Just about finished this one….and I’m pretty glad to be done, frankly. The writing isn’t bad, the story isn’t awful but I’m finding it hard to keep my concentration while reading. Here’s the premise: narrator Naomi, small girl, caught up in the middle of the rounding up of the Japanese Canadians during World War II. I wish I was more interested because I believe in what this book is trying to say, about racism in general, and being Canadian specifically. It’s a shameful past that shouldn’t be forgotten.
I’m assuming that the symbolism of her dreams and the animals she sees is lost on school students studying this work, or maybe the starkness of the writing is not action-packed enough to picque interest. It’s too bad since Kogawa is also a very good poet, IMO, so I know she knows the techniques. I mean, this book got a First Novel award that must mean something. I wonder if the story may have been different if told by the title character, Obasan, the aunt.
Anyway. Almost done. I was picking out what I might read next, always very exciting…
