The Japanese Lover
Ratings18
Average rating3.6
15
Ratings18
Average rating3.6
"From New York Times and internationally bestselling author Isabel Allende, an exquisitely crafted love story and multigenerational epic that sweeps from San Francisco in the present-day to Poland and the United States during the Second World War. In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis, young Alma Belasco's parents send her away to live in safety with an aunt and uncle in their opulent mansion in San Francisco. There, as the rest of the world goes to war, she encounters Ichimei Fukuda, the quiet and gentle son of the family's Japanese gardener. Unnoticed by those around them, a tender love affair begins to blossom. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the two are cruelly pulled apart as Ichimei and his family--like thousands of other Japanese Americans--are declared enemies and forcibly relocated to internment camps run by the United States government. Throughout their lifetimes, Alma and Ichimei reunite again and again, but theirs is a love that they are forever forced to hide from the world. Decades later, Alma is nearing the end of her long and eventful life. Irina Bazili, a care worker struggling to come to terms with her own troubled past, meets the elderly woman and her grandson, Seth, at San Francisco's charmingly eccentric Lark House nursing home. As Irina and Seth forge a friendship, they become intrigued by a series of mysterious gifts and letters sent to Alma, eventually learning about Ichimei and this extraordinary secret passion that has endured for nearly seventy years. Sweeping through time and spanning generations and continents, The Japanese Lover explores questions of identity, abandonment, redemption, and the unknowable impact of fate on our lives. Written with the same attention to historical detail and keen understanding of her characters that Isabel Allende has been known for since her landmark first novel The House of the Spirits, The Japanese Lover is a profoundly moving tribute to the constancy of the human heart in a world of unceasing change"--
"From internationally bestselling author Isabel Allende comes an exquisitely crafted love story and multigenerational epic that sweeps from present-day San Francisco to Poland and the United States during WWII. In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis and the world goes to war, young Alma Belasco's parents send her away to live in safety with an aunt and uncle in their opulent mansion in San Francisco. There she meets Ichimei Fukuda, the son of the family's Japanese gardener, and between them a tender love blossoms. Following Pearl Harbor, the two are cruelly pulled apart when Ichimei and his family - like thousands of Japanese Americans - are declared enemies by the US government and relocated to internment camps. Throughout their lifetimes, Alma and Ichimei reunite again and again, but theirs is a love they are forever forced to hide from the world. Decades later, Alma is nearing the end of her long and eventful life. Irina Bazili, a care worker struggling to come to terms with her own troubled past, meets the older woman and her grandson, Seth, at Lark House nursing home. As Irina and Seth forge a friendship, they become intrigued by a series of mysterious gifts and letters sent to Alma, and learn about Ichimei and this extraordinary secret passion that has endured for nearly seventy years."--
Reviews with the most likes.
I'm bilingual and I've never read Isabel Allende's books before. She writes in Spanish but I got this one in English and I gave it a try.
Usually when I read books originally written in English and then translated to Spanish, there are some sentences that sound quite weird although they make perfect sense in English. The same thing happened to me with this book. Some sentences were a little bit confusing so I ended up buying the book in Spanish -which I think was a wise decision.
Though I'd like to say that I enjoyed the book, unfortunately I didn't. With this I don't mean the book was bad, but it wasn't the best either.
The story was interesting but it was too descriptive. I'm the type who likes more ‘show-me' and less ‘tell-me'. I think it needed more dialogues too.
In conclusion, maybe in the future I'll pick one of her books again but it's going to be definitely in Spanish.
I won this book through GoodReads and I thank to the publisher for providing me this copy but this fact didn't influence the review.
Lovely and prosaic. A love story both tragic and enviable. An unmistakable writing style. A novel easy to melt into for hours, as cozy as a homecoming.
Characters did not pull me in, plot all over the place and underdeveloped. Very unlike Isabel Allende
I got this book for Christmas, and while it isn't the sort of thing I'd normally pick up for myself, I ended up really enjoying it. Every time someone asked me what it was about, I had a different description because it's just about so much. The title is a bit sensational for the actual themes of aging, death, trauma, and love. Each character is a work of art in their depth and complexity. The historical aspects seem meticulously well-researched, and it while it is not necessarily a work of historical fiction, it has lots of vivid descriptions of racial and feminist issues in the 40s-60s, including Japanese internment and relocation, a topic that desperately needs more coverage as the last first-hand sources are all in their 80s and above.
If I had to narrow it down to one idea, it would be that there are many ways to love at many points in our lives, and aging is as much about loving as any other point in our lives. Familial love, passionate love, comforting love, friendship love, even loving our pets are all explored with both tenderness and pragmatism.
This is a crying novel, and I think I'd like to read it again when I'm older. I may just be too young to connect on the levels Allende is working, but I'm old enough to appreciate the beauty of this story.
