Afternoon Readers Book Club August
2016
The Japanese Lover
Isabel Allende, translated by
Nick Caistor and
Amanda Hopkinson
“I am aware of the mystery
around us, so I write about coincidences, premonitions, emotions, dreams, the
power of nature, magic.”
Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende has published several novels which have been
translated into 35 languages. She has also written a collection of stories;
three memoirs, including My Invented Country and Paula; and a trilogy of
children's novels.
The Japanese lover is a magical story of love, marriage, and
lifelong friendship that
spans eight decades of Alma Belasco’s life from a childhood
in Poland until the end of her life in California. The theme of enduring love
between Alma and Ichimei, the son of her Jewish uncle’s Japanese gardener which
survived separation and loss and life changing events made a deep impression on
readers. This prompted a discussion about the parallels between the American
internment of Japanese American citizens and the Holocaust in Europe during
World War II. It was mentioned that there was no internment camps in Hawaii
like those in the American west. Readers’ attention was also drawn to the
stories of other characters who were overcoming difficult situations in their lives.Readers enjoyed the book but took their time with the characters and their secrets and stories
Books recommended by readers; The Garden of the Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng is a novel about
the gardener to Japanese Emperor Hirohito, set in Malaysia during and after the Japanese
occupation of Malaysia, Totto-chan, the
Little Girl at the Window, by Tetsuko Koroyangi, a memoir by a student and
a school in Japan during World War II, Snow
Falling on Cedars by David Guterson, set on the fictional San Piedro Island in the northern Puget Sound
region of the state of Washington coast in 1954, the plot revolves
around a murder case in which Kabuo Miyamoto, a Japanese
American, is accused of killing Carl Heine, a respected fisherman
in the close-knit community and The Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, a novel about the love and friendship between Henry
Lee, a Chinese American boy, and Keiko Okabe, a Japanese American girl, during
the internment in World War II.
Have you The Japanese Lover? What did you think? Please
share your thoughts in comments.
