The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka ****

I've never heard the radio play by Dylan Thomas called Under Milkwood performed, though I always wanted to after I read it.  I got interested in Thomas when I read some of his short stories back when I was in college.  Sometimes they annoyed me & I couldn't finish them, but other times they were so right that they are singed into my memory.  One short story in particular I will remember forever, but I haven't been able to find it again.  I don't know where I read it but it's one of those quests that will define my life--where is that story?

The Buddha in the Attic reminds me of Under Milkwood because of the way it is written.  You get to hear the inner voices of a group of people, a community, what they're thinking & how they're living.  Thomas wrote of a Welsh fishing village, but Otsuka writes of the community of Japanese picture brides that came to the US after the turn of the century.  I know it sounds very different, but for some reason it was rather similar to me.

I can't imagine how brave & scared those women had to be, coming to a totally foreign land to marry men they'd never met, men that they only had pictures of & letters full of promises.  When they got to our shores many found that not only were their new husbands not the men in the pictures, but they were desperately poor.  These women who hoped for a better life across the ocean found themselves in just as much hardship as what they'd left.  And through this book their voices speak again, about the women that started laundry businesses with their husbands, or started farming rented land.  Or worked as maids for the rich ladies of San Francisco, or became prostitutes.  You hear them talk of how they learned to love their husbands, or never stopped hating them.  Of how they were worked almost to death, & had to claw their way up the ladder of success.  You hear them mourn the loss of children & grow weary at the birth of yet another. 

You get to become part of their community for a short while, just as you became part of the fabric of Milkwood for a short while too.  But unlike Dylan Thomas' fictional village, the story of the women of Japan who came to America is real.  And it comes to a screeching halt when their homes, stores, businesses & farms are suddenly empty & abandoned.  It ends in 1942. 

A very good book.  It left me haunted by voices.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett *****

I'd heard about this book somewhere, perhaps while listening to NPR. It sounded like an interesting experiment--what if a group of hostages started liking where they were and who they were with? What if they didn't want to be rescued? It's not really like Stockholm syndrome, it's something different. All the people are rich, powerful, and very busy. And when they are taken hostage, they suddenly have time.

The action takes place in the vice-presidential home of an unnamed country in South America. We are told the country is very poor, so in order to attract more investment they are holding a birthday party for a very important man--Mr. Hosokawa. Mr. Hosokawa is the CEO of an electronics company in Japan. But Mr. Hosokawa has no intentions of building a new plant in this "God-forsaken country". His only reason for travelling halfway around the world to this birthday party is because Roxanne Coss, the most talented operatic soprano in the world, will be singing for the guests. And Mr. Hosokawa's great love is opera.

So begins the infamous party, which soon turns ugly when three "Generals" and their barely teen aged troops sneak into the mansion through the air conditioning vents and take over the premises.

This is the kind of book I like, in that it is an in depth look at the characters and how they interact. Mr. Hosokawa, Gen, Roxanne Coss, Carmen, the Three Generals, Simon Thibault, etc. etc. You care deeply for them all by the end of the book, and fear what will happen to them. Roxanne I tended to get annoyed with, she was a very entitled person. But I have noticed that in general that if you act entitled, you are treated with entitlement. Of course you can't help but wonder how you would have behaved in the same situation. Selflessly, like Father Arguedas and Ruben Iglesias? Or otherwise?

I didn't like the ending of the book, but I think that was the point. It wasn't supposed to happen, and it leaves you feeling a sense of doom for the relationship that is featured. It's a futile attempt to recapture something that is gone forever. And haven't we all tried to do that ourselves?

If you like to delve into others, and thereby into yourself, I highly recommend this book.