The Wonderful We: A Book Review of The Buddha in the Attic by Julia Otsuka
Historical Narrative
The masterclass presenter typed out onto our shared screens. The audio connection hummed in the background as a laptop, some 2000 miles away, strained to pick up any noises. Emma Darwin, the featured lecturer, waited in the virtual silence from her home office.
“In other words,” she began, “the voice of your story.”
I had been scribbling down notes for nearly an hour up to that quiet moment, and so the realization crept over me rather than hit me. Narrative and voice were the same. Or more importantly, history needs a voice to make a connection with a modern-day reader.
When I had written My Brother’s Mark, the main character, Pavla, did not actually appear into the plot for a few weeks. From the beginning, I had the idea of there being an older woman reflecting on key moments in her past. But the story had all the key elements before Pavla made her way front and center.
What Pavla and Katerina did once they were created was to flesh out into the distinct challenges that Czech women protagonists living behind the Iron Curtain lived through. And their story strikes a chord in our hearts that links you and me to the past.
Most fiction is written from the main character’s point of view. A singular and unique perspective. Yet historical fiction, and many biographies and memoirs, are written from the voice of a person who existed in a set time period. An intimate, often plural, shared experience. Example, if the Great Depression caused one family to tighten their belts and ration their food, there was a good chance someone else was going through the same experiences as them during the time period. This explicit distinction is what makes reading in this genre so powerful and enticing. We don’t know this person, we feel a separation from them, but every now and again an undeniable connection happens despite time and space.
I began My Brother’s Mark with a story about the power of family bonds. A voice teased out to make the story raw and authentic. And then a specific character centered the entire thing. And while Pavla matches many Czech women who grew up during the 1950s-60s before the Iron Curtain descended, she is not one of them entirely. She is fiction.
There is an incredible book, The Buddha in the Attic, which was recommended as excellent reading material during the masterclass. The story follows the group of Japanese women who were brought over to the U.S. to be wives to Japanese American men in the early 1930s. From the first nights off the boat in San Francisco to their trying days on produce farms scattered around California to living in the internment camps during WWII, Julia Otsuka lifts their voice high for readers to know.
Here is a snippet of Otsuka’s historical narrative genius to convince you to pick up a copy today and get reading:
BUT UNTIL THEN we would stay in America just a little bit longer and work for them, for without us, what would they do? Who would pick the strawberries from their fields? Who would get the fruit down from their trees? Who would wash their carrots? Who would scrub their toilets? Who would mend their garments? Who would iron their shirts? Who would fluff their pillows? Who would change their sheets? Who would cook their breakfasts? Who would clear their tables? Who would soothe their children? Who would bathe their elderly? Who would listen to their stories? Who would keep their secrets? Who would tell their lies? Who would flatter them? Who would sing for them? Who would dance for them? Who would weep for them? Who would turn the other cheek for them and then one day—because we were tired, because we were old, because we could—forgive them? Only a fool. And so we folded up our kimonos and put them away in our trunks and did not take them out again for years. (Otsuka, Julie. The Buddha in the Attic (pp. 53-54). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. )
The Buddha in the Attic is written in the first-person plural voice (we/us/our) by a master of historical narrative. Through her distinct writing style, Otsuka personalizes a generation’s historical account while not overshadowing the individual narratives. For anyone learning to read or write well, I would recommend this book.
The voice of a generation. The voice of an experience. The voice of history. What a privilege to listen to the wonderful we.
For more historical fiction books that use the first-person plural, check out:
