reviews_and_ramblings (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
reviews_and_ramblings) wrote2010-11-09 03:12 pm
reviews_and_ramblings) wrote2010-11-09 03:12 pm
Best Overall Gay Fiction (1° place): The Lonely War by Alan Chin
Also Best Characters (1° place), Best Setting (1° place), Best Gay Historical (1° place)
The Lonely War was for sure a complex and sometime too much involving novel to read (and not only since it’s almost 500 pages long); I was pulled and pushed by it, especially from the second part on: pulled since I really loved Andrew Waters’ character and pushed since I was expecting, and realizing page after page, that he would not have a traditional happy ending.
I will not spend time describing the setting, the story, rewriting a blurb, all of this can be found on the publisher website or in other reviews, I want to explain why this novel was so involving for me that more than one time I needed to stop and re-reading sentences, since my mind was wondering on its own direction, letting painful memories take over the story. What you are reading is not a review, unless you don’t want to consider the factor that only a powerful novel is able to do that, to suck you into the story so much that you loose yourself into it.
More than one reader told me this novel has a bittersweet ending, but sincerely I don’t agree with them, this novel has probably the only possible happy ending considering it’s set in the mid-late ’40 and with one main character, Andrew, that is an Asia-American man. Asia-American man and gay in the US at the end of the '40 - beginning of the '50? I don’t want to give too much of a spoiler so please stop reading here if you don’t want to be spoiled, but
---
how much realistic it would have been if Andrew had returned home after the war to live happily ever after with another man? It would not be possible, and Andrew undoubtedly would have been unhappy, maybe not immediately, but surely in time, and probably not only unhappy, but also alone. The ending Alan Chin decided to give to the story is the only one possible, and with this perspective, for me it’s also a good one, in my mind I can imagine Andrew being, maybe not fully happy, but at least in peace.
The only concern I have is exactly on the last sentence of the postscript “he (Mitchell) realized that instant had never occurred” and even before, in the last paragraph of the last chapter:
When I was young I loved so much the war novels, because it was an history I can reconnect to, my grandfather used to talk about the war, my same parents were children when the II WW was still on, and a lingering memoir of those events still was in the air. I stopped to love them since it was not often I found an HEA, most of the time, one of the character was left behind, mourning the loss of his/her beloved one. With this perspective, I’m happy to have read The Lonely War, it’s an heartbreaking novel, but I’m not sure I will be able to read it again (as I’m not sure I will be able to see again The Pianist or The Schindler List or Empire of the Sun): they are all artworks (and yes, art is a necessary definition) calling to much to my heart, and I need to protect it. For this reason I want to think to Andrew and that spring that will never come, letting the winter last forever.
And now out of the review, so please don’t consider it as a parameter to decide if you want to read or not this novel, this is my personal experience, but I will explain why I need to protect my heart from this novel and from that last sentence: my father was a man of summer, he enjoyed the sea, the nature, the possibility to living outdoor; he was raised in the city, during war time, and his only escape from a life of poverty and work (he started to work at 9 years old) was to go fishing near the sea, on the delta of a big river. He could do that only in spring and summer, and sometime he stretched it until autumn, but winter was out of question, it was too cold. It was not the fishing itself that pulled to my father, but the possibility to escape a reality that was too much hurting for him. When he was diagnosed with cancer, he was given 3, maximum 4 months of life: it was the December of 1990; my father fought the cancer with all his strength, he wanted to live for me, my brother and my mother, and he wanted to live since he was only 51 years old and he had a life in front of him. On November 1993, almost 3 years after the diagnosis, the pain was indescribable, and my father still refused to take the morphine since he didn’t want to loose the connection with his life, with us and the rest of the world. But the winter came and he was forced to come back home, far from the river and inside an house in the city. One of the last things he said to my mother was, looking outside to our yard garden that was starting to blossom with the new year flowers, “if I manage to be alive coming next spring, I will manage to live another year.” My father died on March 18, 1994. I want to think that for Andrew things went differently, that the spark was strong enough to let him live through the another and another and another winter.
http://www.zumayapublications.com/title.php?id=217
Amazon: The Lonely War
Reading List:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bott
The Lonely War was for sure a complex and sometime too much involving novel to read (and not only since it’s almost 500 pages long); I was pulled and pushed by it, especially from the second part on: pulled since I really loved Andrew Waters’ character and pushed since I was expecting, and realizing page after page, that he would not have a traditional happy ending. I will not spend time describing the setting, the story, rewriting a blurb, all of this can be found on the publisher website or in other reviews, I want to explain why this novel was so involving for me that more than one time I needed to stop and re-reading sentences, since my mind was wondering on its own direction, letting painful memories take over the story. What you are reading is not a review, unless you don’t want to consider the factor that only a powerful novel is able to do that, to suck you into the story so much that you loose yourself into it.
More than one reader told me this novel has a bittersweet ending, but sincerely I don’t agree with them, this novel has probably the only possible happy ending considering it’s set in the mid-late ’40 and with one main character, Andrew, that is an Asia-American man. Asia-American man and gay in the US at the end of the '40 - beginning of the '50? I don’t want to give too much of a spoiler so please stop reading here if you don’t want to be spoiled, but
---
how much realistic it would have been if Andrew had returned home after the war to live happily ever after with another man? It would not be possible, and Andrew undoubtedly would have been unhappy, maybe not immediately, but surely in time, and probably not only unhappy, but also alone. The ending Alan Chin decided to give to the story is the only one possible, and with this perspective, for me it’s also a good one, in my mind I can imagine Andrew being, maybe not fully happy, but at least in peace.
The only concern I have is exactly on the last sentence of the postscript “he (Mitchell) realized that instant had never occurred” and even before, in the last paragraph of the last chapter:
"Okay. I'll stay with you until spring."I actually re-read three time both last chapter and the postscript, trying to understand what actually the ending was, and in the end, I think the author wanted to give us 2 options: if the reader has a more romantic core, he/she will read this ending as an happily one for Andrew, he fought his “mal de vivre” and he found a reason to continue in the people around him who loved him; if the reader has a more realistic core, he/she will read this ending with a more bitter taste. But since I’m a romantic at heart, I don’t want to think to the possible meaning of the postscript, I want to focus on that “spark of intensity” that flares up within Andrew’s being, giving him a reason to fight against everything happened to him, and maybe even against his own heart.
He (Andrew) felt a spark of intensity flare up within his being, and he desperately wanted the winter to stretch on forever.
When I was young I loved so much the war novels, because it was an history I can reconnect to, my grandfather used to talk about the war, my same parents were children when the II WW was still on, and a lingering memoir of those events still was in the air. I stopped to love them since it was not often I found an HEA, most of the time, one of the character was left behind, mourning the loss of his/her beloved one. With this perspective, I’m happy to have read The Lonely War, it’s an heartbreaking novel, but I’m not sure I will be able to read it again (as I’m not sure I will be able to see again The Pianist or The Schindler List or Empire of the Sun): they are all artworks (and yes, art is a necessary definition) calling to much to my heart, and I need to protect it. For this reason I want to think to Andrew and that spring that will never come, letting the winter last forever.
And now out of the review, so please don’t consider it as a parameter to decide if you want to read or not this novel, this is my personal experience, but I will explain why I need to protect my heart from this novel and from that last sentence: my father was a man of summer, he enjoyed the sea, the nature, the possibility to living outdoor; he was raised in the city, during war time, and his only escape from a life of poverty and work (he started to work at 9 years old) was to go fishing near the sea, on the delta of a big river. He could do that only in spring and summer, and sometime he stretched it until autumn, but winter was out of question, it was too cold. It was not the fishing itself that pulled to my father, but the possibility to escape a reality that was too much hurting for him. When he was diagnosed with cancer, he was given 3, maximum 4 months of life: it was the December of 1990; my father fought the cancer with all his strength, he wanted to live for me, my brother and my mother, and he wanted to live since he was only 51 years old and he had a life in front of him. On November 1993, almost 3 years after the diagnosis, the pain was indescribable, and my father still refused to take the morphine since he didn’t want to loose the connection with his life, with us and the rest of the world. But the winter came and he was forced to come back home, far from the river and inside an house in the city. One of the last things he said to my mother was, looking outside to our yard garden that was starting to blossom with the new year flowers, “if I manage to be alive coming next spring, I will manage to live another year.” My father died on March 18, 1994. I want to think that for Andrew things went differently, that the spark was strong enough to let him live through the another and another and another winter.
http://www.zumayapublications.com/title.php?id=217
Amazon: The Lonely War
Reading List:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bott
no subject
Here, in Poland, the subject of WWII is still present and it's still painful. Some of the people who witnessed all those horrible things are still alive.
I totally agree with you - I'm not able to watch "The Pianist" or "Schindler's list" again either.
no subject
There is a clue about the ending.
(Anonymous) 2010-11-09 03:07 pm (UTC)(link)I wanted to give you a little tip as to determining which ending was what I had in mind. The wedding that Andrew attends in the last scene is a spring wedding. He survived the spring.
Your father sounds like an amazing man. I also lost my father to cancer, and like your father, they gave him six months to live. He fought with the pain for another sixteen years. If you ever decide to write his story, I would love to read it, perhaps even help write it. I don't think I could write my own father's story, not yet anyway.
Again, thank you,
Alan Chin
Re: There is a clue about the ending.
My father was a wonderful man, he was a fighter but not a violent man. He was in politics and he has his idea, but he taught me you have to always, always give your opponent the chance to explain his own position. He didn't hate anyone, he had no hate in him. To give you an example, he was an atheist, he was for all his life, but it's common behaviour in our country that the neighbooring priest comes along when you have a sick person at home. We didn't know, the nurse didn't tell us, but my father accepted for the priest to visit for some afternoon before he was too sick. But he then told us he didn't want an ordinary funeral, he didn't want to have his funeral in the church. We had a funeral in the street, really, local police had to close down a street since there were too many people attending. The day after his death the priest sent us his condolences, and in that moment we realized he was visiting my father. I think, but we will never know, that they reached an agreement, and both my father than the priest had the chance to express their opinion, but in the end, both of them remained in their position.
no subject
You already know my thoughts on "The Lonely War". It's a beautiful novel that doesn't let you look away from both the good and bad sides of people.
To me, Andrew lived past the spring. He had, after all, a lot of new responsibilities as well as new connection to keep him going past the winter. It surprised me, really, how much I cared for him because I really didn't like him for the first 100 pages or so. But then, Chin is wicked talented, no?
In any case, like you, this is a book I don't know if I'll ever reread again, but it's one that I've told people about because it really transcends the M/M genre.
no subject