Title: War Trash
Author: Ha Jin (1956- )
New York : Pantheon Books 2004
352 p. : 24 cm
Read by: 01/17/2010, borrowed from WBPL
Genre: Fiction


This is my second or third book by Ha Jin. POW is a tough topic for a novel, Ha Jin won the 2005 PEN/Faulkner award second time, more for the subject matter, some critics said. He did quite well, I shall say. I came to admit Ha Jin is the best Chinese born writer publishing in English so far. His novels appeal to Chinese like me and also other nationalities, it is not easy, for it calls for more skills in inspiring readers across cultures. I read the harsh criticism against Chinese communism, others might got enlightened by his probes on humanity and wars or even anti-war. Still others can read between lines about hypocrisy of religion. The Chinese background of Ha Jin worked for him as an advantage rather than disadvantage: His English is beautiful, Chinese poems appeared a couple of times in the novel “adding soft touch”, his Chinese upbringing easily led to the explanation and description of Chinese philosophy, values and history which was the backbone in his Chinese characters. He also seamlessly wove history facts into writing. Whether Ha Jin purposefully covered the non-fiction core with fictional story, to get away from Chinese government harshness, he is a clever writer. From my personal view, however, I noticed heavy trace of Chinese marks in his English: Too many “Which” clauses, sentence structure is too tightly structured, more assertions (through narration of Yuan) than implication (via description and suggestion). So am I. In a word, he is far from being as artful as Cunning in English language, on the account that he beat many other current American writers. Ha Jin is also lucky – this novel came out right after the Iraqi POW scandal in Abu Ghraib near Baghdad in April 2004. Timing is always important for a success.

Main characters:

Yu Yuan (pseudo name Feng Yan), a graduate of Huang Pu, a low rank officer of Chinese People’s volunteer in Korean War, mainly as interpreter

Chang Ming (pseudo name Feng Wen), graduate of Beijing University in Chinese, secretary and assistant to Pei in the prison

Commissar Pei Shan, top party leader in the prison camps