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Butterfly's Shadow
Lee Langley's bewitching story of lost hope and thwarted love opens where Puccini's opera ends; with Madame Butterfly - Cho-Cho-San - handing over her beloved son to his American father before killing herself. In America Joey grows up torn between two cultures, haunted, like his parents, by their memories of what really happened on that fateful day.
But just as Joey's fate is inextricably linked with the country of his birth, so too is the fate of America, and both of their paths will ultimately lead to Nagasaki.
But just as Joey's fate is inextricably linked with the country of his birth, so too is the fate of America, and both of their paths will ultimately lead to Nagasaki.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2012
10 people are currently reading
145 people want to read
About the author
Lee Langley
27 books15 followersAward-winning novelist and travel-writer, Lee Langley was born in Calcutta in the late 1930s, of Scottish parents, and she spent most of her early childhood there. Her parents separated when she was 4, and she spent the next 6 years travelling through India with her mother, where she got caught up in the Indian independence riots. Her family returned to the UK as feelings rose higher against the British. Lee Langley has since written of a sense of loss and exile from a place that she had loved as a child. She won the Writers’ Guild Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. Lee Langley has also written film scripts and has adapted novels for TV. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and is also an active committee member of the P.E.N., the writers’ organization that campaigns for freedom of speech internationally. Lee Langley is married to the novelist Theo Richmond, and lives in Richmond in London.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
November 10, 2012
I do recommend this book, and I am very glad I read it, but perfect, it isn’t! Let me explain.
This is a book of historical fiction. Isn’t the main goal of this genre to teach about a passed time in history? I want historical fiction to make history come alive. I want to learn both the historical facts and to understand how the people who lived through the events felt! This story starts with Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly, where Pinkerton, an American, has a child with a Japanese “wife”. They have a child. He returns and with his American fiancé /wife to take the child back to America. Then the Japanese mother commits suicide. That is the story of the opera. This story is what happens next, with a few alterations…… I will not tell you what is changed.
This story is about the child and his life in America and through his tale we are meant to learn about history. We learn about the years of the Depression, Roosevelt’s New Deal, Pearl Harbor, America’s involvement in the Second World War, the Japanese Internment Camps and finally the bombing of Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And more……. As you can imagine, the central theme is about being Japanese in America during these years. It is also about being Japanese while fighting on the side of the Allies. And I learned details about the antics of General McArthur….. . I have read about all this before, but I learned more. You learn about Japanese philosophy and semantics. I particularly liked the sections concerning the meaning and usage of Japanese words, phrases and idioms. The intricacies of Japanese semantics were fascinating!
There is humor. The American dialog is perfect. The brutalities directed toward the Japanese residents in the US are gut-wrenching. You are there in the internment camps and can experience what life was really like there, on those beds, in those close quarters, lacking food and so horribly discriminated against. Enlistment became a means of escape. How were the Japanese treated after the war? All of this is part of the book.
The narrator of the audiobook was Laurel Lefkow. The American dialogs were spot-on, but the pronunciation of Japanese words could have been improved. The Japanese speaking English took a while to get used to. At times, the melodrama of the words was exaggerated by the narrator’s intonations. This was unfortunate.
My prime complaint of this novel concerns the chain of events chosen by the author. In the attempt to teach us about the chosen historical events, she constructed a story so that these events could be explored. The events could have rolled out in this manner, but they probably would not have. There are way too many coincidences. Even if in Madame Butterfly the American wife agreed to take the child and raise him as her own, in this novel it did not ring true. As it is portrayed in this novel she rushes in and grabs a child that is not her own. Now why would she do that? It does not make sense in this novel. Not at all. This aspect of the novel was a major fault in the story. Very unconvincing.
Still, I learned a lot and definitely recommend the book, either the audio or the written version.
ETA: there are some really good lines too. Taste these:
"Hospitals are no place for sick people to be."
"Truth is shapeless like water."
"I didn't know I was Japanese until Roosevelt told us."
"They (the two bodies) fit together like a soft jigsaw puzzle." :0)
This is a book of historical fiction. Isn’t the main goal of this genre to teach about a passed time in history? I want historical fiction to make history come alive. I want to learn both the historical facts and to understand how the people who lived through the events felt! This story starts with Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly, where Pinkerton, an American, has a child with a Japanese “wife”. They have a child. He returns and with his American fiancé /wife to take the child back to America. Then the Japanese mother commits suicide. That is the story of the opera. This story is what happens next, with a few alterations…… I will not tell you what is changed.
This story is about the child and his life in America and through his tale we are meant to learn about history. We learn about the years of the Depression, Roosevelt’s New Deal, Pearl Harbor, America’s involvement in the Second World War, the Japanese Internment Camps and finally the bombing of Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And more……. As you can imagine, the central theme is about being Japanese in America during these years. It is also about being Japanese while fighting on the side of the Allies. And I learned details about the antics of General McArthur….. . I have read about all this before, but I learned more. You learn about Japanese philosophy and semantics. I particularly liked the sections concerning the meaning and usage of Japanese words, phrases and idioms. The intricacies of Japanese semantics were fascinating!
There is humor. The American dialog is perfect. The brutalities directed toward the Japanese residents in the US are gut-wrenching. You are there in the internment camps and can experience what life was really like there, on those beds, in those close quarters, lacking food and so horribly discriminated against. Enlistment became a means of escape. How were the Japanese treated after the war? All of this is part of the book.
The narrator of the audiobook was Laurel Lefkow. The American dialogs were spot-on, but the pronunciation of Japanese words could have been improved. The Japanese speaking English took a while to get used to. At times, the melodrama of the words was exaggerated by the narrator’s intonations. This was unfortunate.
My prime complaint of this novel concerns the chain of events chosen by the author. In the attempt to teach us about the chosen historical events, she constructed a story so that these events could be explored. The events could have rolled out in this manner, but they probably would not have. There are way too many coincidences. Even if in Madame Butterfly the American wife agreed to take the child and raise him as her own, in this novel it did not ring true. As it is portrayed in this novel she rushes in and grabs a child that is not her own. Now why would she do that? It does not make sense in this novel. Not at all. This aspect of the novel was a major fault in the story. Very unconvincing.
Still, I learned a lot and definitely recommend the book, either the audio or the written version.
ETA: there are some really good lines too. Taste these:
"Hospitals are no place for sick people to be."
"Truth is shapeless like water."
"I didn't know I was Japanese until Roosevelt told us."
"They (the two bodies) fit together like a soft jigsaw puzzle." :0)
July 31, 2019
Not really what I had expected. The book is said to cover the development of a child until it's adolescence. Well, it didn't really do that.
The first half was about its parents, of which the first part in Japan was interesting to read, but the rest could have been skipped easily. It described the all day life of the family and the depression in America, more like a history book that a novel involving character development.
The second half actually was about the boy itself, of which I had no clue who he was, personality wise. This didn't improve a lot throughout the story. There was a promising past, which didn't last...
The ending seemed too engineered to be plausible, I was touched one time though.
To conclude: it was really clear what the author wanted to establish, bit it didn't work out for me at all. That doesn't mean I disliked it altogether. There were nice chapters here and there, but I just feel like half of what should have been said missed and now the book is finished but there should have been more. IDK xD
The first half was about its parents, of which the first part in Japan was interesting to read, but the rest could have been skipped easily. It described the all day life of the family and the depression in America, more like a history book that a novel involving character development.
The second half actually was about the boy itself, of which I had no clue who he was, personality wise. This didn't improve a lot throughout the story. There was a promising past, which didn't last...
The ending seemed too engineered to be plausible, I was touched one time though.
To conclude: it was really clear what the author wanted to establish, bit it didn't work out for me at all. That doesn't mean I disliked it altogether. There were nice chapters here and there, but I just feel like half of what should have been said missed and now the book is finished but there should have been more. IDK xD
March 18, 2018
Interesting, rather addictive and rather sad tale of the first twenty-odd years of a man's life, covering the between war years and world war two. Taking Puccini's opera, Madame Butterfly as a starting point, so I read (I don't know much about opera) this builds it into a much greater story, and focuses on the life of the son and how mixed up he becomes about who he is and where he belongs.
Cho-cho (butterfly) is fifteen when she is sold as a wife to an American naval officer, Pinkerton, who believes he's just getting a long term hire on a prostitute. Cho-cho thinks she's getting married. They're together a couple of months, then he's off, but he leaves behind the start of their son, Joey. About three years later he returns to Nagasaki (yep, you already know even in the long run this isn't going to end happily) assuming Cho-cho has been through a few men on a similiar basis, since they last met. Except she's been waiting for him, with their three year old son. At the same time his good wholesome American fiancee, Nancy, rocks up to surprise him, knowing nothing of this. And through some self-punishment, or superiority complex that all-American would be better than Japan, she persuades Cho-cho to give up her son to them, and runs off with blood on her clothes - never explaining what happened, but read between the lines and Cho-cho has committed honourable suicide.
We then move through some interesting but depressing times of modern history, with the depression in America, and the vets' march on Washington which sees the president order the army to turn on their own people. A little forewarning that if this is how they treat what they consider 100% Americans, just imagine how bad things are going to be for the multicultural folk. Then Pearl Harbour happens, the Japanese, those who have lived in the States for decades, or who even have been born in the States, are considered enemy aliens not to be trusted. Neighbours reports the less obvious ones to the authorities (for Joey takes after his father in his height and looks and isn't obviously Japanese). You've got to love how mankind comes together in the bad times (sarcasm). So we go to the Japanese internment camps, thanks to Roosevelt, and the appauling treatment of honest people who never did anything wrong. Later on the young men are offered the opportunity of freedom if they enlist, and see the irony of being sent off to fight for a country that imprisoned them, and to fight against another country that's taking another selection of ethnicity and marching them off to camps. And whilst we're all in it together, some are more in it than others, and the Japanese-American solider lives can be merrily thrown on the bonfire just as long as the much smaller Texan regiment is saved. And we all know how things ended in Nagasaki...
Nice way to walk through history, but not the happiest tale to read.
Cho-cho (butterfly) is fifteen when she is sold as a wife to an American naval officer, Pinkerton, who believes he's just getting a long term hire on a prostitute. Cho-cho thinks she's getting married. They're together a couple of months, then he's off, but he leaves behind the start of their son, Joey. About three years later he returns to Nagasaki (yep, you already know even in the long run this isn't going to end happily) assuming Cho-cho has been through a few men on a similiar basis, since they last met. Except she's been waiting for him, with their three year old son. At the same time his good wholesome American fiancee, Nancy, rocks up to surprise him, knowing nothing of this. And through some self-punishment, or superiority complex that all-American would be better than Japan, she persuades Cho-cho to give up her son to them, and runs off with blood on her clothes - never explaining what happened, but read between the lines and Cho-cho has committed honourable suicide.
We then move through some interesting but depressing times of modern history, with the depression in America, and the vets' march on Washington which sees the president order the army to turn on their own people. A little forewarning that if this is how they treat what they consider 100% Americans, just imagine how bad things are going to be for the multicultural folk. Then Pearl Harbour happens, the Japanese, those who have lived in the States for decades, or who even have been born in the States, are considered enemy aliens not to be trusted. Neighbours reports the less obvious ones to the authorities (for Joey takes after his father in his height and looks and isn't obviously Japanese). You've got to love how mankind comes together in the bad times (sarcasm). So we go to the Japanese internment camps, thanks to Roosevelt, and the appauling treatment of honest people who never did anything wrong. Later on the young men are offered the opportunity of freedom if they enlist, and see the irony of being sent off to fight for a country that imprisoned them, and to fight against another country that's taking another selection of ethnicity and marching them off to camps. And whilst we're all in it together, some are more in it than others, and the Japanese-American solider lives can be merrily thrown on the bonfire just as long as the much smaller Texan regiment is saved. And we all know how things ended in Nagasaki...
Nice way to walk through history, but not the happiest tale to read.
January 2, 2016
Das Buch habe ich mal geschenkt bekommen, der Titel und das Cover haben mich nicht wirklich angesprochen und so lag es erstmal auf dem SuB, bis ich es im Rahmen der SuB-Destroyer-Challenge hervorkramte.
Und ich muss sagen: Never judge a book by its cover.
Am Anfang fiel es mir etwas schwer in das Buch hineinzukommen, aber dann konnte ich es gar nicht mehr aus der Hand legen. Es ist wunderschön ergreifend, bewegend, traurig, einfühlsam,... einfach toll zu lesen.
Die Thematik ist ganz schön extrem: Ein amerikanischer Navy heiratet eine junge Japanerin als er in Nagasaki ist, weil das billiger als eine annehmbare Unterkunft ist und gleichzeitig Spaß bringt. Sie bekommt ein Kind, dass seine neue, amerikanische Verlobte drei Jahre später mit nach Amerika bringt.
Ich will nicht zu viel vom Inhalt verraten, auf jeden Fall habe ich Dinge auch über den Zweiten Weltkrieg - erfahren, die man allgemein nicht weiß, weil diese Teile der Geschichte totgeschwiegen werden. Das große Ganze wird vermittelt durch die Geschichte eines einzelnen Jungen, seiner leiblichen Eltern und seiner Ziehmutter. So wird die Geschichte aus einer sehr persönlichen Sicht erzählt.
Insgesamt hat mir das Buch sehr gut gefallen und war eindeutig eine Überraschung! Ich vergebe 4 Sterne.
Und ich muss sagen: Never judge a book by its cover.
Am Anfang fiel es mir etwas schwer in das Buch hineinzukommen, aber dann konnte ich es gar nicht mehr aus der Hand legen. Es ist wunderschön ergreifend, bewegend, traurig, einfühlsam,... einfach toll zu lesen.
Die Thematik ist ganz schön extrem: Ein amerikanischer Navy heiratet eine junge Japanerin als er in Nagasaki ist, weil das billiger als eine annehmbare Unterkunft ist und gleichzeitig Spaß bringt. Sie bekommt ein Kind, dass seine neue, amerikanische Verlobte drei Jahre später mit nach Amerika bringt.
Ich will nicht zu viel vom Inhalt verraten, auf jeden Fall habe ich Dinge auch über den Zweiten Weltkrieg - erfahren, die man allgemein nicht weiß, weil diese Teile der Geschichte totgeschwiegen werden. Das große Ganze wird vermittelt durch die Geschichte eines einzelnen Jungen, seiner leiblichen Eltern und seiner Ziehmutter. So wird die Geschichte aus einer sehr persönlichen Sicht erzählt.
Insgesamt hat mir das Buch sehr gut gefallen und war eindeutig eine Überraschung! Ich vergebe 4 Sterne.
December 20, 2020
This seemed well-researched which is good. It's scope I think was too big and the characters at the centre failed to compel the reader. In particular trying to redeem the awful Ben into some sort of a protagonist after what he did was an error. It's hard to care what happens to him, his failure to connect with his family does not seem like the tragedy (ie inevitable movement of fate) it is presented at it just seems like more evidence of his really toxic character. Similarly Nancy's action is so unforgiveable so early in the book that she never quite touches our hearts either. Given that, just how much of the book is devoted to their feelings and interests makes for difficult reading.
I was more interested in Cho-Cho, Suzuki and initially Sachio. When he turned into a blond womaniser who was "different" in the sense of being perceived as handsome because he was taller and blonder than the other Japanese (seems racist) I lost patience with him too, although in flashes I got that back when he actually tried to follow his culture back. I can understand why the author focussed more on the Americal characters (safer ground) but they were less compelling.
The huge events in the novel are too many and the characters' involvement in all of them seems a bit contrived. Ben quits the navy just so he can be part of the unemployed protests in the depression, Sachio surely has been legally adopted as "Joey" and it seems unlikely that Nancy couldn't get him out of the concentration camp. The parallels with German nazis and the ironies of incarceration and then exclusion are well written and reminded me the author is not American (sometimes she appears to have a bit of a rosy coloured view to Americans, other times the criticism comes through). I understand that the great events are sort of the point of the novel, but it seems like it would be worth reducing the scope otherwise as it stands it's just a tourist trip through hell.
"Joey", Ben and Nancy's late in life lover are all presented as the sort of men that frankly any sensible woman would avoid. Cho-Cho has no choice but other women in the story do. Cho-Cho's feminism sits at odds with her continued doormat-like "love" for Pinkerton which is unrealistically uncritical, patient and without agenda. Nancy is no feminist but when she values her new lover for being more masterful than Ben I vomited a little. Sexuality in the book is presented in very stereotypicall heterosexual, exploitative and inequitable ways. I also didn't think "Joey's" feminist girlfriend at the end was portrayed like the strong woman we were clearly supposed to think she was. I had no issue with her choosing to bed him (although the inevitability of that was problematic) but her having carried the torch all along, her grumpiness hiding interest- oh please!
I've been quite critical so I will end with the positives. Meticulous research has gone into this book- both the events and conditions it depicts and seemingly Japanese culture too. In the better sections there is an ackowledgement of problematic morality and it almost touches on whiteness, patriarchy and colonialism being the problem. Capitalism is an obvious problem (the need to force other countries into exploitative "trade" partnerships but weasels out to be portrayed as potentially liberative (for Cho-Cho reinvented as an entrepreneur). Much as that seems naive, there are potential pauses for thought here. The parallel between the US arrangement with Japan (which ends in a bomb dropped) and Pinkerton's arrangement with Cho-Cho (another bomb though a figurative one) is not lost on me, though I am not sure the author intended it. Perhaps she did but was careful not to offend American readers.
I was more interested in Cho-Cho, Suzuki and initially Sachio. When he turned into a blond womaniser who was "different" in the sense of being perceived as handsome because he was taller and blonder than the other Japanese (seems racist) I lost patience with him too, although in flashes I got that back when he actually tried to follow his culture back. I can understand why the author focussed more on the Americal characters (safer ground) but they were less compelling.
The huge events in the novel are too many and the characters' involvement in all of them seems a bit contrived. Ben quits the navy just so he can be part of the unemployed protests in the depression, Sachio surely has been legally adopted as "Joey" and it seems unlikely that Nancy couldn't get him out of the concentration camp. The parallels with German nazis and the ironies of incarceration and then exclusion are well written and reminded me the author is not American (sometimes she appears to have a bit of a rosy coloured view to Americans, other times the criticism comes through). I understand that the great events are sort of the point of the novel, but it seems like it would be worth reducing the scope otherwise as it stands it's just a tourist trip through hell.
"Joey", Ben and Nancy's late in life lover are all presented as the sort of men that frankly any sensible woman would avoid. Cho-Cho has no choice but other women in the story do. Cho-Cho's feminism sits at odds with her continued doormat-like "love" for Pinkerton which is unrealistically uncritical, patient and without agenda. Nancy is no feminist but when she values her new lover for being more masterful than Ben I vomited a little. Sexuality in the book is presented in very stereotypicall heterosexual, exploitative and inequitable ways. I also didn't think "Joey's" feminist girlfriend at the end was portrayed like the strong woman we were clearly supposed to think she was. I had no issue with her choosing to bed him (although the inevitability of that was problematic) but her having carried the torch all along, her grumpiness hiding interest- oh please!
I've been quite critical so I will end with the positives. Meticulous research has gone into this book- both the events and conditions it depicts and seemingly Japanese culture too. In the better sections there is an ackowledgement of problematic morality and it almost touches on whiteness, patriarchy and colonialism being the problem. Capitalism is an obvious problem (the need to force other countries into exploitative "trade" partnerships but weasels out to be portrayed as potentially liberative (for Cho-Cho reinvented as an entrepreneur). Much as that seems naive, there are potential pauses for thought here. The parallel between the US arrangement with Japan (which ends in a bomb dropped) and Pinkerton's arrangement with Cho-Cho (another bomb though a figurative one) is not lost on me, though I am not sure the author intended it. Perhaps she did but was careful not to offend American readers.
June 20, 2023
Intéressant d’avoir eu plusieurs points de vues aussi bien détaillé et immersif dans un seul livre.
J’ai eu du mal à accrocher au début mais on prend conscience des conductions de vie des personnes qui vivent en période de guerre dont pearl harbor et la seconde guerre mondiale pour ce livre.
L’histoire est très belle, l’auteure arrive à nous garder en suspense jusqu’au bout.
L’histoire est déchirante mais elle témoigne de l’injustice pure.
J’ai eu du mal à accrocher au début mais on prend conscience des conductions de vie des personnes qui vivent en période de guerre dont pearl harbor et la seconde guerre mondiale pour ce livre.
L’histoire est très belle, l’auteure arrive à nous garder en suspense jusqu’au bout.
L’histoire est déchirante mais elle témoigne de l’injustice pure.
June 23, 2024
This book is a relatively easy read that skips over the complexities.
It is strong on the nature of memory, which is drawn out particularly in the first part of the book. For me, it faltered when the war starts, and overall was unsatisfying.
It is strong on the nature of memory, which is drawn out particularly in the first part of the book. For me, it faltered when the war starts, and overall was unsatisfying.
September 4, 2017
I love novels that help me to learn a little about the country they are set in. I want to visit Japan!!!
June 4, 2021
Loved it. It was so emotional, best historical book ever read.
July 1, 2024
Très belle histoire avec des faits historiques qui ont attiré ma curiosité et pu comprendre des choses sur l'histoire.
March 15, 2017
This historical fiction story begins where Puccini's opera, Madame Butterfly concludes. It is a beautiful book about undying love, a child/adult discovering his roots, and two families' experiences on both sides of the Pacific Ocean before, during and after WWII.
August 21, 2013
I really appreciated reading this book. The way the writer describes the Japanese culture, retained longer and kind of pushed me into more research.
The words from the book, "The tradition remains when everything else falls away". Looking into Tradition word I found "The Tradition is the set of beliefs of a people, which is followed conservatively with respect through generations.
Curious, as european, we may not really have much consideration for this word and since kindess, many times is missinterpretated as weakness, lack of attitude and lack of a strong voice that screams out what we are! Meanwhile, to the japanese culture, been louder is exactly where its weakness lies.
However, it is when the difficulty times approach, that the strenght of one country and their traditions are revealed and make it propere.
I found the novel enlightining for the fact that, again, no matter how hard life can be, one country can change its one destiny and redirect their forces to a new beginnig. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombarded, japan had no choice but re-build its own country, moving from poverty and under american domain to a modern a proper world.
Butterfly's Shadow is a modern way to continue Puccini's work Madame Butterfly. A Japanese tragedy, with many parallels throughout the book, however, it shows contemporary issues, in which we may see ourself in the same skin: Joe was born in Japan, moving to America very young, he did not follow the japanse traditions, but also was not accepted by the american culture. A constant dilema since he seems not fitting in any of both cultues.
The words from the book, "The tradition remains when everything else falls away". Looking into Tradition word I found "The Tradition is the set of beliefs of a people, which is followed conservatively with respect through generations.
Curious, as european, we may not really have much consideration for this word and since kindess, many times is missinterpretated as weakness, lack of attitude and lack of a strong voice that screams out what we are! Meanwhile, to the japanese culture, been louder is exactly where its weakness lies.
However, it is when the difficulty times approach, that the strenght of one country and their traditions are revealed and make it propere.
I found the novel enlightining for the fact that, again, no matter how hard life can be, one country can change its one destiny and redirect their forces to a new beginnig. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombarded, japan had no choice but re-build its own country, moving from poverty and under american domain to a modern a proper world.
Butterfly's Shadow is a modern way to continue Puccini's work Madame Butterfly. A Japanese tragedy, with many parallels throughout the book, however, it shows contemporary issues, in which we may see ourself in the same skin: Joe was born in Japan, moving to America very young, he did not follow the japanse traditions, but also was not accepted by the american culture. A constant dilema since he seems not fitting in any of both cultues.
June 17, 2014
3-1/2 stars...I kept wavering back and forth...I love the opera, MADAMA BUTTERFLY, and have seen it. I can remember being so shocked by the setting of 'One Fine Day' as I watched and listened.
Langley takes this story, fleshes it out from both points of view...both young people completely unaware of the mess they've gotten themselves into. I've never liked Pinkerton, and for most of the book, I still didn't.
BUT...Langley changes the pivotal scene in the opera and then follows her characters, both in Japan (Nagasaki) and Seattle. Thru the Depression, through the veterans' march on DC. Through Roosevelt's election, through the loosening of traditions in Japan, through Pearl Harbor, the internment camps, war in Europe, war in Japan...and the second atomic bomb.
In some ways I was ticking off the historical events on a checklist...Langley does her homework and has added to my understanding of this world..but at what cost?
To me, the cost was the characters. I liked them, I watched them grow and change. But the changes seemed, forced, somehow. They seemed to be cutouts to be moved around in this huge global saga.
At heart BUTTERFLY is about intimate events, about small families, big decisions, certainly, but personal.
Sometimes I felt like this book, with its richly layered title, was a newsreel of the early 20th century.
Great last line, but not much closure.
Langley takes this story, fleshes it out from both points of view...both young people completely unaware of the mess they've gotten themselves into. I've never liked Pinkerton, and for most of the book, I still didn't.
BUT...Langley changes the pivotal scene in the opera and then follows her characters, both in Japan (Nagasaki) and Seattle. Thru the Depression, through the veterans' march on DC. Through Roosevelt's election, through the loosening of traditions in Japan, through Pearl Harbor, the internment camps, war in Europe, war in Japan...and the second atomic bomb.
In some ways I was ticking off the historical events on a checklist...Langley does her homework and has added to my understanding of this world..but at what cost?
To me, the cost was the characters. I liked them, I watched them grow and change. But the changes seemed, forced, somehow. They seemed to be cutouts to be moved around in this huge global saga.
At heart BUTTERFLY is about intimate events, about small families, big decisions, certainly, but personal.
Sometimes I felt like this book, with its richly layered title, was a newsreel of the early 20th century.
Great last line, but not much closure.
August 26, 2014
I was excited to read this book because i had read Butterfly's Child (for book club) and found the concept of continuing the story of Cio-Cio and her son's lives after the end of the Madame Butterfly opera very interesting. I was not particularly impressed by the way it was handled in Butterfly's Child. Many things didn't "compute" for me.
This book is very different and I enjoyed it more because it involved all of the historical events of the era - the depression, WWII, FDR, etc. Some of the characters' actions didn't make much sense to me, and as I was listening (audiobook) I would occasionally find my mind wandering....but as I kept listening, I didn't feel that I'd missed a lot. The narrator was very good with accents, male/female voices, etc. and I never felt annoyed by her narration. The character who made the least sense to me was Benjamin Pinkerton; I don't think he's very well developed in either book. He's a real villain in the opera, but he has to be softened a bit in the continuing story. His characterization is a problem.
All in all, an enjoyable read.
This book is very different and I enjoyed it more because it involved all of the historical events of the era - the depression, WWII, FDR, etc. Some of the characters' actions didn't make much sense to me, and as I was listening (audiobook) I would occasionally find my mind wandering....but as I kept listening, I didn't feel that I'd missed a lot. The narrator was very good with accents, male/female voices, etc. and I never felt annoyed by her narration. The character who made the least sense to me was Benjamin Pinkerton; I don't think he's very well developed in either book. He's a real villain in the opera, but he has to be softened a bit in the continuing story. His characterization is a problem.
All in all, an enjoyable read.
July 29, 2015
'Truth is shapeless. Like water, it can be different things to different people, it can bring life if you drink it or death if you drown. One truth will tell how a tea-house girl took an American sailor into her bed. There's a truth in which an orphan child was sold by one man to another. There's a truth in which a girl saw a golden man walking up a hill towards her and loved him for the whole of her life.' - Chapter 55.
'Butterfly's Shadow' is a hauntingly, heartbreakingly beautiful novel that imagines the aftermath of Puccini's 'Madama Butterfly'. Langley's prose flows effortlessly and captures a mood of listless hope. Each character is well developed with clear reasonings and motivations that are skilfully revealed via the shifting focalisation.
The theme of identity threads throughout the narrative as the cast struggle with conflicting realities of who they are.
The story provides a satisfying contrast to 'Memoirs of a Geisha' by Arthur Golden, and artfully explores the question of 'what happened next?'
'Butterfly's Shadow' is a hauntingly, heartbreakingly beautiful novel that imagines the aftermath of Puccini's 'Madama Butterfly'. Langley's prose flows effortlessly and captures a mood of listless hope. Each character is well developed with clear reasonings and motivations that are skilfully revealed via the shifting focalisation.
The theme of identity threads throughout the narrative as the cast struggle with conflicting realities of who they are.
The story provides a satisfying contrast to 'Memoirs of a Geisha' by Arthur Golden, and artfully explores the question of 'what happened next?'
March 26, 2013
Narrated by Laurel Lefkow
10 hrs and 54 mins
Publisher's Summary
In a Japan still rigid with tradition, an apprehensive 15-year-old tea-house girl prepares to welcome her first client. In his gleaming white uniform, Lieutenant Pinkerton walks up the hill to a house in Nagasaki to find the female he has purchased for a few weeks. When he sails away, she waits, aching for his return. It is one of the world’s great love stories. And, as the curtain falls on Madame Butterfly, Cho-Cho hands over her son to his American father, before killing herself... In a daring imaginative leap, Lee Langley takes this searing moment as a springboard, sending Puccini’s characters spinning into a future undreamed of in the original.
10 hrs and 54 mins
Publisher's Summary
In a Japan still rigid with tradition, an apprehensive 15-year-old tea-house girl prepares to welcome her first client. In his gleaming white uniform, Lieutenant Pinkerton walks up the hill to a house in Nagasaki to find the female he has purchased for a few weeks. When he sails away, she waits, aching for his return. It is one of the world’s great love stories. And, as the curtain falls on Madame Butterfly, Cho-Cho hands over her son to his American father, before killing herself... In a daring imaginative leap, Lee Langley takes this searing moment as a springboard, sending Puccini’s characters spinning into a future undreamed of in the original.
January 25, 2023
I loved the glimpse we get of Japanese culture. I've read reviews that criticise the lack of depth in characters. However, I believe the culture contrasts we perceive here are what's magical about Butterfly's Shadow.
We all know about the Japanese/USA conflict, however this is the first time I've experienced it through the eyes of a Japanese-American boy while also seeing his American and Japanese family's perspective.
We all know about the Japanese/USA conflict, however this is the first time I've experienced it through the eyes of a Japanese-American boy while also seeing his American and Japanese family's perspective.
April 7, 2015
Writing a sequel for an iconic story like Madame Butterfly is interesting and got me to read the book. Of course, the author cheats a bit by moving the time frame of the story forward a few years in order for Butterfly's son to be of draft age during WW II. This allows him to experience the internment camps as well as a punishing life in a Japanese brigade.
For those who accept the opera's ending without question, the author has some surprises in store.
For those who accept the opera's ending without question, the author has some surprises in store.
June 27, 2012
Librement inspirée de Madame Butterfly, "Une Ombre japonaise" propose une suite bouleversante du célèbre opéra de Puccini. Au-delà de l'histoire amour contrarié, des mensonges et des non-dits, c'est une quête identitaire profondément émouvante que raconte Lee Langley dans ce récit captivant et plein d'émotion ! Un roman magnifique à lire absolument !
August 6, 2012
Interesting look at Japanese Americans before, during and after the war.I listened to this and as an audio book I was a little annoyed with the reader who didn't even come close to the right pronunciation of the majority of Japanese words in the narrative. Though the reader is obviously not Japanese, I thik she should have made some effort to learn how to say these words.
December 9, 2014
I liked the accuracy of the Japanese culture from the language to the tradition, but it was a little too predictable and the history-telling often got a little tedious and the story was overshadowed. Overall not a bad read, obviously written by someone who cares a great deal for international culture enough to properly research and write about it, which I commend.
February 11, 2016
Story based loosely on Madam Butterfly. Extends into the life of her son Joey who becomes an American and is detained in a concentration camp with other Japanese Americans. He is allowed to join the army and goes back to look for his mother after Nagasaki is bombed. She has become a shadow on the wall.
Narrated by Laurel Lefkow
Narrated by Laurel Lefkow
December 6, 2014
I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. Appreciated the different points of view and though felt the end was a little rushed, it is a brilliantl portrait of the different factions that were present during WWII and the Japanese internment camps in the USA.
March 25, 2016
I love books where the author takes a fictional work and then says "what if"... A really interesting view of the experience of a "mixed-race" child who feels no connection to his Japanese heritage, until he winds up in an internment camp during WWII. This one will stay with me for a while!
June 13, 2012
REALLY LIKED THIS BOOK....well resourced and lots of worthy information of a history i am not too familiar with.
October 16, 2012
A good story - I learned quite a bit about historical facts as well.
November 10, 2013
Good mix of History and Romance
February 4, 2014
Great read, recommended reading to add to your reading list, a lovely mix of love n war. Well researched history bits about Japan/America, enlightened on my part.
July 14, 2014
I really enjoyed this book. I would recommend it to others.
June 30, 2014
great read. attempts to answer the question what is a mother
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