Buddha in the Attic - Wendy's Review

On the boat we were mostly virgins. We had long black hair and flat wide feet and we were not very tall. Some of us had eaten nothing but rice gruel as young girls and had slightly bowed legs, and some of us were only fourteen years old and were still young girls ourselves. – from Buddha in the Attic, page 1 -

It is the early part of the twentieth century and young girls from Japan are arriving in San Francisco as “picture brides.” Their husbands have been chosen by a matchmaker in Japan, selected only by a photo and vague promises in scrawled letters. For the girls on the boat, their futures seem bright. But nothing is ever really as it seems.

Unfolding over many years and written in the collective first person plural narrative, Julie Otsuka reveals the lives of these young women as they meet their husbands for the first time,  bear children and find work in their communities. Culminating in the bigoted years of World War II when thousands of Japanese Americans were rounded up and torn from their homes, Buddha in the Attic is a powerful look at one aspect of  the immigrant experience in America.

There was talk of a list. Some people being taken away in the middle of the night. A banker who went to work and never came home. A barber who disappeared during his lunch break. A few fishermen who had gone missing. Here and there, a boardinghouse, raided. A business, seized. A newspaper shut down. – from Buddha in the Attic, page 81 -

Otsuka’s decision to use first person plural as her narrative voice is unusual and haunting. Instead of an individual point of view, the novella presents the collective perspective of a community joined by ancestry and common experience. What Otsuka does well is tease out individuals from the group, sharing their differences and then pulling them back together as one voice. The result is a story which builds to a powerful conclusion. More than just a story of one person, this is a story of a generation of immigrant women who arrived in America with hope and discovered the reality was not exactly what they expected.

In the end, the voices of these women disappear and are replaced by the collective voice of the community they left behind.

The Japanese have disappeared from our town. Their houses are boarded up and empty now. Their mailboxes have begun to overflow. Unclaimed newspapers litter their sagging front porches and gardens. Abandoned cars sit in their driveways. Thick knotty weeds are sprouting up through their lawns. In their backyards the tulips are wilting. Stray cats wander. Last loads of laundry still cling to the line. In one of their kitchens – Ei Saito’s – a black telephone rings and rings.  – from Buddha in the Attic, page 115 -

This is a book which grows more powerful after the final page has been turned. I have found myself thinking of these women, their stories, their community, their ultimate fate…and their voices echo in my head. It is hard to turn away from them. I was left with the feeling that the community they inhabited is less now in their absence…and I think this is, perhaps, the message which Otsuka wanted her readers to get.

This slim book delivers on every level. It should be required reading in history classes.
Highly recommended.



FTC Disclosure: I purchased this book.

Join the discussion at Bookies Too from June 1-15, 2012.

Awards for this book:

• 2012 PEN/Faulkner winner
• 2011 National Book Award finalist
• 2011 New York Times Most Notable book