When reading becomes art (you can feel it)

I’m recommending Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet for my community’s 2010 Read Together campaign. Not because of its power to convey a feeling for history, though it has that power. I’m recommending it because in its pages, you don’t merely learn about the Japanese internment camps of World War Two, you feel them.

You feel the injustice of imprisoning innocent people. You also grasp the tension of the time—the chilling, unprecedented Pearl-Harbor fear that swept the nation and the West Coast in particular (including Seattle, the setting for this novel) after that famously infamous attack.

This is author Jamie Ford’s first novel, and yet he displays a seemingly effortless talent for making history as unexpected as it actually was. We see the shock of Japanese Americans as they are suddenly ostracized and then rounded up for relocation. We meet young Henry Lee, a twelve-year-old, first-generation Chinese boy whom his parents literally label, in order to save him from being mistaken as Japanese.

Henry is on scholarship to a white school, requiring officially that he work in the kitchen, and unofficially that he withstand the fists and taunts of his mainstream classmates. There he meets another scholarship kid, also assigned to kitchen duty, a Japanese girl. And we’re off to an old, but ever-new, love story set in a world at war.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet examines enduring issues. Must my father’s enemy be my enemy? Can immigrants ever really understand their first-generation children, and they their parents? When does loving parental guidance become unhealthy coercion? What is the right path when heart and duty point in opposite directions? Would you ever go to war for a country that imprisoned you? stole your property? damaged the people you love the most?

But I’m recommending Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet not only because of how powerfully it raises such timeless questions. I’m recommending the book because it is a work of art.

Somewhere amidst the fluttering photographs, the boarded-up buildings, the jazz spilling from segregated nightclubs out onto wet Seattle streets, I realized that this novel is one of those works of fiction that becomes literature. I might reach for words such as magical, moving, transcending and others people use to describe art, but like others, I would fail—fail to convey by other means an experience that must be had.

I recommend Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet because experiencing literature feels good in ways we can’t well describe, yet makes us want to try.

How about you, dear reader? Are you participating in your community’s Read Together campaign this year? I’d love to hear what you’re reading. Just click on the Comments link below with your submission. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

Postscript: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is available in paperback, hardcover, digital and audio. I listened to Feodor Chin narrate the unabridged audiobook and loved his voices for the young hero and heroine, as well as the many adults of diverse ethnicity. I also bought the beautiful hardcover, which I wrote in, and then photographed, before passing the book to my sons.

Comments

[Walter L. Ritter]

It has taken me until my 70th year to discover the joy of the writing of Thomas Wolfe's, "Look Homeward, Angel." It is magical reading to follow the life of Eugene Gant (Thomas Wolfe) from birth through his adolescent years. THIS is literature!

[Holly I]

Hi Steve
I am reading the following books:
Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (loved her blog and was worried the book would be a retread. Great way to "start the year off right")
Delivered from Distraction by Edward Hallowell (who knew ADD could be so creative?!)
Sway by Ori & Rom Brafman (how irrational decisions can seem so clear and logical)
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (just started but on recommendation of a friend for the prose)
and a host of teen-lit and fantasy novels I wont admit to reading by name!

Finished recently and recommending: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. Beautiful prose.

[Elizabeth R]

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson also treats the subject of the injustice of the Japanese internment camps. Guterson realistically portrays the destructive nature of prejudice in general. I have not yet read "Hotel" but it is on my list.

[Charlotte G Brooks]

Dear Steve,
Thank you for the review of The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet. I had passed it up but now will read it.
I just finished reading Kathryn Stockett's The Help. I am amazed at how she found just the right voice for this compelling look at a grievious part of American history.
I can attest to the validity of the content because we moved from New York state to Atlanta in the late 1940's. Even though I was a child, I remember how our neighbors treated the 'damn yankees' (a term actually employed on many occasions) because my mother, who did not have a discriminatory bone in her body, refused to hire 'help' for a pittance and could not afford to hire someone at a wage she thought they deserved. Our neighbors could not comprehend how she could do her own housework & cooking as well as look after me.
I also remember being in the homes of those 'ladies' who had 'help.' It made me uncomfortable every time they ordered the help around; even some of the children I played with did the same. Needless to say, our family was relieved when my father was eventually transferred back north.
The Help brought back many memories and made me proud that my mother had the courage of her convictions. I only regret that we could not do more.

Charlotte G Brooks
Bedminster, NJ

[Steve Leveen]

What lovely comments, my friends! You've given me more books to read and inspired me anew. Thank you. Steve

[Suzanne]

Dear Steve,
What a really well-written review! I enjoyed it as much as any book. Thanks- the review made me want to read this book.

[Chris Matney]

Hi Steve.
It's great to see others enjoying "stories well told," as I like to call those unusual books which stay with us years after reading.

The Magician of Lhasa is a title that you would probably find fascinating. It tells the tale of a novice monk fleeing with his order's most precious secrets from the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959. A parallel story introduces a modern British nano-technologist, torn from his family and work by the acquisition of his firm by an American conglomerate.

The plotlines, while radically different, converge at the end of the book in a wonderfully suspenseful manner – illustrating how quantum mechanics and Buddhist traditions are not really that different. The characters are deep, and the story – in a tragic but hopeful way - sticks in your mind.

If you are interested in reading the book, let me know, and I’ll send you a copy.
Chris.

[Elizabeth Magar]

I have just been introduced to your site by a friend. I wanted you to know that I have started a virtual book club at the high school where I am the librarian. I started this club last year and your book, "Little Guide to a Well-Read Life," was my strongest motivation for creating the club. The club is based on the students reading books of their own choosing and sharing with others. Students like sharing their thoughts online and during our monthly meetings, and our membership has doubled in a year. I can't wait to tell them about this site. Thank you for continuing to provide inspiration for becoming a lifelong reader.

[Steve Leveen]

Well, how can I resist a copy of The Magician of Lhasa? Many thanks, Chris; I'm sure I'll enjoy it.

And thank you, Elizabeth, for sharing the story of your book club and your kind words for the Little Guide.

My best to you both.--Steve

[Sally McConnell]

I just saw this post and couldn't agree more. "Hotel on the Corner...." is a wonderful book. I also recommend "The Piano Teacher," by Janice Y.K. Lee. Marvelous! Set in Hong Kong during and just after WWII. Contains it all: love, lust, mystery, history, you name it. Beautifully drawn characters.

[Maggie]

I also think that all of you will definitely enjoy reading THE ALCHEMIST, a book about pursuing your dreams and following your heart with abundance of wisdom and inspiration to walk away with. I really recommend this book to all who can read.