{"id":7785,"date":"2016-11-19T23:22:51","date_gmt":"2016-11-20T04:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=7785"},"modified":"2016-11-24T03:34:36","modified_gmt":"2016-11-24T08:34:36","slug":"matthew-tiffany-ha-jins-latest-spy-novel-explores-u-s-china-intrigue-and-misses-the-boat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/matthew-tiffany-ha-jins-latest-spy-novel-explores-u-s-china-intrigue-and-misses-the-boat","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Tiffany: Ha Jin\u2019s latest spy novel explores U.S.-China intrigue and misses the boat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ha-jin\"Author Ha Jin\u2019s latest novel, \u201cThe Boat Rocker,\u201d follows an expatriate journalist who becomes embroiled in intrigue as he investigates a most unusual novel. Steven Senne<\/span> The Associated Press. <\/span><\/p>\n

Ha Jin hasn\u2019t made a secret of his separation from China \u2014 not only physically, having lived in the United States since the mid-1980s, but in beliefs, practices, even personality.<\/p>\n

His novels have featured a spy torn between loyalties to two countries; a fictional account from Chinese internment camps in America; and a calligrapher chafing against the Chinese bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

His novels also have explored the distance between cultures in ways both oblique and transparent, but his new novel reads as a more direct and personal criticism of China.<\/p>\n

More specifically, \u201cThe Boat Rocker\u201d<\/span><\/a> concerns the relationship of journalists and novelists to the Chinese government.<\/p>\n

Jin has tended to explore large cultural issues through smaller, more intimate relationship dynamics, and he doesn\u2019t break the habit with this book.<\/p>\n

The story, set in 2005, revolves around a Chinese expatriate, Feng Danlin. He works as a journalist in New York at a \u201cGlobal News Network\u201d agency, not quite at the muckraking levels of a Mother Jones reporter, but enough to have established a reputation with other expatriates living in the U.S. as a writer whose articles challenge Chinese government thinking.<\/p>\n

This does not make Danlin popular with the Chinese government, though his influence is somewhat questionable \u2014 the pains he takes to portray himself as a modern-day Bob Woodward suggest a somewhat inflated sense of self.<\/p>\n

Danlin\u2019s personal life has suffered from his dogged pursuit of the truths in Chinese\/American affairs. Divorced, he lives with a premed student in what seems to be a relationship of convenience. And convenience doesn\u2019t hold up well under pressure, which comes in spades with his new assignment.<\/p>\n

Danlin has been given the job of investigating a new romance novel, \u201cLove and Death in September.\u201d Something is unusual about the book: Danlin\u2019s employer secures a copy for review and finds it sorely lacking in value, essentially a poorly written steamy romance novel mashed together with a trite retelling of the terrorist attacks of 9\/11.<\/p>\n

Yet it\u2019s supposedly getting early rave reviews, including one from George W. Bush, and an extremely rare endorsement from China\u2019s ruling Communist party, declaring the book emblematic of the outstanding relationship between China and the U.S.<\/p>\n

The icing on the cake is that the book is written by Danlin\u2019s ex-wife \u2014 she divorced him shortly after he came to the United States \u2014 and that connection proves to be Danlin\u2019s weakness, as well as a weakness of \u201cThe Boat Rocker\u201d as a whole.<\/p>\n

As Danlin pursues his investigation, he repeatedly finds himself tripped up by Chinese authorities, with the resources of an entire nation to aim at the reporter\u2019s efforts, and by his own emotions, his \u201cthought I was over it but apparently not\u201d resentment toward his ex.<\/p>\n

Where \u201cThe Boat Rocker\u201d fails is in delivering any sense of narrative tension.<\/p>\n

Long-time readers of Jin know better than to expect a potboiler of political suspense that is neatly tied up with a bow. At the same time, it\u2019s hard not to wish Jin had done a little bit more with the possibilities: distrust between the countries, between the man and woman, between publisher and author.<\/p>\n

When the end result is a book that feels more like the fictional \u201cLove and Death in September\u201d than a Ha Jin novel, it feels like a lost opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Boat Rocker,\u201d by Ha Jin<\/strong> (240 pages; Pantheon; $25.95)<\/p>\n

Source: http:\/\/www.kansascity.com\/entertainment\/books\/article115374518.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author Ha Jin\u2019s latest novel, \u201cThe Boat … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[1049,1921,1256,1920],"views":6635,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7785"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7785"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7787,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7785\/revisions\/7787"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}