Book: The Japanese Lover
Author: Isabel Allende
Reviewer: Marta H. Garcia, associate vice president for development at the Georgia Institute of Technology
I am addicted to fiction focusing on World War II, having heard about the conflict from my parents and grandmother, all of whom lived through concentration camps and the chaos of Europe in those psychotic years. When I saw that one of my favorite authors, Isabel Allende, had written a book focusing on the aftermath of the war, I jumped at the opportunity to explore it through her eyes. She has a rather spotty history, producing books like “House of the Spirits” or “Eva Luna” that evoke Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but also faltering when she tries to go too far out of her area of comfort, e.g. “Ripper,” a real disappointment.
This one — “The Japanese Lover” — is fun and while not what I would call a classic, certainly does manage to tell the story of World War II’s personal tragedies by relating its consequences on victims about whom we don’t normally read.
The core of the book is a 50-year-plus relationship between Alma Belasco, a Jewish child who is sent out of Poland to live with her powerful and wealthy relatives in San Francisco to avoid extermination by the Nazis. The emotional trauma of being separated from her family is eased by a new friend, Ichimei Fukuda, son of the family gardener, with whom she develops a friendship that ultimately blossoms into love, surviving separations and his family’s exile to internment camps during the war, and marriages/families for both (within then-acceptable racial parameters).
Alma, now widowed by her cousin/husband and heir to the Belasco fortune, is 82, in failing health, and cared for by a Moldovan refugee who has has her own tale of loss and trauma, and a blossoming love with Alma’s grandson, Seth. The mysteries of both women’s lives and the secrets they unknowingly share are intriguing, but ultimately I found that the the story, which is very adeptly told by Allende, who weaves pieces together beautifully, is too busy and gets obscured by numerous superfluous characters and events that she inserts (in my opinion) unnecessarily.
If the point of the story is identity, loyalty and love, as some of the reviewers indicate, it would be a cleaner, more powerful tale and provide the readers with a better chance to learn more about the primary characters and events. The business of so many other components diminishes the point and ultimately turns this unconventional perspective on the victims of the war into a somewhat soap-operatic saga unworthy of Allende’s considerable talent as a writer.
(That being said, I still enjoyed reading the book because it did provide a glimpse into the neglected consequences of the way we treated Japanese residents in the U.S. during that period.)
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