The Surrendered

This amazing novel is about three people who meet at an orphanage in Korea right after the war there. These three characters could not be more different, but each of their stories is wonderful. June is an orphan who has lost her family in the war. Hector is an American soldier who decides after the war to stay in Korea and work in the orphange, and Sylvie is a missionary wife whose love Hector and June compete for. The book goes back and forth from their childhoods to their time at the orphanage and afterward. The bulk of the novel takes places in the 80s, when June, who is dying, takes Hector to Europe in attempt to find her estranged son. The book contains some extremely descriptive and intense depictions of the horrors of war (rape, torture, etc.), so pass on this novel if you can't handle violence. If you're looking for a really engrossing read, give this one a try. The language is incredibly beautiful and poetic, and the characters' stories are truly riveting.

Chang-Rae Lee's "The Surrendered" s a horrific tale of human cruelty with a small measure of redemption and love. The book covers decades and continents. I liked the beginning, the middle, and the end (it was some of the "filler chapters" that hindered the flow). I felt that the Korean incidents were the heart of the book, the most interesting and the most horrifying. I felt the New Jersey portion and Dora weighed the book down with sidestory. The Italian section broke my heart. I gave the book 5 stars for the difficulty of speaking of the unbearable, for telling this story in a convincing, unflinching way. The interwoven stories of June, a Korean orphan; Hector, an American GI; and Sylvie, a missionary shows us what it means to suffer greatly. Each of the main characters must cope with the bestial behavior of humans during and after war's ravages. Lee's prose is glorious even as he describes the pitiful and the disgusting. The plot is convincing. It is only the reality of man's inhumanity to man that makes this book so hard to continue reading to the end. His tale is not for the romantic. "The Surrendered" will ask you to surrender your ideas of war as glory and watch the descent of otherwise good people into craven, selfish creatures. Steel yourself to read this book at intervals.

Chang-rae Lee belongs to a small pantheon of authors whose name alone is enough for me to buy their books. Ever since I read Native Speaker, I've been drawn to his utterly original perspectives, his acute insights into human nature and his masterful use of language. So it was a foregone conclusion that I'd jump at the chance to read his latest novel, The Surrendered. From the cover blurb alone, it was also clear that it was not going to be a light, entertaining read. Exploring the enduring, devastating effects of war, with three profoundly damaged people at its heart, the book promised to be wrenching as well as compelling. Hector Brennan is eking out a meager, largely drunken existence when June Singer, the one person from his past whom he least wants to see, comes limping back into his life. June is dying, her body wracked with cancer, and before she passes, she wants to find her son, Nicholas, the product of a single encounter with Hector 20-some years earlier. Nicholas is gallivanting around Europe, occasionally sending her notes requesting ever larger sums of money. June and Hector's lives first intersected in Korea after the Korean War, when Hector spent several years working at an orphanage where the child June had been cast ashore, the only surviving member of her family. Both had been deeply scarred by their wartime experiences, and in different ways, both came to love the same woman, Sylvie Tanner, who arrived with her husband from America to run the orphanage. The narrative jumps back and forth in time, sometimes horrific, sometimes hopeful, always suspenseful, offering the same kind of voyeuristic fascination as the wreckage of a car accident; Lee never shies away from graphic depictions of the atrocities each of the characters experienced. Hector, an accomplished street fighter, is transfigured by the war, reduced to little more than a lonely shell of a man. Sylvie is as fragile as she is beautiful and harbors her own demons, which lodged in her soul in Manchuria in the 1930s, where her parents were missionaries. June is a particularly interesting character, iron willed, antisocial, violent, cunning and yet enormously needy. Driven by these complex characters, their secrets, and their urge to self-destruct, and probing issues of guilt, love and betrayal, The Surrendered is the kind of deeply affecting book that will stay with you a long, long time. Five stars for a powerful, sometimes harrowing story, beautifully told by a master. (Not, however, for the squeamish.)

Lee's superlative writing makes this tragic novel about the profound and inescapable effects of war a must-read for fans of great literature. The story is revealed through masterfully crafted flashbacks to the events that shaped the lives of the three main characters. June Han's life is ruled by her struggle for survival that began with the horrific loss of her entire family during the Korean War. Haunted by guilt over his father's death, American Hector Brennan enlists in the Korean War, unwittingly setting his life on a never-ending path of self-loathing and destruction. Never able to measure up to the ideals set by her missionary parents, Sylvie Tanner is doomed to a life of failure following their murder by Japanese soldiers in Manchuria. Unable to escape the horror and devastation of the past, all three spend their lives searching for redemption that will never come. Lee's haunting, lyrical prose unerringly conveys the tormented thoughts and feelings of the characters. The Surrendered is a poignant novel that will leave you unsettled, yet yearning for more.

Short summary and review - no spoilers. This novel jumps around in time and place - from 1930's Manchuria to 1980's New York and Italy. We start off in Korea in the early 1950's during the Korean War. We are introduced to one of the main characters in the book - a young girl we come to know as June, who is one of the many refugees who are fleeing their homes. She is only 11 years old, and seeking shelter, food and safety for her and her younger siblings. This first chapter is just an extraordinary opening - and it is one of the most harrowing descriptions I've ever read of the refugee/wartime experience. Other key characters include Hector, an American soldier who joins the army to get away from his small town after a tragic event involving his family. Hector is a wonderful character - he is a noble, decent man put in war time situations that could break anyone's spirit. We also meet Sylvie Tanner, the daughter of missionaries, who ends up in Korea just after the war taking care of Korean orphans with her husband. It is here that Sylvie meets up with Hector and June. We know from the early chapters that take place in 1980s New York that June is trying to locate her her son and that she wants Hector to go with her. By going back and forth between time and place, we can see how early horrific wartime experiences changed their lives forever . There is a tremendous amount of foreshadowing in this novel - in seemingly every chapter we are made aware of secrets and horrors from each character's past, and it is only at the end when we find out the whole story. In some ways this felt a bit manipulative, but not overly so and it did add to the book being a page-turner, especially towards the end. (And there is a good twist for people who like this sort of thing, and I do.) This book is not for those who are squeamish about violence and tales of war. For anyone else, and for those looking for a big epic book that will transport you to several other (dark) times and places, this is for you. Recommended.