On+Such+A+Full+Sea

Rating: 3 stars

Summary: Told through the collective consciousness of her community, //On Such A Full Sea// follows the story of young Fan, a tank diver, as she leaves the safety and stability of her home B-mor for the wilderness of the counties in which her boyfriend has disappeared. Tiny and pregnant with Reg's child, she is nevertheless levelheaded and goal-oriented throughout her travels and trials. She goes from being a celebrated tank diver, taking care of the fish B-mor cultivates, and walking around holding hands with Reg, to leaving to go after him once he suddenly vanishes, to becoming symbol for B-mor, painted on the sides of buildings. Her story traverses the B-mor colony, to counties, to the lavish, extravagant Charter villages as she searches everywhere for Reg, who has been discovered as somehow immune to the mysterious group of fatal illnesses, C, that affects everyone, Charter or worker alike.

Review: It took a little getting used to the narration style, since it is so unusual, and the removed, detached perspective can make Fan flat and monochromatic in a way the Katniss never was in //The Hunger Games,// but it allows a strange fluidity of narration that is quite distinctive. There are some plot twists that might seem obvious, but are played out in such a way to make them new and horrifying, and Chang-rae's writing is beautiful. However, the weird narrative required some to powering through, and perhaps because of this, the book seems to drag on and on. The premise of the world itself is interesting: polluted lands no longer able to support them, Chinese workers relocated to North America and formed labor settlements that specialize in agricultural products to supply the rich Charter villages with everything they could want for. Outside the labor settlements and Charters, however, lies the vast wasteland, desolate and yawning that Fan ventures into. From a logistical standpoint, not much lines up,