{"id":49712,"date":"2010-01-03T22:53:38","date_gmt":"2010-01-04T05:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=49712"},"modified":"2010-01-03T22:53:38","modified_gmt":"2010-01-04T05:53:38","slug":"exiles-from-themselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2010\/01\/exiles-from-themselves\/","title":{"rendered":"Exiles From Themselves"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/01\/03\/books\/review\/Toibin-t.html\"><strong>The New York Times reviews<\/strong><\/a> Ha Jin&#8217;s new book <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0307378683?ie=UTF8&#038;tag=chinadigitalt-20&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=0307378683\">A Good Fall: Stories<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chinadigitalt-20&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=0307378683\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" \/>, which &#8220;explores the nature of displacement and the unease with which Chinese immigrants in the United States experience their new country&#8221;:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nWith skill and spareness, he uses the dozen stories in \u201cA Good Fall\u201d to dramatize lives in which hope has been crushed rather than abandoned, in which the struggle to find a place to live becomes as much a daily battle within the self as it is with society. His characters seem to be in exile not only from the China of their memories and dreams but from their very sense of who they are. Their emotional universe has become as circumscribed as their physical surroundings. Once inhabitants of a sprawling and familiar culture, they are now confined to a few rooms, a few streets.<\/p>\n<p>Although Jin is more concerned with the patterns made by small lives under new pressures, there are times when the broader picture comes to the fore. \u201cIt\u2019s foolish to think you\u2019re done for,\u201d the downtrodden hero of the title story is told by a friend. \u201cLots of people here are illegal aliens. They live a hard life but still can manage. In a couple of years there might be an amnesty that allows them to become legal immigrants.\u201d To characters like this, immigration to a land of opportunity proves an occasion of loss as well as gain. They are ordinary people with modest expectations, modest even in what they notice and remember and imagine. This lack of color is reflected in Jin\u2019s quiet, careful, restrained prose \u2014 prose whose absence of flourish can, at times, make it all the more eloquent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The review also includes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/01\/03\/books\/excerpt-a-good-fall.html?ref=review\">an excerpt of the book<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Read also reviews from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?f=\/c\/a\/2009\/12\/13\/RVKS1AE52O.DTL\">San Francisco Chronicle<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/entertainment\/books\/bookreviews\/article\/744976---a-good-fall-platitudes-on-the-immigrant-life-in-america\">Toronto Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Times reviews Ha Jin&#8217;s new book A Good Fall: Stories, which &#8220;explores the nature of displacement and the unease with which Chinese immigrants in the United States experience their new country&#8221;: With skill and spareness, he uses the dozen stories in \u201cA Good Fall\u201d to dramatize lives in which hope has been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1983,116,20,5],"tags":[1611,1911,1032],"class_list":["post-49712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cdt-bookshelf","category-world","category-culture","category-society","tag-book-reviews","tag-emigrants","tag-ha-jin","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.1 (Yoast SEO v24.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Exiles From Themselves<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2010\/01\/exiles-from-themselves\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Exiles From Themselves\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The New York Times reviews Ha Jin&#8217;s new book A Good Fall: Stories, which &#8220;explores the nature of displacement and the unease with which Chinese immigrants in the United States experience their new country&#8221;: With skill and spareness, he uses the dozen stories in \u201cA Good Fall\u201d to dramatize lives in which hope has been [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2010\/01\/exiles-from-themselves\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"China Digital Times (CDT)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ChinaDigitalTimes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-01-04T05:53:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chinadigitalt-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0307378683\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sophie Beach\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@cdt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@cdt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sophie Beach\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2010\/01\/exiles-from-themselves\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2010\/01\/exiles-from-themselves\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sophie Beach\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#\/schema\/person\/7f19e31b674d57a7dc20aab8e908c663\"},\"headline\":\"Exiles From Themselves\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-01-04T05:53:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-01-04T05:53:38+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2010\/01\/exiles-from-themselves\/\"},\"wordCount\":306,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2010\/01\/exiles-from-themselves\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chinadigitalt-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0307378683\",\"keywords\":[\"book reviews\",\"emigrants\",\"ha jin\"],\"articleSection\":[\"CDT Bookshelf\",\"China &amp; 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