Ha Jin writes in English, which is not a first language and it shows. What’s interesting about this book is that it makes writing in English part of a whole raft of acts of defiance, like the insistent struggle for economic independence, the repudiation of both the professional dissidents and the shrill loyalists, and the plan to make a life in America with his family forever.
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So does the book suck or doesn’t it? I mean, I could write in Klingon to repudiate my inner adult but it’d still make a terrible book.
It certainly doesn’t suck. The language isn’t all that bad, just occasionally stilted and weird.
A lot of reviewers do praise his prose, and while I don’t think it’s something special it does work, by and large. It’s fluent, it’s fast, it’s clear.
I don’t trust Asians with English.