Waiting

Written by Ha Jin

Narrated by Dick Hill

Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award • Pulitzer Prize Finalist • A New York Times Notable Book

From the widely acclaimed National Book Award-winning author—a rich and atmospheric novel about a man living in two worlds, struggling with the conflicting claims of two utterly different women.

The demands of human longing contend with the weight of centuries of custom in acclaimed author Ha Jin's Waiting, a novel of unexpected richness and universal resonance. Every summer Lin Kong, a doctor in the Chinese Army, returns to his village to end his loveless arranged marriage with the humble and touchingly loyal Shuyu. But each time Lin must return to the city to tell Manna Wu, the educated, modern nurse he loves, that they will have to postpone their engagement once again. Caught between the conflicting claims of these two utterly different women and trapped by a culture in which adultery can ruin lives and careers, Lin has been waiting for eighteen years. This year, he promises will be different.

"Ha Jin profoundly understands the conflict between the individual and society, between the timeless universality of the human heart and constantly shifting politics of the moment. With wisdom, restraint, and empathy for all his characters, he vividly reveals the complexities and subtleties of a world and a people we desperately need to know."—Judges' Citation, National Book Award

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: May 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543612608

Ha Jin

HA JIN left his native China in 1985 to attend Brandeis University. He is the author of eight novels, four story collections, three volumes of poetry, and a book of essays. He has received the National Book Award, two PEN/Faulkner Awards, the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award, the Asian American Literary Award, and the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. In 2014 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in the Boston area and is director of the creative writing program at Boston University.

Reviews for Waiting

[Leah Barton Tew · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I didn’t like this as much as I thought I would. I think some of it was that the dialogue didn’t always come across well to an American ear; it’s just not the way we speak. For example, in the heat of an argument we wouldn’t yell “I want to get even with you!”
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I also am admittedly ignorant of the politico-cultural norms of the time and place, so some of it just didn’t make sense to me, or I didn’t understand the significance of what was going on. For these reasons I had trouble connecting to the characters as more than characters, which made it difficult to form an emotional investment in them.

[silvercowrie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I thought this was a beautiful, poignant tale of love and longing set against the background of the traditions of rural China versus the constraints of the Cultural revolution.It is interesting because it has been written in English for western readers and although the author makes observations about life at that time he doesn’t make any political judgements. For me, he manages to make this simple story resonate on all levels through the characters without going into too much detail about the Cultural Revolution and the aftermath. Instead we get read of everyday life and discover the ramifications of living and working at that time through the characters. I thought that the writing was really vivid - passages that stood out were descriptions of springtime and the beauty of the countryside. Throughout the book, I could smell the food, see the bleak concrete compounds and the sparse living quarters. The characters of Shuyu and Manna represent the conflict between China’s feudal past and life under The Cultural Revolution.I loved the humanity in this book and I also liked how the novel introduces much of the culture and the thinking of China especially the knowledge of food as medicine and how to eat to redress the imbalances of the body.

[vanessajr-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very atmospheric and evocative of old China, but a bit dry and boring in parts and it left me feeling a bit depressed.

[zasmine_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There are many excellent book reviews of Waiting. What I found missing in them is the exploration of how Lin falls in love with Manna after he tends to her feet blisters as a nurse should. On the other hand, one of the things he loathes about Shuyu is her bound feet. Shuyu tells the nurses when she comes to the city hospital that Lin never saw her feet.

Its a very well-written book, Ha Jin can 'craft a book very well'. The opening line already wins you over, then you don't stop. Its a simple narrative with the just the right amount of historical and cultural backdrop and the exploration of characters.

[smits_52 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“Waiting”is a novel filled with the culture of Chinese relationships. This novel explored a world I knew next to nothing about and I found it quite interesting .Lin, a doctor in the Chinese army has been in a loveless marriage for over 18 years. Because of party rules and ancient traditions , he is finding it difficult to divorce her to marry the woman he has promised to marry for 18 years. Manna is a nurse in the same compound bound by culture herself.
There’s a great deal of irony and humorous in this novel, pathos plus frustration as you want to give Lin a good shake.
A slow moving novel that did grow on me.

[Pricarte · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It is a delicately written novel, full of melancholy. It is very delicate, and I liked it because it delves into the feelings of a man's heart who knows it's better to allow himself to be loved than to live the passion of love. He does not know what that is. (Translated from Spanish)

[ssaenz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A very interesting novel. This is the second one I read by this author, and it's a good way to delve into 20th-century Chinese literature. The story is original, and I really liked the way it was narrated. (Translated from Spanish)

[patsymurray · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Subtle and compelling reflection on the tensions inherent in a life made of choices, even in a culture where few choices seem to exist.

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At first, I was a little bored by this book....a couple waiting close to 18 years to marry or even to become lovers? Just get on with it! But, that feeling didn't last long as this is a deeper story about love, loyalty and life in a more rigid culture than we enjoy in today's Canada. Lin is married to a peasant woman who lives on the family farm, looking after his aging parents and raising their daughter. He is an Army doctor living in a far-off city, where he falls in love with a nurse. There are many rules and norms that prevent Lin and his true love from being together: Army rules, Communist Party Rules, laws that require divorce to be consensual, family expectations.

The real tragedy is that Lin is unable to break free of any of these bonds, thereby missing out on a satisfying marriage, his daughter's life, time with his true love. The messages are subtle, but heart wrenching at the same time.

[jbarringer-2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was a great novel about life in China during Mao's regime.

[eye_gee-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I was listening to this on audio and got distracted from it. It wasn't holding my interest to begin with, and I realize I'm not going to go back to it.

[bagpuss-3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is based on a real life event, after Jin and his wife met a doctor at a hospital who had done just what the blurb says. I really enjoyed this – it was an easy read, but fast paced and the characters are well-written and believable. I learnt a bit about what life is like in communist China (our country may be far from perfect, but I count my blessings that we have the freedom we have). This is a novel about love, and about wasted opportunities and about how the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence. Very enjoyable.

[profh-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

How do we spend the moments of our life? How do years get away from us? What promises do we make to others?

I very much enjoyed Jin's story. The protaganist's inability to decide what he wants, to take initiative, or to want what he has was facinating. This novel is limited in subject matter (don't expect it to go beyond a description of a love triangle), but enjoy the poignant exploration of how unresolved weakness destroys our lives and the lives around us.

[juva_3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A complicated novel about arranged marriages versus marrying for love. Set in Communist China.

[amydelpo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well written, compelling, beautiful. Perfectly paced and spare.

[phyllis.shepherd · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

National Book Award winner. Chinese man struggles with loyalty toward his wife of many years and his affection for a nurse with whom he works. Allegory about China's being poised between the old and the new.

[hadriantheblind · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A simple book, sparse in words and meaning. A bit dull. Characters blend together.

[astults_3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

What happens when you wait 2+ years to marry the person you love? That is what Ha Jin explores in Waiting. And it doesn't seem to be very pretty for either side. Manna Wu becomes bitter over time and Lin Kong wonders if he's made the right decision after all this time.

I really wanted to connect with the characters but couldn't for some reason.

[celerydog_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Delicate, poetic prose, character-driven novel. Enjoyed, although it evoked ennui. The protgonist seemed autistic.

[pamdierickx · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

China 1950-80.....interesting read. It is a minimalist read. Unusual detail, limited vocabulary and sentence structure. After reading into the book the style became part of the whole. China no one was an individual, everything was decided by the government. The People lived and died and that was all there was except LOVE if you found it. At the end the main character Lin decided that 3 children, 2 sons and 1 daughter made him a lucky man.
characters: Lin - father; Shuyu - 1st wife, Hua -daughter; Manna - 2nd wife; Lake and River - twin boys born when he was old.

[escapebookclub · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Read in September 2000. You really get a sense of waiting forever in this book and there are times when you just want to shake the characters and ask them to get on with it. We had mixed feelings about this book ...... for some loved it and others were irritated with the characters. A good discussion, though!

[angela9vaughn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book was like so many others about the Asian Culture, wonderful. It was plum full of love, heartbreak, suffering, and over all passion for life. Ha Jin has a wonderful way with words that will allow you to feel the moment and not just read about it. Easily one of the best books I have read this year. My only regret is that I didn't read it sooner.

[robindawson · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It was certainly interesting to see what life in China was like under Mao, but apart from that this book was a disappointment. I don't think it's a worthy winner of the NBA.

I felt no sympathy for the characters – Lin in particular was so helpless and hopeless and weak. He wasted so much of his life – but I wasn’t prepared to waste too much of mine while drifted along – so I didn’t finish it. I think the language and style were very offputting – very spare, flat, and opaque – just descriptions of externalities giving little insight into the psychological and emotional complexities of the characters.

[lynneinfla · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I found this book fairly unexciting. I was interested in the picture it paints of life in China, but the story itself was very frustrating. What a wimp the hero is! He waits all his life for other people to make decisions for him, to take care of him, to tell him what to do. Perhaps this was the mentality encouraged by the Chinese government, but his wife and his second wife seemed to have more gumption than he did. Can you tell I didn't like him much at all.

[lukespapa · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Set in China during/after the Cultural Revolution, the novel explores relationships in considering “what one has” versus “what one wants” versus “what one thinks they want”. In a time when divorce is not easy to obtain, a doctor seeks to leave behind his simple village wife for a more modern co-worker. Although this process takes 18 years the end result is not what was expected as “waiting” takes on a whole new meaning – actually several new meanings. A finely crafted novel that is more like drinking a glass of sherry than a shot of whiskey.

[theoclarke · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It is too easy to use the title of this novel as a cheap shot about the tedium of its pace. Most of the plot is implicit in the first paragraph of the prologue and, although the author conveys a sense of the quiet oppression of life in Communist China, the dry precision of the descriptive passages only serve to slow the pace further. The phrasing is lapidary and admirable for that but this tautness is distancing. The characters are clearly delineated but I found none of them warming. So, this wins points for style but lacks the human engagement that I seek from a novel.

[michiy_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was an enjoyable read, however I was not impressed. Disappointed to be more accurate. It probably doesn't help that I don't like Hemingway, who Ha Jin has been compared to, but the simplicity of the writing didn't seem to have any substance. I realize it was his first book in English, but perhaps he shouldn't have written it in English? Or rather, should not have won prizes for "effort". It could have been so much more, but it only grazed the surface. The writing almost felt like a stereotype of what Chinese writing should sound like.

[bolero_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

interesting account of life and love and hardships during the Cultural Revolution in China - but a 1999 National Book Award winner?

[marktroop · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An astonishing & touching book

[annelim_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Set in China between 1960s and 1980s. A doctor, originally from a small village, is married young to a woman with bound feet, roo ugly to be taken to the city and the hospital where he works. There he meets another woman and for 17 years he is torn between the two, unable to get a divorce and also unable to live with the woman in the city for political reasons. Interwoven is the politcal and cultural atmosphere of China during that time.