The Real Waiting What's the main point of this book? Not until the last few pages did I recognize it. In this book, Ha Jin told us what was the real waiting — Neither Kong Lin's nor Manna's, But Shuyu's. Being a silent and humble character, Shuyu was "naturally”overlooked by most readers. Hence, only patient readers could enjoy the ecstasy on the surprising ending Ha Jin tried to tell us after the long read. At this point this book was incredibly beautiful and successful, as well as metaphorical and philosophical --- on hitting the climax and simultaneouly testing the readers and awarding those who were faithful. By Ha jin's design, we readers SHOULD wait patiently for the ending. Impatient readers would never find the beauty and the true meaning of this story. In fact, since the pace of this book was so slow, the stories and scenerios during those 18 waiting years were repeated and predictable, I almost gave it up in the middle. But when I finished it , I was deeply moved and burst into tears. The book totally deserved it's reputation. BTW, Why "18" years? The Chinese, and only Chinese, knew that. It refered to an ancient folk tale of China. A woman (王寶釧) waited for her husband (薛平貴), an officer, for "18" years in a shack, not knowing her husband had another lover in the army. This tale was so famous that almost every Chinese knew it. So we can see that Ha Jin tried to write a modern Wang-Shue tale. Each main character in the "Waiting" had its own corresponding character in the Wang-Shue story. The only drawback of this book, in my opinion, was the chapter about Manna being raped. It read so cheap. Giawgwan, 2002 -- ********************************* * 雄壯 威武 嚴肅 剛直 安靜 堅強 * * 確實 速捷 沉著 忍耐 機警 勇敢 * * 我是教官 教官是我 * * 每個人都記嘉獎一支 * ********************************* --

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