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The Water Beetles

Tekijä: Michael Kaan

JäseniäKirja-arvostelujaSuosituimmuussijaKeskimääräinen arvioMaininnat
252913,174 (4.5)2
"The Leung family leads a life of secluded luxury in Hong Kong. But in December 1941, the Empire of Japan invades the colony. The family is quickly dragged into a spiral of violence, repression, and starvation. To survive, they entomb themselves and their friends in the Leung mansion. But this is only a temporary reprieve, and the Leungs are forced to send their children away. The youngest boy, Chung-Man, escapes with some of his siblings, and together they travel deep into the countryside to avoid the Japanese invaders. Thrown into a new world, Chung-Man befriends a young couple who yearn to break free of their rural life. But their friendship ends when the Japanese arrive, and Chung-Man is once again taken captive. Unwittingly and unwillingly, he enters a new cycle of violence and punishment until he finally breaks free from his captors and returns to Hong Kong. Deeply scarred, Chung-Man drifts along respectfully and dutifully, enveloped by the unspoken vestiges of war. It is only as he leaves home once again - this time for university in America - that he finally glimpses a way to keep living with his troubled and divided self. Written in restrained, yet beautiful and affecting prose, The Water Beetles is an engrossing story of adventure and survival. Based loosely on the diaries and stories of the author's father, this mesmerizing story captures the horror of war through the eyes of a child with unsettling and unerring grace."--… (lisätietoja)
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näyttää 2/2
This book engaged me from beginning to end. Kahn seamlessly weaves historical facts into the fabric of his fictional story of wartime conflict in Hong Kong. I learned so much about this period that I didn't know before, and I loved the characters Kahn introduces. ( )
  larvest | Jul 2, 2022 |
It appears I am the first person on LT to write a review and rate this book. I hope I am just the start of a growing trend. This debut novel exhibits none of the usual faults and the story it tells is intense. I think it will be one of my top reads of 2018.

Chung-Man Leung was born to a wealthy family in Hong Kong before World War II. His two oldest brothers were adults when the war started but Chung-Man, his brother Leuk and his sister Mai-Ling were still young. Their father had died a few years before the war and the two oldest were running the family enterprises. When the Japanese invaded Hong Kong it was decided that the three youngest should go to a relative in mainland China while the mother and the two oldest stayed behind. One of the sons was married and his wife accompanied the three children. Even before the children left Hong Kong they experienced hardship and witnessed brutality but that was just a prelude to what they would experience later. Eventually the children and their sister-in-law were captured by the Japanese and put into a prison camp. Food was scarce, hygiene was problematical and the women were subject to sexual attacks by the Japanese soldiers. When the small family was moved to another camp with no fence the small group split up with the females leaving first. Chung-Man and Leuk stayed behind hoping the Japanese soldiers would not notice the girls' absence. The war was going badly for the Japanese at this point and they were becoming more brutal towards the prisoners. We know that Chung-Man survived because his memories of this time are interspersed with discussions of his life in America after the war. However we don't know until the end what happened to the rest of his family and it would spoil the intensity of the story if I disclosed it here.

I remember learning in high school English that one of the great themes of literature is man's inhumanity to man. This book is certainly in that tradition but that theme is leavened by instances of people showing kindness in the face of that inhumanity. The author used his father's memoirs of the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong for the basic fabric of the book so it is clear that there is much truth in the story. There is certainly much to contemplate here. Small wonder that this book won the 2018 Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the 2018 McNally Robinson Book of the Year and the 2018 Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction. ( )
  gypsysmom | Oct 13, 2018 |
näyttää 2/2
This book is a rare thing. Despite the fact that it’s about the Second World War — why do we still go to this war for our drama and tales of moral certainties and ambiguities? — The Water Beetles has an ending that throws everything that’s happened before into a new light, though “light” here is not at all the right word.

I’ve reviewed hundreds of books and read, probably, thousands, and I can think of two others that have managed this high-wire act of literary derring-do. Most writers — never mind first-time novelists, as 48-year-old Winnipegger Michael Kaan is — worry to the point of fingernaillessness about their readers getting past the first page, the first paragraph, the first sentence. To plot and then construct a book that only really reveals how good it is in its final page is as brave, and as reckless, as anything Philippe Petit ever did.
 
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Katso lisäohjeita Common Knowledge -sivuilta (englanniksi).
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Englanninkielinen Wikipedia

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"The Leung family leads a life of secluded luxury in Hong Kong. But in December 1941, the Empire of Japan invades the colony. The family is quickly dragged into a spiral of violence, repression, and starvation. To survive, they entomb themselves and their friends in the Leung mansion. But this is only a temporary reprieve, and the Leungs are forced to send their children away. The youngest boy, Chung-Man, escapes with some of his siblings, and together they travel deep into the countryside to avoid the Japanese invaders. Thrown into a new world, Chung-Man befriends a young couple who yearn to break free of their rural life. But their friendship ends when the Japanese arrive, and Chung-Man is once again taken captive. Unwittingly and unwillingly, he enters a new cycle of violence and punishment until he finally breaks free from his captors and returns to Hong Kong. Deeply scarred, Chung-Man drifts along respectfully and dutifully, enveloped by the unspoken vestiges of war. It is only as he leaves home once again - this time for university in America - that he finally glimpses a way to keep living with his troubled and divided self. Written in restrained, yet beautiful and affecting prose, The Water Beetles is an engrossing story of adventure and survival. Based loosely on the diaries and stories of the author's father, this mesmerizing story captures the horror of war through the eyes of a child with unsettling and unerring grace."--

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