The China Lover: A Novel

by Ian Buruma

Overview

From Shanghai before and during the Second World War to U.S. occupied Tokyo, and, finally, to the Middle East in the early 1970s, Ian Buruma's masterful novel about the intoxicating power of collective fantasy follows three star-struck men driven to extraordinary acts by their devotion to the same legendary woman. A beautiful Japanese girl born in Manchuria, Yamaguchi Yoshiko is known as Ri Koran in Japan, Li Xianglan in China, and Shirley Yamaguchi in the U.S., and her past is a closely guarded secret. In Buruma's reimagining of the life of Yamaguchi Yoshiko, a Japanese girl torn between patriotism for her parents' homeland, worldly ambition, and sympathy for the Chinese, she will reflect almost exactly the twists and turns in the history of modern Japan. The China Lover is both luminously written and imbued with the insights and erudition that have made Ian Buruma one of the most respected writers on modern Asia.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143116080
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/25/2009
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Ian Buruma is editor of The New York Review of Books. His previous books include Their Promised Land, Year Zero, The China Lover, Murder in Amsterdam, Occidentalism, God's Dust, Behind the Mask, The Wages of Guilt, Bad Elements, and Taming the Gods.

Editorial Reviews

In a rare departure from his books and critical essays on film, politics, culture and current events, Buruma, a distinguished journalist-scholar and Japanophile, has crafted in The China Lover a fascinating fictional biography—not only of an iconic film star, but of film as an expression of a nation's culture and psyche. How fitting that he has put into practice at least two of the techniques of Japanese movie-making he mentions: "keeping a distance even in scenes of great emotion" and leaving things "open-ended, like life."
—The Washington Post

Wendy Law-Yone

Award-winning journalist Buruma (God's Dust) here turns to fiction, tracing the career of starlet Yamaguchi Yoshiko, a Japanese citizen born in the Chinese province of Manchuria, then occupied by Japan. Keeping her identity a secret, she plays a Chinese actress, goes to the United States after the war to make films, and eventually becomes a TV journalist in the Middle East. Part 1 is narrated by an American homosexual who befriends Yoshiko, Part 2 by an adoptive Japanese uncle, and Part 3 by a Japanese who follows her to Beirut. This story, grounded in the history of the various eras, is like a stew into which the chef has thrown so many ingredients we lose track of how it's meant to taste. Because so much is told to us-only occasionally do we overhear the characters interacting-the book reads less like a novel than a memoir or other nonfiction account, with often too much detail to absorb. Recommended for fiction collections where interest in the Far East and Middle East is strong. [See Prepub Alert, LJ6/15/08.]
—Edward Cone

Library Journal

An enigmatic real-life Sino-Japanese film star, Ri Koran, remains a cipher after three self-absorbed narrators fail to illuminate her, in the latest from Buruma (Journalism/Bard Coll.; Murder in Amsterdam, 2006, etc.). Buruma has written nonfiction works on China, Japan and jihadism. He displays his erudition on all three topics in this novel. The narrators of the book's three sections-a homosexual American censor, Vanoven, stationed in postwar Tokyo; Sato Daisuke, a talent agent/private eye in Japanese-occupied Manchuria; and a screenwriter (also surnamed Sato) who joins the '70s-era Japanese Red Army movement-track Ri's serpentine CV through the thick, sometimes opaque, scrim of their own preoccupations. Born Yamaguchi Yoshiko in Manchuria to a Japanese couple, Ri was educated in Chinese private schools. Gifted with soulful eyes and a soprano to match, Ri passes as Chinese and stars in the film China Nights. The movie-and Ri-come to symbolize Japan's efforts, while invading China and installing a puppet empire in Manchuria, to couch its imperialistic agenda in pan-Asian peace platitudes. After World War II, Ri renounces her Chinese persona and seeks fame as a Hollywood and Tokyo movie actress. When her marriage and career in Tokyo fall apart, due to a U.S.-sanctioned regime change reinstating war criminals, Ri reinvents herself as a TV journalist and host of a housewife-targeted news show. She hires young Sato, former crewmember on pornographic pinku films turned TV news-writer turned Japanese student militant and Palestinian sympathizer. Old Sato's section, mostly set in Manchuria, detracts most from the novel's focus. His story lingers on his obsession with another Yoshiko, across-dressing siren whose treachery nets him a prison stay and torture. Vanoven, though an engaging confidant, fails to vivify Ri as a protagonist. Young Sato morphs into a Palestinian martyr/hero and Ri gets lost in the ensuing Kamikaze parallels. Ri's incessant networking question-is someone "knowable?"-applies mainly to herself in this absorbing but decidedly un-novelistic portrayal of cross-cultural adventurers.

Kirkus Reviews