What we thought: The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende

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.