The Electrical Field: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Good Novel
Review: "The Electrical Field: A Novel" is a well written, riveting book that describes specific elements of Japanese concentration camps. However, Sakamoto provides a broad detail between the interpersonal relationships between the people. The novel should center on the historical aspects of Japan than characterization. For this reason, I give "The Electrical Field" a "good" rating.

Rating:
Summary: Good Novel
Review: "The Electrical Field: A Novel" is a well written, riveting book that describes specific elements of Japanese concentration camps. However, Sakamoto provides a broad detail between the interpersonal relationships between the people. The novel should center on the historical aspects of Japan than characterization. For this reason, I give "The Electrical Field" a "good" rating.

Rating:
Summary: Novel densely packed with detail but ultimately unsatisfying
Review: I picked up The Electrical Field with gushing editorial endorsements echoing in my mind. The book is, in fact, well written. The characters (Asaka, Stum, Shusi, Yano) are vividly rendered. The mystery is compelling up to a point. However, too much is revealed through flashback, dream, and slowly emerging repressed memory. At a certain point I found myself growing tired of the narrator and regarding her as a cranky old woman. Her utter helplessness with regard to her emotional responses to both the past and the present wears the reader down over the course of 300 pages. Everything is fraught, everything a burden on her; scenes in which Sakamoto depicts Asaka grappling with the people in her life and the memories that haunt her acquire a numbing sameness. Ultimately I began calculating how many pages were left in the book and wondering how long it was going to take for me to finish it. This novel could have been 50 to 75 pages shorter and not have suffered. I approached The Electrical Field with high expectations that were not fulfilled, but I respect what the author was trying to do and I hope next time she'll be better served by her editors.

Rating:
Summary: Prose diappoints, reader gives up
Review: In the Electrical Field we go into a mind journey with the main character. It talks about the need to be validated by someone's unconditional love. An interesting angle on the Japanese internment in Canada during the War. Very absorving and detailed.

Rating:
Summary: somber, convoluted treatment of Japanese-Canadian relocation
Review: Kerri Sakamoto's brooding and dark novel, "The Electrical Field" is complicated, tantalizing, but ultimately frustrating and seomwhat manipulative. Probing the terrible and unresolved scars caused by the repressive and racist removal and forced relocation of Japanese-Canadians, the novel depends on the fractured, distorted and submerged memories of its narrator who is partyto a set of homicides. Asako Saito, burdened by the death of her beloved older brother, Eiji, during relocation, swirls between past and present, unsure of her own observations, numbed by loneliness and confused by emotional swings.

Ms. Sakamoto's comnpassionately and deftly explores the psychology of her protagonist, and only slowly does the "truth," of present homicides and past relocation, emerge. However, I felt as if I were being manipulated, that denial of essential information (submerged and distorted in Asako's mind) inhibited rather than clarified understanding. Thus, by novel's end, as Asako comes to grips with her life and the shattered ruins of her memory, I had lost whatever sympathy I struggled to maintain for her.

Despite my reservations, I do consider "Field" an important contribution to our understanding of the ramifications of the horrific consequences of sanctioned government racism. Though not of the quality of her sister Canadian Joy Kogawa's novels, "Field" is at its best when it describes two profoundly different reactions to relocation: the passionate anger and demand for redress of Yano and the smothered sadness and drive for oblivion in Asako. Both characters persuasively remind us that forgetting is simply not an option and that past injustices leave incredibly complex scars. The author symbolically depicts the isolation and displacement of post-relocation life; the looming cage-like electrical towers and the ominous garbage-made hill (carrying the name of the prime minister who ordered relocation) are terrific examples of imagery.

This deserved praise cannot rescue "The Electrical Field" from its excessive murkiness. In this regard, we must await Kerri Sakamoto's future work to see if she can live up to the thwarted promise of her first novel.

Rating:
Summary: somber, convoluted treatment of Japanese-Canadian relocation
Review: Kerri Sakamoto's brooding and dark novel, "The Electrical Field" is complicated, tantalizing, but ultimately frustrating and seomwhat manipulative. Probing the terrible and unresolved scars caused by the repressive and racist removal and forced relocation of Japanese-Canadians, the novel depends on the fractured, distorted and submerged memories of its narrator who is partyto a set of homicides. Asako Saito, burdened by the death of her beloved older brother, Eiji, during relocation, swirls between past and present, unsure of her own observations, numbed by loneliness and confused by emotional swings.

Ms. Sakamoto's comnpassionately and deftly explores the psychology of her protagonist, and only slowly does the "truth," of present homicides and past relocation, emerge. However, I felt as if I were being manipulated, that denial of essential information (submerged and distorted in Asako's mind) inhibited rather than clarified understanding. Thus, by novel's end, as Asako comes to grips with her life and the shattered ruins of her memory, I had lost whatever sympathy I struggled to maintain for her.

Despite my reservations, I do consider "Field" an important contribution to our understanding of the ramifications of the horrific consequences of sanctioned government racism. Though not of the quality of her sister Canadian Joy Kogawa's novels, "Field" is at its best when it describes two profoundly different reactions to relocation: the passionate anger and demand for redress of Yano and the smothered sadness and drive for oblivion in Asako. Both characters persuasively remind us that forgetting is simply not an option and that past injustices leave incredibly complex scars. The author symbolically depicts the isolation and displacement of post-relocation life; the looming cage-like electrical towers and the ominous garbage-made hill (carrying the name of the prime minister who ordered relocation) are terrific examples of imagery.

This deserved praise cannot rescue "The Electrical Field" from its excessive murkiness. In this regard, we must await Kerri Sakamoto's future work to see if she can live up to the thwarted promise of her first novel.

Rating:
Summary: Felt like Hom
Review: This book felt like home to me. The language, the odd gestures, the social isolation, felt very familiar. Maybe it's an "insider's" book. It resonated so strongly with me and felt that it struck chords about internment and the Japanese-American (Canadian) community in a unique and disturbing way. I was very moved by it, but I can understand that not everyone might have this experience.