Hard to Read

Why do I finish reading a book I don't like? I used to think I just wanted to find out 'who done it' but this morning I think it might be more than that.




Last night I stayed up late finishing The Empress of Asia. Here is the promotional excerpt for this book:



"Empress of Asia is an ambitious and stunning new novel from Adam Lewis Schroeder. Schroeder has painted a beautiful and compelling story of youthful innocence and determined love against a setting of the horrors of the World War II POW camps in Southeast Asia.





Unfortunately, the 'horrors' in this book were all too graphic and I am going to have nightmares about it for awhile. Sometimes I can forget about the hard-to-read passages in books and hard-to-watch scenes in movies by telling myself that these things are really not true or are exaggerated for effect. However, I did check some of the other facts in this book - such as that Vancouver actually did have at least one traffic light in the 30's - so I believe that the 'horrors' may have a lot of truth in them as well.





This is another novel set mainly during WW2 but it begins in Vernon, BC. Harry Winslow leaves his home after high school to find work on the boats in Vancouver during the depression. It ends in 1995 shortly after the death of the Harry's wife, Lily, in St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver.





After reading this book, where there is good and evil in many corners and where Harry, the story teller in this book, does not see all of it, and has very little insight in general, (but is still a 'good' guy), it makes me wonder how much we miss in our own lives. It is easy to see how major events have changed the lives of those around us, but it is not easy to see how major events have affected me.