The Floating World
(Cynthia Kadohata)
Cynthia Kadohata?s The Floating World follows a young Japanese-American girl, Olivia, and her family as they move from city to city across the continental United States. The story takes place a few years after the horrors of World War II and Japanese internment.
Her father searches for work and the rest of the family must follow behind, forced into a migrant lifestyle. Olivia?s family is composed of her brothers, father, mother and grandmother?Obaasan. Olivia is not shy about informing the reader she hates Obaasan and that the feeling is mutual. But the sentiment is one of a child, one who doesn?t fully understand Obaasan yet or how she shows emotion (especially love).
Late one night in a hotel, Olivia finds her grandmother dying. Frightened, she runs back to bed without telling anyone. And the rest of the novel, Olivia must deal with the resultant guilt. Despite the turmoil and family loss, her world stubbornly and callously continues. Her family settles down temporarily, and Olivia takes a job in a chicken sexing factory, where day in and day out, hour after hour, she determines the gender of baby chicks. The descriptions of the factory offer a scathing indictment of the mindless, repetitive work American migrant laborers are forced to take.
However, Olivia finds some comfort in the factory through her first boyfriend, Tan. Although this marks her sexual awakening and maturation, Olivia?s attachment to relationships is marred at best. Tan departs with little influence on the story.
Eventually, Olivia decides it is time to be on her own, and so she leaves her family to move to Los Angeles. She finds another boyfriend, Andy, but there is still that sense of detachment. At the end of the novel, Olivia is confronted with the ghost of her biological father (whom she never knew), and Olivia is literally forced to deal with the past. She can no longer float through her life unattached and absorbed in the present. She must reconcile her past, her present and her future.
For the reader, there is no sense of closure. But one is left with a beautiful, stirring portrait of a young girl, growing up within the confines of her historical and racial context.
Resumos Relacionados
- You Look At The Irises Of The Field
- You Look At The Irises Of The Field
- Mirror Image
- The Innocent
- Haunting Olivia
|
|
