Ms. Hen reviews The Bridegroom

 

The Bridegroom

Ha Jin

Vintage International

2000

Ms. Hen picked this book up at a used bookstore recently. She had read other books by Ha Jin and loved them, and she thought she would enjoy this as well. This collection of short stories did not disappoint her.

These stories are all about China after the Cultural Revolution. The story, "Alive," is about a man who travels for business, but gets caught in an earthquake, and loses his memory. He gets married to a woman he does not know because the authorities suggest that the people who survived marry each other, and take a lost child and make a family. The man regains his memory, and finds that the life he had is lost. In the title story, "The Bridegroom," the character's adopted daughter get married to a man who is gay. He is put into a psychiatric hospital, and the people attempt to force the homosexuality out of him.

The story, "Flame," is about a woman who regrets not marrying the man she loved when she was young because her mother wanted her to marry someone else. She learns her old flame is coming to visit, and she has anxiety, and wants to impress him. "After Cowboy Chicken Comes to Town," is about a Western style fast food restaurant, where Chinese people work. They learn about American business practices and are disgusted.

Ms. Hen thinks this is a fascinating collection. Each story is a snippet, or a window to another world, a strange world where she doesn't live, and will probably never go. The characters are propelled by the need to survive and the fear of not pleasing authorities. Also, a theme of poverty and injustice that runs through the collection.

This collection reminded Ms. Hen of DUBLINERS by James Joyce, in the way that it is about a place, and each story displays the dysfunctional but fascinating characters that live in the place. We walk around and look at these characters, and wonder why they do the things they do, and think the things they think. Ms. Hen learned a lot about the Chinese psyche from this book.

This book has lots of chickens in it, which made Ms. Hen happy. She especially liked the story, "After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town," because the story is primarily about fried chicken. At the end of the story, the workers in the restaurant find the manager at the beach, "When we approached it, we saw Peter stirring something in the fire with a trimmed branch. It was a pile of chicken, about twenty pieces. The air smelled of gasoline and burned meat." The workers learn about American waste, which horrifies them, because they would have loved to eat that chicken, or bring it home to their families.

Ms. Hen thinks this collection of short stories is brilliant, not just because it shows a different part of the world and how unique it is, but it shows how people suffer, and get through their pain. Suffering is inevitable, and Ms. Hen is not sure if that was the motivation of the author, but she knows that it is true, especially now, with the world the way it is.