There's a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people call it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky.

In Betty Smith's classic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn the tree of heaven stands for the ability to thrive in a difficult environment. At the heart of R.C. Binstock's third novel, Tree of heaven, we find an unlikely love affair and the struggle for its survival.

Tree of heaven tells the kind of story of humanity among atrocities. Quite a few stories and novels have acted on this theme of the good Nazi who shows benevolence and cares for or even develops a love affair with a war victim, a bit along the lines of Captain Corelli's Mandolin .

In Tree of heaven Kuroda, a well-educated captain in the Japanese army, is disgusted by the atrocities of the Japanese soldiers raping and murdering Chinese women. When his superior officer decides to move on, leaving Kuroda in charge, Kuroda decides to protect one woman. Under the pretense of making her his house-keeper, he picks up Ms Li, whose family has been murdered by Japanese soldiers. An unlikely love affair develops, which can only exist as long as Kuroda lives. With his death, at the end of the novel, the protective shield is shattered and Ms Li belatedly falls victim to the rapists.

While contemporary literary criticism takes the stance that the author's assumed intentions are irrelevant, the story does send a message, which can be examined critically. Hardly any biographical information is available on the author. It is therefore difficult to assess whether the author while writing the novel was inspired by an authentic source, connected to either the Chinese or the Japanese point of view. Or is this novel just the result of the author's imaginative creativity? In the author's note on the last page, the author thanks various people with Chinese names (but no people with Japanese names), which may suggest a biographical connection to the theme of the novel, or simply a consultation on facts.

The novel is highly ambiguous and seemingly naive. Tree of heaven is set in war-torn Anhui Province, China, a scene known from The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. In critical discourse about the war and atrocities committed by the Japanese, viz. Wartime Shanghai by Wen-hsin Yeh it has been suggested that Tree of heaven could be seen as a novelistic attempt to develop nuance in an otherwise complete black-and-white view of the war era in China. I would endorse that view if Tree of heaven were a primary source, written by a Chinese or Japanese author, or inspired by an authentic source, but not if it were a story written by a naive author in search for an original take on a story less well known.

Apart from the historical context, the story cannot be read as a simple love story, which the reference to the title of Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn suggests. A further suggestion that Li loves Kuroda is that he impregnates her. Earlier in the novel it was stated that Li had been abandoned by her Chinese husband because she was barren. Nonetheless, Kuroda is able to sire a child with her.

A war time relationship, especially where the weak partner has so much to gain from a bond with the stronger partner, obviously cannot be regarded as a simple romance. The motives of the Japanese soldier, to pick up the weakest, dirtiest possibly most bereaved woman are merely a cultured variation of the same lust of appropriation. The woman could not truly love her captor, although that is just what the novel suggests. On top of all of the most unlikely circumstances, Li can speak Japanese, which forms the basis for the relationship.

The end of the novel shows most clearly how contrived the story really is. After Kuroda's death, Li is raped by the soldiers Kuroda had all the time been protecting her.

They were afraid to fuck me at first. He was dead but still they felt small traces of respect, duty. They beat me with great joy but were afraid to go further. Finally I tore my tunic open and then they did the rest. (...) The pain was great but then it ebbed and were almost organized, even efficient in the way they took their turns, and I found that I could bear it. (p.211)

As they marched off down the road I lay there on my back for a few seconds, one hand on my crotch wet with blood, the other covering my swollen left eye (...) (p.212)

The author should know how contrived and unlikely this end is. The second epigraph of the book reads:

We played with the daughter as we would with a harlot. As the parents kept insisting that their daughter should be returned to them, we killed the mother and father. We then played with the daughter again as before, until our unit marched on, when we killed her. --Japanese soldier in China, Letter home

R.C. Binstock is the author of three novels "The Light of Home" (1992), The Soldier (1996) and Tree of Heaven (1996). He continues to work as a professional writer, although no new creative writing has appeared since 1996. ( )

This is a quiet, deep novel about the very unquiet and barbaric. Set against the backdrop of the Japanese occupation of China just prior to World War II, this novel investigates the effect of sweeping worldwide events on individuals. In particular, isolated people, alienated from their surroundings.

This story is beautifully and truly told. This author's unique path to the truths told sets this book well apart. He shows us the meeting of Li, a young Chinese woman and Kuroda, the commander of a garrison of invading Japanese, after the horrors of the Rape of Nanking. Their voices alternate - his with his dismay and disgust at the Emperor's Army's behavior, hers with the shock and grief of the murder of her family, and all the accompanying depredation at the hands of the invaders.

Kuroda rescues her and because she can speak Japanese, takes her into his quarters. These two are thrown together because of Kuroda's choice to spare her; Li has nowhere else to go. And both are isolated from their own people.

For a first novel, Mr. Binstock has produced a lovely, intelligent, humane piece. It is not widely read, if the LT numbers are any indication, but deserves SUCH a wider audience. Take it up by all means - it will not let you down.

http://bassoprofundo1.blogspot.com/2010/07/tree-of-heaven-by-rc-binstock.html ( )