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Chargement... A Map of Betrayal (2014)par Ha Jin
Chargement...
Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. Espionage Deceptively simple, kind of a fever dream of a book. You're in it before you realize and experiencing a daughter's increasingly complicated questioning of her family's past. Ha Jim is never a flashy writer and his dialogue sounds like words heard through a body of water -- even the Americans sound like characters from a Chinese fairy tale, and all sound exactly the same. There's no real mystery or twist, and there's way, way, way too much straight information (about Sino-American relations, dumped in almost like a magazine piece). Yet the story is able to withstand it, somehow (I confess I skipped most of it). Well-written, slow-moving novel of a Chinese spy working as a CIA translator. Told in alternating POV of Gary Shang, the spy, and his daughter, Lilian Shang, a history professor who has obtained his 6-volume diary, the story relates the agony of Gary Shang's life as he tries to reconcile his love of two countries and his responsibilities to two families. While it was a heartbreaking story, some of it seemed told in a detached way that robbed the novel of its potential emotional impact. Still, an author worth reading for his overall narrative skills. I didn't love this as much I hoped. It's an interesting story - daughter (Lillian) researching her father (Weimin/Gary) career in espionage, returning to China to meet family he left behind, getting caught up - to her own detriment - in their lives. Ha Jin writes so brilliantly about people's emotional blind spots - the parts of the novel that are about the toll Gary's choice of career had on the lives of his two families, as well as his own life are so powerful and understated, but then other parts of the novel read like a textbook on American-Sino relations. I think this is a novel I will enjoy thinking about more than reading. 3.5 stars Lilian Shang, the American daughter of the highest-placed Chinese spy ever captured by the FBI decides to search for her father's first wife's family in China. Her late father's long-time mistress provides key knowledge--and his diaries--to her. In her search, she finds and learns more than she expected, as do the relatives she finds. A good read, I kept having to remind myself that this is fiction. However, I doubt I will remember this book in a year.
Gary’s tragedy is that of most moles. He never belongs: not to America or China; not to his wives, mistress or children; not to the Chinese intelligence service or the C.I.A.; and not, in the end, to himself.
"From the award-winning author of Waiting: a spare, haunting tale of espionage and conflicted loyalties that spans half a century in the entwined histories of two countries--China and the United States--and two families as it explores the complicated terrain of love and honor. When Lilian Shang, born and raised in America, discovers her father's diary after the death of her parents, she is shocked by the secrets it contains. She knew that her father, Gary, convicted decades ago of being a mole in the CIA, was the most important Chinese spy ever caught. But his diary--an astonishing chronicle of his journey from 1949 Shanghai to Okinawa to Langley, Virginia--reveals the pain and longing that his double life entailed. The trail leads Lilian to China, to her father's long-abandoned other family, whose existence she and her Irish American mother never suspected. As Lilian begins to fathom her father's dilemma--torn between loyalty to his motherland and the love he came to feel for his adopted country--she sees how his sense of duty distorted his life. But as she starts to understand that Gary, too, had been betrayed, she finds that it is up to her to prevent his tragedy from damaging yet another generation of her family"-- Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Classification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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