize with him (and I'm sorry to say, laugh at his predicament at times, because he finds himself in a doozy of a mess) and root for him to keep his beliefs and spirit intact despite everything (politics, to name one small agitator).
In college, I was dreading taking political science. But the professor made the topic interesting and I found myself absorbed - this author is like my top-notch political science professor; he makes the political slams, whammies, zings and zaps understandable and interesting. "The Boat Rocker" made me sit and think about patriotism a bit, what it means and at what cost to truth as well as personal growth and success. Is any country worthy of blind obedience? When is it okay for personal freedom (and the search for truth and justice) to be trampled by a country's dominance? If you disagree with a country's decision, is it okay for you to be punished, in the name of the unhappy country? How much punishment is acceptable - should you lose your job, your family, your dreams? Would you fudge on work you love if it meant you could keep on doing it - or would you give up that work because you don't want politics dictating how you do it?
I very much enjoyed this book because it's fresh and different - it combines personal and working relationships (both ripped-to-shreds and highly destructive ones, and a few surprisingly upbeat/healthy ones), the publishing and reporting world, political views/decisions assigned to China and the U.S. (and possibly some other countries), schemes and retribution for not obeying the rules, and a glimpse of hope in new paths not yet taken. Worth the read.
While I didn't find much out-loud humor, the tone of "The Boat Rocker" is definitely light, poking fun in several places and drawing a smile here and there. But although there is some fun, this is not a fluffy read - it's thoughtful and makes a person think. I enjoyed Chinese expatriate Feng Danlin as the principled reporter who is assigned his ex-wife's upcoming book to investigate for fraud. He's not a perfect guy, but I could sympathize with him (and I'm sorry to say, laugh at his predicament at times, because he finds himself in a doozy of a mess) and root for him to keep his beliefs and spirit intact despite everything (politics, to name one small agitator).
In college, I was dreading taking political science. But the professor made the topic interesting and I found myself absorbed - this author is like my top-notch political science professor; he makes the political slams, whammies, zings and zaps understandable and interesting. "The Boat Rocker" made me sit and think about patriotism a bit, what it means and at what cost to truth as well as personal growth and success. Is any country worthy of blind obedience? When is it okay for personal freedom (and the search for truth and justice) to be trampled by a country's dominance? If you disagree with a country's decision, is it okay for you to be punished, in the name of the unhappy country? How much punishment is acceptable - should you lose your job, your family, your dreams? Would you fudge on work you love if it meant you could keep on doing it - or would you give up that work because you don't want politics dictating how you do it?
I very much enjoyed this book because it's fresh and different - it combines personal and working relationships (both ripped-to-shreds and highly destructive ones, and a few surprisingly upbeat/healthy ones), the publishing and reporting world, political views/decisions assigned to China and the U.S. (and possibly some other countries), schemes and retribution for not obeying the rules, and a glimpse of hope in new paths not yet taken. Worth the read.
July 16, 2017
If you enjoy the sense of estrangement between a man and the women in his life, as well as a man and his country, this book delivers.
This is my third Ha Jin book (his prose and his growing backlog remind me of Graham Greene a little). Besides an efficient prose that helps propel the pages, I feel like Ha Jin's stories hit my Antonioni bone. The relationships with women are essential, mysterious and ephemeral, prone to pulling apart.
Indeed the marriage between Feng Danlin and his Yan Haili is over before the book begins, having ended in a jarring fashion, a reunion that immediately rends. Those aftershocks continue, and in a way distract from the deeper story. But with Ha Jin, it is always hard to look past the women.
That said, the story takes a significant turn at the Chinese consulate with Tao Wuping. Their interaction has the political/philosophical friction that seems buried beneath the TMZ in the DMZ headline story about Haili's bodice-ripper novel/movie.
Anyway here's a fun fact, tied to the story somewhat
https://www.theguardian.com/education...
I did not know there were lists of top 100sexiest intellectuals but Ha Jin made that list, so likely fed into the blender for this story. As did the expat not allowed to visit his aging (in Ha Jin's case, now deceased) parent. Perhaps a reunion of those two is as likely as one between Haili and Danlin.
This is my third Ha Jin book (his prose and his growing backlog remind me of Graham Greene a little). Besides an efficient prose that helps propel the pages, I feel like Ha Jin's stories hit my Antonioni bone. The relationships with women are essential, mysterious and ephemeral, prone to pulling apart.
Indeed the marriage between Feng Danlin and his Yan Haili is over before the book begins, having ended in a jarring fashion, a reunion that immediately rends. Those aftershocks continue, and in a way distract from the deeper story. But with Ha Jin, it is always hard to look past the women.
That said, the story takes a significant turn at the Chinese consulate with Tao Wuping. Their interaction has the political/philosophical friction that seems buried beneath the TMZ in the DMZ headline story about Haili's bodice-ripper novel/movie.
Anyway here's a fun fact, tied to the story somewhat
https://www.theguardian.com/education...
I did not know there were lists of top 100
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 9, 2018
Huh. Took a chance on this and it was pretty good. But be warned, it's more of a character-driven story than a plot-driven one and very little happens but the writing is excellent.
Ha Jin has the mundanely magical introspection of Haruki Murakami and Jay McInerney's city-centric insight. The narrator is a journalist who is assigned to investigate a novel written by his estranged ex-wife. He lets his resentment towards her run rampant as he looks into whether or not the book is a dud like he suspects despite good reviews from the Chinese publishing community in NYC and an anticipated movie deal of more than $1 million. He publishes a scathing report of how poor the writing is and the remainder of this story is much back and forth, he questioning her motivations (for including 9/11 and declaring the book semi-autobiographical because she IS married to an American banker, but he certainly didn't die in the towers) and she fighting back with a lawsuit and getting him blacklisted in China, essentially neutering his burgeoning career.
Would certainly read another from Ha Jin.
Ha Jin has the mundanely magical introspection of Haruki Murakami and Jay McInerney's city-centric insight. The narrator is a journalist who is assigned to investigate a novel written by his estranged ex-wife. He lets his resentment towards her run rampant as he looks into whether or not the book is a dud like he suspects despite good reviews from the Chinese publishing community in NYC and an anticipated movie deal of more than $1 million. He publishes a scathing report of how poor the writing is and the remainder of this story is much back and forth, he questioning her motivations (for including 9/11 and declaring the book semi-autobiographical because she IS married to an American banker, but he certainly didn't die in the towers) and she fighting back with a lawsuit and getting him blacklisted in China, essentially neutering his burgeoning career.
Would certainly read another from Ha Jin.
August 25, 2017
This is a novel intended for thoughtful consideration, not mindless entertainment. A young Chinese journalist in exile who prides himself on his uncompromising exposes finds that, in this global world, the claws of his birth country's communist government can extend as far as New York and influence, perhaps ruin, his life. While protected physically as a new American citizen, he must grapple emotionally with his ties to a culture and its traditions versus the current power controlling that ancient culture.
The following quotation grabbed my interest: "To be a free man also means to come to terms with my commonality, earning my bowl of rice with my own labor, taking responsibility for myself, body and soul, and accepting loss, uncertainty, solitude, grief as the human condition, as opposed to the slave's security and the caged contentment of a well-fed bird."
Although the novel ends with the protagonist having lost his job and beautiful American girlfriend, the conclusion also supplies a glimmer of hope. He has maintained his self-integrity, is considering surprising new life paths, and may, just may, have met his true soulmate.
The following quotation grabbed my interest: "To be a free man also means to come to terms with my commonality, earning my bowl of rice with my own labor, taking responsibility for myself, body and soul, and accepting loss, uncertainty, solitude, grief as the human condition, as opposed to the slave's security and the caged contentment of a well-fed bird."
Although the novel ends with the protagonist having lost his job and beautiful American girlfriend, the conclusion also supplies a glimmer of hope. He has maintained his self-integrity, is considering surprising new life paths, and may, just may, have met his true soulmate.
February 5, 2017
Born and educated in China, Ha Jin completed post graduate studies in the US and has made a career of writing about China in English. I read his A Map of Betrayal a while ago, and came to the conclusion that the plentiful awards this writer has won, are more in sympathy with his relentlessly anti-Chinese position than for his skill in writing. I found aspects of A Map of Betrayal unconvincing, and The Boat Rocker similarly flawed.
The occasional awkwardness of Ha Jin’s writing is signalled by the title. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a native speaker of English call someone who ‘rocks the boat’, a ‘boat rocker’. It sounds wrong, IMO, and a misuse of an idiomatic expression, though I’d have to concede that maybe American usage is different. But the author’s style is generally very plain and ordinary, and it’s not IMO salvaged by occasional florid passages describing food or clothes.
But the main problem with this book is its absurd plot.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/01/18/t...
The occasional awkwardness of Ha Jin’s writing is signalled by the title. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a native speaker of English call someone who ‘rocks the boat’, a ‘boat rocker’. It sounds wrong, IMO, and a misuse of an idiomatic expression, though I’d have to concede that maybe American usage is different. But the author’s style is generally very plain and ordinary, and it’s not IMO salvaged by occasional florid passages describing food or clothes.
But the main problem with this book is its absurd plot.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/01/18/t...
February 14, 2018
The central plot structure involves a journalist being assigned to report on / demolish the reputation of his ex-wife. Somehow that basic conflict of interest is never called into question, and so throughout the book I struggled to find sympathy for the narrator, who feels victimized first by his ex and later by the Chinese state through his ex. I also didn't find the writing style to my liking, and all too often the opinions of the narrator seemed a thinly veiled opportunity to comment on Chinese politics, mostly with a conspiracy theory bent that may be accurate, or may not, who knows? I've come away feeling I need to be more ready to abandon books early on.
February 5, 2017
This author won the National Book Award for his novel "Waiting" and perhaps I should have read that one first. I found this one boring and couldn't finish it. The writing seemed, not stilted, but like a bad translation. I didn't care for any of the characters, least of all the hero who is described as "a fiercely principled reporter" with a " dogged quest for truth". But I saw him as a petty man pursuing a vendetta against his ex-wife. She was a real creep too and deserved whatever she got. It's tough to care about a book when you don't care about the characters.
June 16, 2023
I haven't read enough of Ha Jin to know how this one compares (I recently reread Waiting and preferred that), but of the three books I was reading at the same time as this one, The Boat Rocker was the only one I managed to finish. It doesn't even try to be politically correct, which was quite refreshing.
December 27, 2016
Ha Jin's writing is superb--clear, fluid, and straightforward--but i found the central plot of this book (unraveling an corrupt Chinese plot to promote a bad romance novel written by the narrator's ex-wife) bizarre and off-putting.
i-gave-up
March 2, 2017This book just didn't work for me right now. I've moved on.
January 14, 2018
I really disliked the authors writing style - it felt very amateurish to me. The saving grace was some thought provoking philosophical topics about values and identity.
January 21, 2018
Interesting, a scorching political diatribe, but anticlimactic and, in the end, a bit underwhelming.
April 6, 2018
Either an unsuccessful parody or a whole hearted embrace of toxic masculinity
May 31, 2018
Really good in examination of what it means to be in exhile. But also a bit mysoginist and flat.
September 29, 2021
I could never figure out if I were to read Feng Danlin's integrity as ironic or not. He was fiercely principled about wanting to speak the truth about his ex-wife's book deal as a fakery made up of Chinese power and propaganda. It's true that her wife was that, but the narrator also came across as very much the way Yan Haili describes him -- as vindictive and obsessed with ruining an ex-partner. They both seem to act like toddlers; and the diaspora of Chinese readers that follow Danlin seem so easily manipulated and extreme, they too seem silly. There are issues of identity in this book, and global power exerting itself in the marketplace; that's all fine; but if this is a book about the integrity of pursuing journalistic truth, then I wasn't so impressed with the force of message.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 224 reviews