Ocean Roads

by James George

Sweeping from New Mexico's desert to Auckland's wild west coast beaches, from the bloodied jungles of Vietnam to the dry valleys of Antarctica, Ocean Roads warms us with desert sun, fills our lungs with salt air, drenches us with jungle rain and chills us with glacial ice.

This novell tells the powerful, unnerving story of three generations of a family that has been scarred by war, the horror of the first nuclear detonations, of Nagasaki, of Vietnam. When the formal hostilities end, war carries on in the bodies and hearts and minds of the former combatants, and it provides a bitter legacy.

But love grows out of the detritus of conflict, and with love comes and understanding of human limitations, frailty, and the possibilities of trust.

Shortlisted for the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book in the South East Asia and South Pacific region

Genres: Fiction

410 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2006

Reviews

[Adhoc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maori author James George’s Ocean Roads is a sensuous, perplexing novel that follows a family grappling with three generations of war. Isaac, a physicist for the Manhattan Project, is a witness to the spectacular power of the atom bomb in New Mexico’s Trinity site, as well as that of the hydrogen bombs on the Bikini Atoll after Hiroshima/Nagasaki. His wife Etta is a war photographer, winning the Pulitzer for her photograph of her first son, Troy, as a soldier in Vietnam alongside two Vietnamese child napalm survivors. The second son Caleb is a radical anti-war activist who must undergo radiation therapy in order to treat his bone marrow cancer. Troy’s wife Akiko, who becomes the mother of Etta’s grandchild, is a Nagasaki survivor.

Antarctica, where Isaac travels for research, is depicted as the environmental apotheosis of Cold War militarism. Likening Antarctica’s inhospitable landscape to both a desert and to the post-atomic ruins of Nagasaki, he experiences flashbacks to the nuclear weapons he helped design and has a mental breakdown that leaves him speechless for the next decade. Already under media scrutiny for his disavowal of his previous work and his anti-nuclear weapons activism, he is institutionalized as mentally ill and quite literally contained by the Cold War order from being an ideological threat. Isaac continues to grapple with his complicity in making nuclear modernity possible. Cold War histories converge onto his family as transhistorical time loops and re-activations of former violence. The novel’s use of historical recursion, genealogy, and convergence turns the Cold War into a planetary event. Nuclear fission and planetary imperialism reveal to Isaac the dimensions of the Cold War that could render the Earth into a kind of Antarctica, or even into a lunar landscape. When Etta evacuates Saigon while reading a newspaper article on the Apollo 11 moon landing, for example, this Cold War convergence of two related events evokes both terrestrial and extraterrestrial qualities.

[Alex Tang · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel focuses on two key threads: Einstein’s thought experiment of lightning striking both ends of a train, and the twin paradox, where traveling at near light speeds changes the perception of time. Both are about perspective. In that sense, this book carries multiple perspectives: a family breaking is also a family healing.

[mariela · Rating 3 out of 5]

James George's "Ocean Roads" is a nuclear mix of narratives surrounding stories touched by fire, light, and, of course, the ocean. An incredibly saddening story depicting the dangers of slow violence following the study and detonation of nuclear weaponry. There is foreshadowing throughout, in the memories revisited by the characters that wind up haunting them throughout their lives toward the end. Lots of themes and symbolism, my favorite being the Twin Paradox mentioned by characters. Despite its sparse specific naming throughout the book, the Twin Paradox can be felt throughout. Each character has a double, a twin, whose fate they meet equally or in reverse. The one that particularly interests me is Akiko as a double for Etta; both mothers, both of their lives involving two important men, both single mothers, both artists who allow their art to consume them.

The significance of performance art is also intriguing. Akiko, physically and emotionally marked by the events of Nagasaki, the day she was born, heavily involves herself in the performance art of dance. She allows herself to "go somewhere," when she dances- later it is revealed that when she dances, she is distancing herself from her traumas and from the consequences of Nuclear weaponry and warfare. Though no matter how hard she tries to escape it, it envelops her life completely.

I really enjoyed this book, it was a nice read. So much to unpack. Akiko is my favorite, complicated character. Would recommend giving it a read!

[zespri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Being a New Zealander and being able to picture the settings of the story was a big plus, I was hooked from the start.

The story moves around a lot, but pieces of the puzzle slip slowly into the storyline and the picture fills out, moving from New Mexico, Vietnam, Antartica and a wild West Auckland beach. Sounds disconnected and weird, but it worked for me.

[Nosebleed]

this book did what oppenheimer thought it did

[gyanve · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful + horrifying

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very powerful story about interweaving stories of characters, linked both to history and each other. Issac was part of the team that worked on the bomb in 1945 in Nevada. The story explores the consequences of his quilt, his relationship with his wife Etta, his son Caleb and stepson Troy. Caleb and Troy become involved with Akiko, a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing and she has a child with Troy, Mai. It's not giving away any of the plot to give these details because the writing focuses on relationships, consequences and places. The story moves from Auckland, New Zealand to the Vietnam War to Nevada.
It's the telling of the tale that is so beautiful. George uses both economy of language and clear descriptions to place the reader carefully in each time (it does skip about a bit) and in each place.
In particular, I can feel the sand under my feet and smell the wind on the West Coast beaches of the North Island.
This is a beautiful and sad story, real and affecting with likeable yet flawed characters.

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought it was an interesting story that was written in a different way. There is a lot if passion, love, confusion, and connection throughout. The author keeps the readers on their toes the whole time because they want to solve the puzzle and have their questions answered. The only problem is that if you really want to actually understand the book you should read it a second time. Then everything will make since.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly my very favourite book. The sorrow in it is tangible.