It's typical of Ha Jin that he makes his narrator a graduate of a Nationalist military academy, and yet at the same time someone who chooses to be repatriated to China. He simply wants to go home, to meet up again with his fiancee and look after an aged parent. This side-lining of political commitment, and highlighting instead the human, the domestic and the ordinary, is typical of all his tales, some of which have been compared to the stories of Anton Chekhov, another markedly non-political writer.
The narrator initially ends up in the US, but decides, at the age of 73, to return to China, the land that has bred him and will retain his bones. But his life in Korea doesn't lead easily to this eventual pair of destinations. Because he's perceived as an educated man who also speaks some English, he is co-opted to help in the screening, propaganda and administration work of the camp, and hence to see into the stories of many of his fellow prisoners -- Ha Jin here deftly using the memoirs he's been reading when preparing to write the novel.
Few things could be more appropriate to the present confrontational age than this tolerant, horrified, detailed look back at the Korean War. What the world needs at present is exactly this kind of humane skepticism. War is always the worst of all possible options, and we can't be told this often enough. That all sides act brutally in conflict is another truth we should never forget. Ha Jin, born in China, living in the US since 1985, and writing in English but about East Asia, has in this book seized his opportunity. In these brutally confrontational times, his is a voice of moderation, realism, sanity and wisdom. It's impossible to believe that, in taking on this Korean subject-matter, Ha Jin isn't commenting on the present state of the world. So read this book, and meditate on its message. If for Korea you read Iraq, I doubt if Ha Jin will complain.
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