Stephanie Jane reviewed How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee
Should become a classic
5 stars
As I started to read How We Disappeared, I felt that it was fortuitously connected to my last Asian novel, The Garden of Evening Mists. That post-war Malaysian story included passing references to the ianfu (comfort women) and How We Disappeared is a fictionalised, but well researched, account from one such woman, Wang Di. To be honest, this is a horrific story. Not the novel itself, of course. Lee's delicate yet powerful prose style is perfectly suited to the tale and I couldn't tear myself away from the pages. But imagining what those thousands of ianfu women endured firstly years of sexual abuse from the seemingly endless queues of Japanese soldiers and then, after the war ended, being shunned by their own families who frequently turned their backs on returning women because the shame was too much. A relation who has been mentally and physically almost destroyed by her wartime …
As I started to read How We Disappeared, I felt that it was fortuitously connected to my last Asian novel, The Garden of Evening Mists. That post-war Malaysian story included passing references to the ianfu (comfort women) and How We Disappeared is a fictionalised, but well researched, account from one such woman, Wang Di. To be honest, this is a horrific story. Not the novel itself, of course. Lee's delicate yet powerful prose style is perfectly suited to the tale and I couldn't tear myself away from the pages. But imagining what those thousands of ianfu women endured firstly years of sexual abuse from the seemingly endless queues of Japanese soldiers and then, after the war ended, being shunned by their own families who frequently turned their backs on returning women because the shame was too much. A relation who has been mentally and physically almost destroyed by her wartime experience and she gets no help or 'comfort' herself because sex hurt her so everybody looks away and pretends she doesn't exist. It's heartbreaking.
If I haven't scared you off yet though, and you enjoy good literary fiction, then this is absolutely a novel to pick up and read. Wang Di speaks to us in vivid remembrances of the past, but also of her life as the crazy old woman she has become. We learn of the sixty years following the war, her marriage and the ways in which she learned to cope, strategies that seem bizarre to outsiders yet are completely plausible when their roots are known. I was reminded of Sylvie in Marilynne Robinson's novel Housekeeping where a misunderstood woman encounters similar reactions to her behaviour. Then the connection with young Kevin is a lovely storyline and I appreciated its thoroughly believable conclusion. How We Disappeared is an amazing read that I think will become a classic.
