Title: Waiting
Author: Ha Jin
Publisher: Vintage Books
Source: Personal book collection
The winner of the 1999 US National Book Award for Fiction, a poignant and deliciously funny love story, set in China during and after the Cultural Revolution.
For more than seventeen years, Lin Kong, a devoted and ambitious doctor, has been in love with an educated, clever, modern woman, Manna Wu. But back in his traditional home village lives the humble, loyal wife his family chose for him years ago. Every summer, he returns to ask her for a divorce and every summer his compliant wife agrees but then backs out. This time, after eighteen years’ waiting, Lin promises it will be different.
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.
Sorry this didn’t work for you. I read A Free Life by Jin and just loved it.
My husband read it years before I did and thought it was something I’d like. It would probably make a good movie.