Waiting is a novel by Ha Jin, set in near-contemporary China and focused (although it never quotes nor acknowledges Langston Hughes) on exploring the question of deferred dreams. The protagonist is a comfortably successful doctor, stationed at an urban military base. He has a wife, and a daughter, in a distant village, but is in love with a younger nurse on the base.
And … well … that’s really it. Both are too confined in their own morality to act on their love as long as the prior marriage exists; once it is dissolved, they find that, perhaps, they have missed their moment.
The book is full of lost moments, of things that could–even, should–have been, but never where, and as such, it is a touching, often sweet, and ultimately sad story. There is pain and suffering–and a theme of impotence that culminates in a rape that is handled with some delicacy, but perhaps not enough force–but the ultimate narrative surrounds the cost of choosing to do nothing.
It also has some lovely insights into modern China, both its beauty and its bureaucracy, as well as its ongoing struggles with a growing divide between urban and rural lives.
#WhatIWishICouldDo
Ha Jin often catches visual detail with the skill of a photographer, adding resonant description that is not burdened with meaning, but just exists: the way branches sway in a breeze, the flight patterns of insects, the types of shops on a high street. None of it is essential to the scene, but all of it contributes to an immersion that is effective and quite impressive.