척하는 삶

by 이창래

Never judge a book by its cover--or, for that matter, by its name. Otherwise you might overlook A Gesture Life, Chang-rae Lee's fine if awkwardly entitled follow-up to Native Speaker. As he did in his debut, the author explores the dilemma of being an outsider--and the corrupt, heartbreaking bargains an outsider will make to adapt to his surroundings. The protagonist, Franklin Hata, has actually spent his whole life donning one variety or another of existential camouflage. First, as a native-born Korean, he bends over backwards to fit into Japanese culture, circa 1944. Then he attempts a similar bit of environmental adaptation in postwar America--more specifically, in the slumbering New York suburb of Bedley Run. But in neither case does he quite succeed, which gives the novel its peculiar, faltering sense of tragedy.

"There is something exemplary to the sensation of near perfect lightness," confesses this resident alien, "of being in a place and not being there, which seems of course a chronic condition of my life but then, too, its everyday unction, the trouble finding a remedy but not quite a cure, so that the problem naturally proliferates until it has become you through and through. Such is the cast of my belonging, molding to whatever is at hand."

A Gesture Life presents this chronic condition in two different time frames. In one, delivered via flashback, Hata is a medical officer in Japan's Imperial Army. Posted to a tiny installation in rural Burma, he's ordered to oversee a fresh detachment of Korean "comfort women"--i.e., victims of institutionalized gang rape. At first he maintains his professional distance, not to mention his erotic appetite: "It was the notion of what lay beneath the crumpled cotton of their poor clothes that shook me like an air-raid siren." But soon enough he's drawn into a relationship with one of the women, whose bloody and horrific denouement leaves a permanent mark on the "unblissed detachment" of his existence.

The present-tense, American half of the story revolves around Hata's life in Bedley Run, where he adopts, alienates, and finally forms a shaky rapport with his daughter, Sunny. We might expect this sort of material to pale in comparison with his wartime trauma. But oddly enough, Hata's suburban melancholia is much more compelling--and the gradual disclosure of his past, which is supposed to ratchet up the tension, seems too crude a mechanism for a writer of Lee's superlative talents. (His truest tutelary spirit, in fact, might be John Cheever, who gets an explicit nod at one point.) None of this is to dismiss A Gesture Life, whose dual narratives are written with a rare, unhurried elegance. And if Lee's splice job lacks the absolute adhesion we expect from a great work of art, he nonetheless pulls off a remarkable, moving feat: he puts us inside the skin of a man who, "if he could choose, might always go silent and unseen." --James Marcus

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Book Club, Asian American, Literature, Contemporary, Novels

Paperback

First published September 6, 1999

Reviews

[Charity · Rating 3 out of 5]

I almost love this book, but a few things keep me from it.

First, though, I'll tell you why I love it. I love the way the story unfolds. Chang-rae Lee takes his time revealing the story. It comes out in bits and pieces from the first-person perspective of Doc Hata, just as a person would generally reflect on his own life. A scene comes to mind, then something else jumps in and we follow that thread for a bit, then back to the original scene, which is now colored by the tangent. I luxuriated in the language and found myself hypnotized by the writing. I closed the last page and looked at the clock and did a double-take: it was 2am. I love when a book transports me like that.

One of the little pebbles in my shoe along the journey of this book is a time issue. I had (and still have) a lot of trouble figuring out how old Sunny is at the end of the book. Doc Hata says at one point that he hadn't seen her in nearly 13 years and that now she would be twenty-two. Except that we know he saw her when she was 18. Maybe he meant that he hadn't really seen her since she was 9, before the rift between them began to widen? Maybe he meant she was thirty-two? This would make more sense given that he mentions a few wrinkles and grey hairs, which are more common in the over-thirty set than the twenty-two-year-olds I've known. Maybe this is just an editing snafu, but man does it rankle me.

The other part that keeps me from loving this book is the despair of it. Doc Hata is a man who has lived a number of identities, all shaped by and for the culture around him. He's Korean and works to become Japanese. He's Japanese and works to become an American. He's a medic and becomes a doctor (at least in the eyes of the people in his town). He's a chameleon, which is, I think, why it's so hard for anyone to get close to him. How can they know who it is they're dealing with? How can they put their trust in someone whose identity is so slippery?

Then there's Hata's sense that, because he's around when tragedy strikes those around him, he somehow attracts tragedy (cum hoc, ergo propter hoc). He sees himself as the opposite of a lucky rabbit's foot, and he convinces himself that those around him would be better off without him. He seems to feel as though he's unintentionally deceived them into believing that he's helping them through their misfortunes when they wouldn't have had any misfortunes at all if he'd kept his distance.

While it's illogical, it's not unrealistic that Hata believes this. On the contrary, his world-view and his view of himself are all the more tragic because they're totally realistic, and all the more unsettling because of the personal connection I feel to these beliefs. I can relate to Hata's search for a place and an identity, and I can relate to his attempts to make some order out of the causes and effects in his life. I've not experienced anything to the degree that Hata has, but as a life-long nomad, I've done my share of trying to fit in and trying to discover who I am in relation to the wheres and whos of my current stop, wherever and whenever that might be.

This was a beautifully written gut-punch of a story, but I couldn't love it because it carried the much-too-real aroma of the despair and futility that lurks just beneath the surface. Acknowledging that despair by loving this story seems too dangerous; I prefer to keep my distance from it.

[Sang Ik · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find it interesting that so many people review books based on their judgement on much of what 'should' have happened or how the book 'should' have been written or even more interestingly, how a character should have been (e.g Dr. Hata was too unemotional, etc). I feel Chang Rae Lee gets the short end of the stick concerning much of this and I find it rather ironic that the character was so ingrained that one would be dissatisfied that intensely. Still - for the reader unacquainted with Lee just yet, I ask you to consider him a bit more than perhaps he has been given credit for in some other reviews.

Besides his literary success with Native Speaker, I must admit that I find this book to be his best work to date. Perhaps Native Speaker is easier to relate with and fits more comfortably within the genre of hyphenated Asians in their convoluted duality - thus also easier to digest (and even culturally more understandable in Asian-American literary discourse). A Gesture Life is a tad bit more ambitious - requiring a more empathetic 'cultural' lens (ie. He's NOT simply a Japanese man. It's like saying Poles were Russians when they were the USSR. Or in terms of trauma, calling a person German during the Second World War without mentioning he's also Jewish). Besides, Lee's deft strokes does wonders in unraveling subtleties. His beautiful prose may be a bit overboard to some, but he is intricate in his weaving (New York Times reviewed his work as reflective of the word "accrue") and his pace is one that perhaps plods. It works in seemingly agonizing speed, but part of this process is what makes this book so satisfying in its later violent and disturbing consequences. It takes patience, it underlines things unsaid, and is reflective of the title - merely one that can be left in gestures. Would that be satisfying for the reader (this slow drowning)? Would that be as 'active' as something like The Life of Pi or as interpretive and performative as Foster Wallace's raging ingenuity?

Lee is a different mold and his books are of a different 'fragrance' than others. It is much like an old worn paper, you have to concentrate and focus to feel each groove that lines its pages. It's a work of labour and asks you the demanding task of carefully layered suffocation and suppression (and trauma if you will). It also engages in a perspective of a much older, disengaged individual that still surprises me since Lee was so young when he wrote this. If I had to compare, he smells somewhat similar to Ted Hughes at certain points. If you have the patience, I highly suggest you let it give you a try. I was intoxicated when I jumped head first (it does require some courage) and was sapped at the end by its unveiling. Lee is an excellent if quiet guide and A Gesture Life does have much to offer. You may not love/appreciate the book as much as I may have, but I think it will still linger with you for a while.

[Jenny Mckeel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think Gesture Life goes in my top five favorite books. I recommend it to everyone.

It's about a Korea-born Japanese-American man who is forced to face, and in certain ways is attempting to face, the legacy of a lifetime of refusing to feel. It takes place in the present and goes back and forth to various times in the past. It touches on horrible things that happened during World War II. It's also a thrilling, horrifying page turner, in the WWII sections. It deals with heavy issues, but deals with them in a sad, honest, and poignant way. Lee's writing is gorgeous and he does an amazing job of describing perceptions and mental processes in a particularly elegant way. It evokes complicated emotions, I think, both empathy and intolerance.

I love this book!!!!!!!!!!! Everyone read it!!!!!

[Yulia · Rating 3 out of 5]

i'd been told this was chang-rae lee's strongest novel, but after having read it, i was very disappointed and don't think it can compare to his previous work, "native speaker." i know the detached, impersonal tone is intentional in this novel, but after a while it gave me the chill of a morgue, the sense i was being told the story not of breathing individuals but of ghosts. that said, perhaps this was intentional as doc hata's past is haunted by people he can no longer reach. still, lee is much more penetrating in writing about family than he is about love interests, and the passion he relates in his characters is entirely unconvincing. though i found the character kkutaeh intriguing in her own history and secrets, i was disturbed by the sterility and lack of empathy in hata's regard for the comfort women and couldn't believe he ever felt love for kkutaeh, only obsession and jealousy. but perhaps this, too, was intended. it could be argued i have more complaints about not liking the protagonist rather than the book itself, but i used to regard lee as a flawless writer and no longer regard him as such after numerous passages that were simply embarrassing in their over-writing, especially those about suburban life. why three stars? because i did read on and was stirred by my frustration with hata; i even rooted for the other characters to shake him out of his walking/swimming coma. but no, i have to accept doc hata was born cold and will die cold.

[Steph · Rating 5 out of 5]

How does one fill a void for which there is no hole? This seems to be the question that Franklin Hata is asking as he reflects on his life and the lives that have intertwined with his. How surface acquaintances and weekday friendships can come so easily to a renowned and beloved member of a small, up-scale community, and how, for that same man, all attempts at intimate relationships meet with unparalleled disaster. For all of the various reasons that these relationships fail, one cannot help but see Hata as the common denominator. Although endued with eloquent introspection and self-awareness, Hata is sadly unable to articulate the source of his doomed attempts at love, even if consciously (and regrettably) he recognizes them as being mere echoes of a deeper, paradoxical complexity; of how someone so desperate to have meaningful relationships seems hopelessly blocked by an internal, emotional or spiritual deficiency.

For all his desire to be a man of substance, of integrity and character, Hata’s emotional barrier-which prevents him from ever fully investing in a deep romantic or familial bond-is a question without an answer. It is evident in the expendability of his entanglements, beginning with his adoptive parents (who he claims never to have felt truly belonging to) to his own adoptive daughter and grandson, both of whom he seems doomed to maintain a distanced and compartmentalized intimacy with. Perhaps the most telling moments of his life involved his hesitancy with both K and Sunny. With K, the relationship is as confused and unnatural as the surroundings in which they find themselves, and it may be unfair to hold Hata accountable for the choices made while caught in the midst of a nightmarish state where the normal confines of human decency and morality cease to exist. Nevertheless, he is rendered incapable of action or real sacrifice, and is left to face the horrors that await as a result of his refusal to accept reality, but rather to act on a wishful fantasy that has no hope of coming to fruition.

This passive-resistance is most present though in his relationship with Sunny. Be it the emotional block, cultural implications, or the prevailing numbness preceding from the ghosts of his former life, something there is that prevents Hata from fully assuming his role as a parent. He fails to see that it is his lack of shaping his child’s character- of demanding a development of empathy and conscience- that is the source of his failure, and that by allowing a 15 year-old child to walk a destructive path while deeming oneself incapable of halting it is clearly unacceptable. To be numb to the emotional hardness in a child is to send the silent message of apathy or indifference.

Hata continues to keep others (his grandson, his lover) at an arm’s distance from his heart, yet cannot seem to right himself, and is resolved to remain solitary and disconnected, in a martyred way of saving others from himself. The void remains unknown and unfulfilled. But at the very least, Hata and his estranged family retain a measure of peace about it.

For all of its painful subject matter, Lee has created a beautiful story. What makes the horrific images that the reader is presented with digestible is the lyrical prose and profound observances that weave themselves into the external and emotional carnage. The story of K and her fallen sisters renders an equally moving and resonating note in the mind of the reader. This was a masterful work and I look forward to reading Lee’s other works as well.

[Abbie | ab_reads · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

This book started off so well! I (perhaps stupidly) didn’t read the synopsis before diving in, so I was unaware of the flashbacks to the Second World War and exploration of ‘comfort women’ in army camps, and for 150 pages at the start, none of this appeared. Which I don’t really think is ideal.

I was settled into a quiet yet profound novel about a Korean-born Japanese man who settled in a small town outside of New York City, payed close attention to his reputation as an up-standing citizen, and tried his best to father his adoptive daughter while living as a bachelor.

When the war extracts began, I was completely blindsided. I don’t know how I felt about what would make a compelling novel of its own (the horrors ‘comfort women’ endured in the camps) not making an appearance until halfway in, and then focusing on the main character falling in love with one of these women. I could have skipped all of the war chapters and the present day narrative would have still made perfect sense, so make of that what you will.

I still enjoyed the parts of Franklin’s later life, exploring his friendships and relationships in Bedley Run as an older man, and then his later relationship with his adoptive daughter once she was grown up. I just wish it had focussed solely on that.

[Julie · Rating 1 out of 5]

My dislike and distrust of the subject matter trumps the well-written prose, unfortunately.

I have always had a problem with Chang Rae Lee's portrayal of Asian/Asian American woman. And, really, the tale of a Japanese man (whose character is marked by silent inaction) falling in love with a Korean comfort woman makes me want to throw something against the wall. Especially this book.

[Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my second book by Chang-rae Lee, after “The Surrendered”, and it’s made me think if I really enjoyed my first go-round as much as I thought I did because I noticed some things this time that I may have overlooked before. “The Surrendered” was told in choral fashion, with three narrators; this book has one but extremely unreliable in the sense that even the reader can’t be sure of the facts by the end because Doc Hata – who admits to not being a doctor from the start – doesn’t admit to the truth of events until there’s no alternative if he’s going to continue. Even then, these are “lies of omission” as he tells his story but slides over parts, seemingly mystified. The truth is that the narrator is never himself. He’s lived as an outsider all his life, trying to fit in by pleasing everyone else and never letting his true feelings surface. This is frustrating because there’s never any real sense of who he truly is, he just tells his story, or what he wants to tell at any given moment, and this complacency turned me off.

Doc Hata was adopted and raised by a childless Japanese couple but he is from a Korean community so he is never truly Japanese. During World War 2, he serves the Imperial Army as a medic but again, he’s not a medic and not truly Japanese. When he encounters a Korean “comfort woman”, he at first denies being truly Korean or remembering much of the language, then tries to be more Korean for her; this is part of a whole pattern in life where he tries to be whatever other people want him to be and this inevitably leads to complications because his attempts to please (or just be oblivious to what others might think) frequently lead to failed relationships. This is exemplified by his failed relationship with his neighbor-cum-lover, Mary Burns, who is frustrated by him; his estrangement from Sunny, his adopted daughter, who’s driven nuts by his stoicism, and his inability to bond with his fellow soldiers. When the time comes to step up and do something, he always backs off from doing what is necessary; the easy way out is the only way out for him. What do others think? We can’t really say because his is the only voice and he slips and slides from most accurate accounts but it’s obvious from what he does reveal that he is in a constant state of denial. (An interesting example of this is when an East Indian comments that he feels like people don’t quite accept him; conversation stops when he enters a store and popular meeting place and he asks the doctor if he’s noticed this, too. The doctor sort of hems and haws his way around actually admitting anything but it seems obvious that a Japanese settling in a suburban New York town after the war, the only Asian, might not be as accepted as he’s been claiming the entire book. This mirrors his account of his relation with his daughter and what he knows and doesn’t know, and moreover what the town knows and thinks.) This stoic restraint began to annoy me because I never really knew his feelings about anything; I doubted the truth of whatever he said.

There are many unnecessary side-trips in the book, references to things that were never fleshed out but seemed to be tossed in. The author writes very well and shows it to the point that I think he loves his writing more than his readers might, but that’s a personal opinion related to style. I’d have liked more details filled in but the writer/narrator was incapable of doing this. It’s a recommendable book in any case, but enjoyment depends on what you’re looking for and what you're willing to overlook.

[Gail Goetschius · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Gesture Life is a beautiful and subtle novel, one of the best I read this year. It is the story of "Doc" Hata , a Korean raised as Japanese who moves to New England after serving as a medic for Japan in WWII. Since childhood Hata has made fitting in and being accepted and respected the single goal of his "gesture" life. In doing so he betrays the three women who are most important to him.

Told in Hata's voice the "Doc" is a classic unreliable narrator . His inaccurate perception of events is a brilliant way of showing that it is the appearance of things and not the truth that is important. It takes active reading to really know what is going on.

The story of K, the comfort woman, was very hard to read. It is a part of history that I needed to learn. Hata tells us and believes himself that he loves K yet he uses her and is unable to come to her defense. Similarly he betrays Sunny, his adopted daughter, when he forces her to have a late term abortion in her late teen years. When he has the opportunity for happiness later in his life with Mary he remains emotionally distant and loses her.

The turn around in his life comes when Sunny and her young son return to the area. He also has a chance for redemption when he stands behind the family who buys his store.

Lee uses some beautiful water symbolism in the novel. At one point Hata takes a scalding bath and both Hata and Mary have near drownings in the pool. When Hata gains insight into what is truly important he facilitates two rebirths; he saves his grandson and his friend from drowning.

This is a book that will stay with me for a long time. I am definitely a Chang Rae Lee fan.

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yikes.

First of all, that Goodreads blurb couldnt be more wrong. This is not “taut and suspenseful,” this is the slow and meandering life story of a boring old guy living in some backwater town in NY. I only stuck with it because I loved the other book I read by Lee (On Such a Full Sea). And this book is a GUT PUNCH. It is amazing and Lee is a genius, clearly, because he got me to love this boring, meandering book.

“Doc Hata” starts reminiscing about his life, in a somewhat random fashion, the way you do when you’re convalescing in the hospital after an injury, and start having thoughts. Doc Hata is a nice guy and everyone loves him, everyone except his daughter, so things are maybe not what they seem because what is up with that.

Hata is Japanese but he’s actually Korean, and now of course he’s living in the US. His whole life has been spent not quite fitting in, and trying hard to be the most decent man possible, to impress others, to belong. Doesn’t everyone just want to belong? He served in the war, for the Japanese Imperial army. He saw some bad shit. He’s done some bad shit. What he’s seen is worse than what he’s done, but of course the reader never forgets that it is Hata telling the story, and he wants above all else to be liked, and perhaps he is, therefore, not the most reliable narrator. This turns into the most wrenching “war is hell” narrative that I’ve ever experienced, in which death is clearly a mercy.

The title is a little confusing. I think this quote from the book explains it best:

All I wished for was to be part, if but a millionth, of the massing, and that I pass through with something more than a life of gestures. And yet, I see now, I was in fact a critical part of events, as were K and the other girls, and the soldiers, and the rest ... indeed, the horror of it was how central we were. How ingenuously, and not, we comprised the larger processes, feeding ourselves, and one another, to the all-consuming engine of the war.

In a talk at NYU that’s been transcribed online, the author was asked about the title, and he says:

“One of the characters, I believe it's Sunny, says, 'You lead a life of gestures.' What she means by that is that he's always there for protocol and decorum rather than saying the thing that needs to be said or doing the thing that needs to be done: to say no in a certain instance, and not to be involved in something horrible, not to implicate himself, and not to always try to assimilate and compromise. That's one of the things that he's figuring out about the way in which he's run his life, which has been a complete mode of gestures and politeness--but politeness to an extreme."

And I was pleased to read that Lee doesn’t like Hata any more than I did (from the same transcription):

“One of the things that was very difficult as I wrote this book is that I didn't connect with him either. He's a very difficult sort of person and he's very frustrating. By the end, my wife and editor will tell you, I hated him because you have to sit with him all day and the ways in which he constructs friendships, and his memory--it's maddening. Yes, he has likable aspects and it's clear that people see him and like him. That was one of the most difficult things about writing this book. It's not just the sort of character he is, but he's the only one telling you the story, in first person. I had to find a way to get around him a lot of the time."

Hata is not unpleasant, but he’s clearly twisting the narrative to put himself in the best possible light, while at the same time he remains fully aware of his mistakes, his enormous mistakes, so he can’t hide them completely from the reader. That’s real genius, to be able to fold all of that into a character.




And one final note: the book comes with ALL THE TRIGGER WARNINGS. His descriptions of the “comfort women” and what they went through are brutal. It was very very upsetting. Some reviewers have complained that Lee romanticizes the situation, but I thought it was clear that Hata was just twisting things to make himself look good, and I saw the brutality that was happening. These were girls who would rather die than live another day as a sex slave used by dozens of men. It was awful. Hata was awful.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

For it is the vulnerability of people that has long haunted me: the mortality and fragility, of the like I witnessed performing my duties in the war, which never ceased to alarm, but also the surprisingly subject condition of even the most stolid of men's wills during wartime, the inhuman capacities to which they are helpless given if they have but ears to hear and eyes to see.

4.5/5

I admit to beginning this novel in the biased position of comparing it to A Pale View of Hills or Remains of the Day or any other Ishiguro work concerning those trapped between past and present by a stolid and variously self-effacing narrator. That gradually changed with every one of a number of unexpected fleshings out of the context until I had something that, while still calling to mind The Garden of Evening Mists and the like, was fully its own beast. At multiple points I would have given this five stars, and the fact that I didn't at the end had mostly to do with the overburdening of the narrative with trauma that became less poignant and more sensational at every reiteration, especially during the last 50 pages or so. Still, most of the quotes of especial beauty I can across cropped up nearer the end as well, so while this book isn't perfect, it does something interesting with these standard post-war, post immigration themes that gives me some hope for modern lit, what with this sort of late 20th work bleeding into the 21st.

Trauma's been a hot topic of late, whether it be trigger warnings or an excuse for the assholery of various characters or to illustrate how PTSD spawns from sexual assault and wartime experiences and psychological child abuse in myriad lives of all too real people. This book is hardly contemporary, written as it was when I was in grade school, but it treats with some very heavy topics (the Korean diaspora in Japan, comfort women, teenage pregnancy, war, etc) in ways that never felt out of line, but then again, what do I really know about all of this? Certainly not what I expected in the beginning, stranded in the middle of the affluently monstrous housing I've driven past in various hidden away inlets of mountainous parts of California, that's for sure. In terms of plot and revelation and whatnot, I always find that less interesting than what an author can achieve with a brief of turn of phrase or slow swelling of thematic undertone, so if other readers find this work slow, it's a fair judgment to make. Slow, however, is how I prefer it. Rome wasn't built in a day, and it wasn't destroyed in one either.

Indeed the horror of it was how central we were, how ingenuously and not we comprised the larger processes, feeding ourselves and one another to the all-consuming engine of the war.

I have another one of Lee's works on the shelf, and this time, I'm waiting on it in order to savor it when I finally choose to read it. I was a tad upset at myself for writing it off so early as a derivative of other Asian novelists who write in beat-around-the-bush ways. It shows that, for all my diversification effort, my brain still runs in very settled tracks, and I have a long way to go before I can treat with any type of literature without recourse to built up stereotypes. I am hoping that striking out on the first volume of The Story of the Stone will help, as will completing entire set in 2019. It's the 21st century, and my reading must reflect such.

Let me simply bear my flesh, and blood, and bones. I will fly a flag. Tomorrow, when this house is alive and full, I will be outside looking in. I will be already on a walk someplace, in this town or the next or one five thousand miles away. I will circle round and arrive again. Come almost home.

[Mirjam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought that this book started out strong, with beautifully lyrical prose...and then, although the main story was compelling, it kept getting tripped up by flashbacks that told a back story that initially had great potential but then turned into an annoying tale about a man who thinks he has honor but does not. I think the thing that was so annoying to me was that the author could really have done something with that back story. Soldier fancies himself in love with Korean "comfort woman," when really he is just using her with no attention paid to what her needs or wants might be - the only difference between him and his comrades is that he is wrapping his consumption of her in a noble-looking mantle of chivalrous love (there are interesting similarities to the way in which Hata fancies himself to love his adopted daughter, Sunny, when really he is just emotionally invested in her, or more accurately, his image of how she should be. And finally, he sacrifices her physical integrity, as well as her needs and wants, to this noble-looking image of the perfect father and daughter). What was lacking for me in this book is that neither of these issues seemed to be resolved, and the first seemed not to be even addressed. And that total lack of accountability soured the entire book for me.

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Franklin Hata lives a "gesture life. " On the surface all is well - he is a successful and proper citizen of a suburban town - but he is unable to truly let go and live a full life. The novel moves in a suspenseful way between his experiences as a medic in the Japanese army and the present. I love Lee's writing.

[Heera Rajavel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t quite know how to feel about this book. I read it on the plane. written like you’re walking on a tightrope. So close to breaking, yet never quite breaks. I need to collect more thoughts and update how many stars this is and also write a more complete review

[Stacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

chang-rae lee is a quiet author whose narratives unfold delicately and fully; like a tightly-wound tea leaf when confronted with boiling water. A Gesture Life was deceptive in its simplicity, in its lulling me into this nuanced narrative of an old korean man living in a small middle-class american town.

i don't always know what to say about a book that i've liked, or what it was about it that "did" it for me. the first novel of lee's that i'd read was native speaker, and it was strong enough to lead me to another of his. i don't go looking for an epic story, journey, or family history per se, and there aren't specific tropes i seek either. lee has a compelling voice as a narrator, and his characters are complex while being simultaneously spare--something of a feat, i think. i enjoy reading international fiction because it shows me how completely uneducated i am about the rest of the world, about history told from anyone's viewpoint other than The West's, and because i want to be immersed in a world i wonder about, but know very little of (i was ashamed i knew little to nothing about the comfort women used during japanese/korean conflicts before this, and just how hideous their existence was).

chang-rae lee's novels never leave me wanting for more, or do i feel like a cross-cultural voyeur reading them. i tend to be a completist reader, meaning that when i find an author i like i will read their oeuvre straight through unless repeatedly insulted by their output (as in the case of coetzee). this is not lee's strongest work, but if you like his voice, as i do, you will eventually seek it out.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somehow the author makes this book largely about women, even though the first-person narrator is a man. It touches on ways that we try to belong and the ways we avoid doing so. Also the ways we fail just by not doing. The end is somewhat simplistic, and sort of solidifies the main character's tendency to abandon his loved ones, at least physically. He instead opts for lending financial support, which it seems he has always done without second thought. It is well written and the language is rich.

[chucklesthescot · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was so boring that it nearly cured my insomnia. We got the extremely boring life of a Japanese man living in a boring town and doing virtually nothing on every page. Very exciting. We have a supporting cast of annoying and obnoxious characters who bugged the hell out of me, a plot that was going nowhere fast and the book was badly written and uninteresting. This is the second book by this author that I have endured and I hated both of them.

[Taka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good--

Read this as part of my research on comfort women, and while there are many nitpicks I can make about Lee's historical realism (some of the details in Burma strain belief) and the prose style in which the first-person narrator writes in (it's too, too well written for someone who was supposed to have immigrated to the US in his twenties & worked a medical supply store all his life), the novel as a whole does hold up and delivers some good emotional blows. I'm a bit sad that Lee's portrayal of the comfort women aligns squarely with the standard sex slave narrative and doesn't complicate it beyond giving one of them fierce & desperate agency, and also disappointed that he didn't (or couldn't?) do more with such raw and rich material.

Some nitpicks (I can't help myself):
-"Enchi" isn't a Japanese name; neither is "Shiboru"
-The huge complexity of the narrator's Korean ethnicity isn't fully explored (Koreans under Japanese colonialism were discriminated against and many of them wanted to hide their ethnicity & fully look and act like Japanese)
-It's hard to believe a military doctor (a mere captain at that) could have so much command and sway in what would soon be a horrid war zone, especially so late in the war
-It's equally hard to believe that Endo would be summarily executed for killing a comfort woman, without even a military tribunal (sadly, comfort women were at least on paper treated as "military supplies," ranking lower than horses and dogs, and so it would've been more realistic for Endo to just get the solitary; many soldiers who have done worse—e.g. raping and murdering civilian women—actually got off the hook easily)
-It's also really hard to believe that Shiboru would so so easily believe that the doctor killed himself, without calling in the MP and having them do an inspection

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Franklin (Doc) Hata, a Japanese man of Korean birth, is living in a small town in New York. He is a recently retired small-business owner. He sold his successful medical supply store to a young couple. He is a beloved figure in town and has been for decades. His story follows two narratives- one his current life adjusting to retirement and trying to reconnect with his estranged adopted daughter and then his early life as a medical officer in WWII Japan. He had the uncomfortable task of overseeing the “comfort women” that were provided for the Japanese soldiers.
As these storylines unfold, the reader gets a full look at this man’s life- the joys, along with the heartbreaks. The writing is excellent through-out and Doc Hata turns out to be a marvelous literary character. 4.5 stars

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bro wants to be Ishiguro so bad, but I get it because same. Five stars.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chang-rae Lee's second novel did not fully work for me. Again he has a protagonist who is adrift between cultures. Franklin Hata was born in Japan to impoverished Korean parents, then adopted out to a Japanese family who raised him with every advantage. He had planned to become a doctor but before he could complete his medical training he was conscripted into the Japanese military. He served throughout WW II as a medic.

When the story opens, Doc Hata has made what he considers a successful life in a small community north of New York City. He owned and ran a medical supply store, got wealthy and has the respect of the entire town. For reasons that are not clear, he adopted a Japanese orphan whom he named Sunny, but when she hit her teenage years she suddenly flipped from super obedient to uncontrollably rebellious and left home. She and Franklin were estranged for six years, though she come back into his life later in the book.

I felt the author did too well in creating his main character. The tone of the writing is Franklin's voice completely but because he is so concerned with his manners, his efforts to "fit in" and because he is so emotionally repressed, I grew to dislike him intensely. His emotional death makes him incapable of dealing with Sunny's problems to the degree that he drives her away.

Finally after almost 200 pages of this, the man's back story is revealed in bits and pieces. Only then do you learn how he became the man he is. I was sorely tempted to give up on this novel and even though the story made sense in the end and was truly tragic, I had been made to wait so long that I did not care as much as I felt I should have.

Possibly Lee's slow and controlled pace is an Asian thing, though in his first book, Native Speaker, the action enticed me all the way through. In the war scenes, he does create a highly distressing sense of the Japanese military mind under the Emperor, which fits with American novels I have read about the war in Asia. But this novel was such a departure from his first, that I felt I was reading a different author.

[Chana · Rating 2 out of 5]

A elderly Japanese man who lives in a well-to-do town in America, who is well-respected in his community and has had success in business, tells his story in a soft voice of philosophical rambling. It is the kind of story where nothing much happens and when things do happen they are ghastly - suddenly and arbitrarily grossly violent and disturbing. All is not as it seems: first of all he is not Japanese, he is Korean. He has relationship problems and abandonment issues. Lest you think I exaggerate, he says of himself, "in fact I feel I have not really been living anywhere or anytime, not for the future and not in the past and not at all of-the-moment, but rather in the lonely dream of an oblivion, the nothing-of-nothing drift from one pulse beat to the next, which is really the most bloodless marking-out, automatic and involuntary." This sentence, which is actually only part of a sentence, is typical of the writing in this book. I didn't like the book very much. The only value was to learn of the "comfort women", an appalling policy of the Japanese military to supply young virgins to the officers and enlisted men in order to stop the spread of venereal disease. But that was history.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a tough read. The story unfolds at a slow pace and the narrator's accommodating personality is, at times, repulsive. Two-hundred pages in, I wondered why I was still reading, when there are so many other books out there. Any yet, I had a sense that Lee was going somewhere with this growing ennui and that I just needed to follow him there,

In the last forty pages or so, Lee brings the story to its culmination, and all of the time that he (and thus, readers) has devoted to Franklin Hata's excessive pliability bears down upon this conclusion with terrible consequence. Without this build-up, the story's final revelations would not have the same impact. In fact, I am not sure that I could relate to this story without spending this much time with Hata, whose considerations and perspective are very different from my own.

Already, this book's standing grows more distinct and carries more weight in memory. It needs time to be digested, and I may have read it too quickly. I am glad that I saw it through to its sad end.

[Dayna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a heartbreaking book. A reserved Japanese store owner has settled in a small American town, raising an adopted Korean daughter. He appears to lead a regular working-class life. Later in the novel it is revealed that he was a doctor in the Japanese military during the war and had fallen in love with a Korean comfort woman. What is most painful is the conflict between the man's quiet exterior and the emotional/political life he has led. I admire this novel for addressing the continuing issue of Korean comfort women (especially when Prime Minister Abe so recently failed to recognize their existence during the war) and the author's success in creating a plot which subsists along that blurry line of the political and the personal.

[Malcolm Pickering · Rating 4 out of 5]

May or may not update this later but . . . the events and actions that take place in the book repelled and sickened me. I felt angry, unhappy and even slightly sad with the despicable and unfortunate circumstances that composed the retelling of Doc Hata's reflection on his life. However there was also concord between my own reactions (towards the book and feeling that I've considered and thought about in general) and Hata's own reflections, emotions and insights . . . I would not read the book again though . . .

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Started this for a book speed date and wasn't gripped 50 pages. Will donate to local literacy sale.

[Old Man JP · Rating 4 out of 5]

Franklin Hata is an elderly gentleman reminiscing about his life. He is Japanese but of Korean ancestry who emigrated to America shortly after WWII and moved to the small city Bedleyville, later renamed Bedley Run, to open a medical supply store. Although a bachelor he adopted a little Korean girl to raise as his child. He is a well respected citizen of his city who has attained a fair amount of success but he has a few very troubling aspects to his life that include his daughter as well as his involvement in WWII as a member of the Japanese forces and their treatment of some young Korean women forced into a camp brothel. It's an exceptionally well told tale in which some things are not what they first appeared to be.

[Ligeia · Rating 4 out of 5]

ma che sapore ha, una vita non spesa? (cit)

Franklin Hata, giapponese di origine coreana che vive in una piccola città negli Stati Uniti, è alla fine della sua vita quando tenta di mettere insieme i pezzi di tutto quello che ha lasciato indietro e finisce inevitabilmente per fare i conti con quello che ha perduto per strada...

storia di un uomo normale che si è trovato in situazioni straordinarie e che non è certo un eroe, pertanto quello che ha vissuto diventa il suo cancro personale, che finirà per crescere in silenzio e altrettanto silenziosamente divorare tutta la sua vita successiva...

certo i medici da campo giapponesi durante la guerra ne hanno viste molte e altrettante, alcuni di loro almeno, ne hanno pure fatte, ma Franklyn Hata è solo un giovane idealista che crede davvero che l'Imperatore gli chieda di sacrificare la sua vita per la grandezza della patria e che le "volontarie" che allietano il soggiorno delle truppe di stanza siano davvero tali...ovvio che la sveglia arriverà anche per lui, ma la sua scelta di ripiegare e raccogliere i cocci gli costerà l'intera sua esistenza successiva...

[Carrie Kellenberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it. Gorgeous writing that is almost poetic and I loved how the story unfolded. At first I thought it was going one way, then another way. All in all, a gorgeous tale if you can stomach the content.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://mariesbookgarden.blogspot.com/...

A Gesture Life is another book that was really hard to get into, but the patience paid off. If it hadn't been a book group selection, I might not have stuck with it.

Franklin Hata was a man who was difficult to admire or respect, because he seemed cold and heartless. His stilted relationship with his adopted daughter Sunny just made me sad. He had a chronic difficulty in relating to anyone on a deep, true level.

Presumably, this was because of his difficult experiences in the war and his obsession with K, a Korean "comfort woman." The storyline about the comfort women made me truly sick to my stomach. Apparently when Chang-Rae Lee began writing this novel, it was going to be all about comfort women, but he found that to be too heavy of a subject. His obsession with K reminded me of the foreign men I knew in Japan who were obsessed with Japanese women...many of them ended up marrying them and staying in Japan. They were drawn to them because they were less likely to challenge them than western women. They liked the way the Japanese women looked up to them. Often, these men would not have been classified as "catches" in the US or UK. These relationships were not very equal.

That is the relationship between Franklin and K. He thinks he loves her, but she only views him as one more man who is taking advantage of her. In his case, perhaps he can help her a little. But he means nothing to her.

I appreciated this book more after discussing it with my book group. Some of them liked it better than I did, and one of my friends observed that perhaps it was the way she had been raised, with more distant parenting. That could be.

It was beautifully written, but a little bit disappointing for me. I expected more, and I found it to be really sad.