The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
Pages: 144
Published by Knopf
Publication Date August 23rd 2011
Source: Library
Genres: Historical Fiction
Goodreads
Julie Otsuka’s long-awaited follow-up to When the Emperor Was Divine is a tour de force of economy and precision, a novel that tells the story of a group of young women brought from Japan to San Francisco as “picture brides” nearly a century ago.
In eight incantatory sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces the picture brides’ extraordinary lives, from their arduous journey by boat, where they exchange photographs of their husbands, imagining uncertain futures in an unknown land; to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; to their backbreaking work picking fruit in the fields and scrubbing the floors of white women; to their struggles to master a new language and a new culture; to their experiences in childbirth, and then as mothers, raising children who will ultimately reject their heritage and their history; to the deracinating arrival of war.
The Buddha in the Attic was an interesting plot in theory but felt like the story was told in fragments almost as if the narrator forgot what they were going to say and just trailed off. I think the part that bothered me about this novel is that there was no designated main character or heroine, and for the most part stayed anonymous coming off as hypothetical statements.
This is not to say the The Buddha in the Attic was uninteresting, it was a curious glance at the women of that ethnicity and their treatment during the early 1900s. The first part of the novel had trouble keeping my attention due to the “fragment thing” The second part, in which we gear up for WWII and suspicions start to rise upon their loyalty I found much more interesting. I thought the chapters were much better formed and captivating. Although, this could also be a personal taste because I find 1940s war era much more intriguing. Overall, I found The Buddha in the Attic to be a forgettable read and if it had been more deft in size may not have finished it.
Yeah, for some reason, this book hasn't jumped out at me. I don't know if I'd be able to even finish it, not sure why. Which is weird since it seems to have everything that I normally like to read about. Ah, well. I know a lot of people like this one, but I think it's not one for my shelf.
Sorry this one wasn't that great. I have it on my kindle so I will read it at some point.
I finished this earlier in the week and was a little underwhelmed… need to figure out how to write about it. Your last sentence pretty much sums up my feelings.
That's a pity as the topic seems to be quite interesting. It's really disappointing when the idea is good, but the story isn't told in a good/interesting way