When the emperor was divine : a novel

by Julie Otsuka

Paperback, 2003

Status

Available

Genres

Publication

New York : Anchor Books, 2003.

Description

Fiction. Literature. HTML:From the bestselling, award-winning author of The Buddha in the Attic and The Swimmers, this commanding debut novel paints a portrait of the Japanese American incarceration camps that is both a haunting evocation of a family in wartime and a resonant lesson for our times. On a sunny day in Berkeley, California, in 1942, a woman sees a sign in a post office window, returns to her home, and matter-of-factly begins to pack her family's possessions. Like thousands of other Japanese Americans they have been reclassified, virtually overnight, as enemy aliens and are about to be uprooted from their home and sent to a dusty incarceration camp in the Utah desert. In this lean and devastatingly evocative first novel, Julie Otsuka tells their story from five flawlessly realized points of view and conveys the exact emotional texture of their experience: the thin-walled barracks and barbed-wire fences, the omnipresent fear and loneliness, the unheralded feats of heroism. When the Emperor Was Divine is a work of enormous power that makes a shameful episode of our history as immediate as today's headlines. Don�??t miss Julie Otsuka�??s bestselling new novel, The Swimmers.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Whisper1

This is one of those books that gently takes your breath away as you read page after page of stunningly beautiful writing.

The reader follows a Japanese-American family through their journey of internment in 1942 when their peaceful family life was uprooted, tossed and turned and split apart because

of an irrational fear during WWII.

The writing is eloquent and the beauty lies in the way in which the story is told. It is softly written, like a breeze, yet all the while the reader feels the tempest and overwhelming sadness of the displacement of this gentle, loving family.

Each chapter has a voice of a different person. The journey begins with the sad, pragmatic realization of the mother who begins to pack the possessions.

We then follow the perspective of the children whose father was taken away before the government came for the family.

This is a look at the concept of US vs THEM. This is a look at how "the enemy" is defined. This is a sad look at a snapshot of American history during a troubling time.

The tale is not told in an angry voice, rather, the author takes us down the tearful trail of a Japanese-American family living the American dream in California to lonely, hot, humid, treeless Topaz Utah were they are herded like cattle to swat the flies in the God forsaken dessert.

Highly recommended

Show Less

24 more

LibraryThing member tututhefirst

Julie Otsuka writes with a simple, heartbreaking prose to give us a picture of one of the less glorious moments in America's history. It shows a typical Japanese American family (mother, father, daughter, son) living in California at the outbreak of hostilities in December 1941. These are adults

who have been in the country as citizens for more than 20 years, children who were born in the US. The children do not speak or understand Japanese. They have piano lessons, they have pets, they have wedding china and silver, and lace curtains. The father works so his wife doesn't have to.

Just as the world is shattered by the attack on Pearl Harbor, so this nameless family finds its world splintered into pieces. The father is taken into custody by the FBI in the middle of the night. Shortly after that, the others are given very short notice to pack up whatever they can in one suitcase each, and report to a staging area, where they are eventually shipped to Utah to spend the war in an internment camp of tar paper shacks. The effects of this relocation of over 100,000 persons of Japanese descent are related through the eyes of the young boy (about 8-9 years old).

Using characters who remain nameless, the author enhances the depersonalizing impact this action had on those who were forced to give up their lives, possessions, and livelihoods. The powerful storytelling enables the reader to feel the emotional, physical, and psychological results of this infamous episode in our country's history. The significance and consequences of actions on all sides are beautifully portrayed without political comment, without assessing blame or pointing fingers. It is a quiet, quintessentially elegant depiction of a bleak and regrettable story.

Show Less

LibraryThing member stretch

The internment of Japanese immigrants and Japanese-American citizens during World War II is a disturbing chapter in American History, that doesn't receive much attention. Thousands of ethnic Japanese citizens and families were stripped of their freedom, homes, businesses, and sense of security

overnight. Limited to what they could carry in a single suitcase, they were ushered from homes to temporary living facilities in horse stalls to their final destinations, tent cities in the harsh, remote desert regions of our country. If that wasn't shameful enough the government forced everyone to take loyalty tests, which if answered honestly could result in separation or deportation. They lost everything they had built before the war and during the war they lost their dignity. For their trouble each person was given a train ticket home and $25.00 (the same package given to convicted felons upon release) with which to start their lives over again. And yet their really isn't much written about this period.

When the Emperor was Divine is the story of one family as they struggle to prepare, adjust to live within the camp, and come home from a internment camp in the Utah desert. The story is told from the perspective of members of the family in alternating chapters. The first chapter is told from the mother's point of view as they are forced to prepare for the evacuation. The fear of the unknown and the struggle to maintain their pride is palpable. The second chapter is told by the daughter as they travel to their new home, and dealing with their loss sense of identity. The third chapter is from the young son's perspective as they adjust and learn to live within the camp. The final chapter is told from either a more mature son's perspective or a combination of both the boy and girls voices telling of a once proud father, who is now just a broken paranoid shell and a family struggling to put their life together in a world they are now very unfamiliar to the world they left.

Each chapter is unique and distinct. Normally a story told like this can be choppy, but here they flow together with no harsh transitions. This book is unrelentingly depressing and dark. The family makes the best of their situation, but they are clearly broken and they are never too far from crumbling under the stress. The only thing holding them together are their bonds. Hope is in short supply.

The only real problem with this book is that it is far too short. The four chapters only cover the first few months of the war and the aftermath for this one family. It's not enough to explore the entirity of the effects of forced relocation on the family. This book calls for a much more in depth exploration of internment. But really this is only a minor defect of a well written book, that I'm glad I was able to snipe off the wishlist.

Show Less

LibraryThing member kambrogi

This subtle novel tells with astonishing clarity a story of a family irreparably damaged by the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. The mother, father, son and daughter may survive, but from page one, it is clear that they will never be the same again. This vision of the dark side of the

American dream is heartbreaking and true, without ever being sentimental. Highly recommended.

Show Less

LibraryThing member Cariola

This book is a reread for me, but I'm giving it much closer attention because I am teaching it as well. It's a beautiful, heartbreaking, understated, and very short novel about a Japanese-American family's evacuation and internment during World War II, based on true accounts. As I expected, few

students in my class even knew that the US had evacuated these families and put them into what were, in effect, concentration camps. (The family in the story actually spent the first 4.5 months living in racetrack stalls while the camp barracks were being built.) Like the Nazi prisoners, they could take only what they could carry. Their homes were ransacked while they were gone, and they lived under guard inside walls topped with barbed wire.

The story is told in four chapters, each one from the point of view of one character. They are given no names, just "the woman," "the girl," "the boy," and "the man"--a device that at once makes them universal and nonentities--and each section is told in a unique voice.

A truly wonderful book. I was surprised that my students didn't like it as well as the last book, Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Show Less

LibraryThing member mrstreme

This beautiful, concise story is one that I will think about for a long time. When The Emperor Was Divine is the story of an un-named family that is affected by the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. The father is arrested by the FBI shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor,

and the mother, daughter and son are gathered up and sent to prison camps in New Mexico and Utah.

The progression of the story is told be all four family members, which adds a rich depth to this tale. The mother, at the beginning, systematically packs up her home. The daughter, on the voyage to Utah, is upset about her weathered scarf. The son, at the prison camp in Utah, dreams about reuniting with his father. The father, upon returning home, relives the interrogations and is madder than hell. And who could blame him?

This is an important book for all Americans to read, especially if you're interested in World War II fiction. Perhaps we can draw some lessons from these mistakes that were made not so long ago.

Show Less

LibraryThing member lauralkeet

Imagine that a member of your family is taken away in the middle of the night, wearing only his robe and slippers. When the Emperor was Divine tells the story of a Japanese-American family immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Each chapter is written from a different point of view: the

mother who, after reading a public notice, systematically packs belongings and hides beloved family treasures. The daughter, travelling by train to the internment camp. The son, coping with daily living in the camp. And both children, upon returning to their home, school, and town:

We used to try and imagine what it would be like when we returned home. Our phone would ring off the hook. (How was it?) Neighborhood ladies bearing angel food cakes would line up at our front door to welcome us back (Yoo hoo, we know you're in there!). ... We would accept all invitations. Go everywhere. ... But of course it did not happen like that.

Julie Otsuka's slim novel captures the emotion and trauma of this dark period in American history. The country was reeling from an attack on its own soil. Those resembling the attackers were considered evil spies. Citizens of specific ethnic origin were rounded up and sent to camps -- prisons, really -- ostensibly to protect the American people.

Is this really any different from the country's response to the events of September 11, 2001? Will we ever learn?

Show Less

LibraryThing member cestovatela

When the Emperor Was Divine tells the story of a single, archetypical family sent to an internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II. It's a compact but powerful book that often made me forget I was reading fiction. As the writer shifts from one family member's point of view to

another, you see how the experience of internment scarred the lives of the characters - the mother losing her looks and gaiety to the constant battle to provide for her children; children terrified to stand out as Japanese even after the war; the bitter, broken father who speaks with the rage of every man unjustly accused of aiding the enemy. What really struck me about this novel was its universality. This last section seemed to me exactly what an Afghani or Iraqi person might have said in the wake of September 11. In a quiet, unassuming way it also speaks for the experiences of millions of immigrants from every country of the world, their longing for the American Dream and the extraordinarily high price some of them were forced to pay to live it.

Show Less

LibraryThing member Rdra1962

Another short, beautifully written book. The book is narrated by each of the members of this family sent to Japanese interment camps. Very spare writing, a quick but moving read. The author manages to convey so much with few, carefully curated words.

LibraryThing member charbutton

This book tells the story of a Japanese family interned in the US in 1942, the father separate from the mother and their two children, with the narrative coming from each of their perspectives in turn.

I like Otsuka's style of unfolding the tale. She doesn't ram home that the family are Japanese and

what that means during the period, chosing to slowly include bits about the prejudice that developed after Pearl Harbour. She also doesn't provide names for any of the family members, reinforcing the idea that they were interned because of what they represented, not what they had done, and also reflecting the commonly-held thought that all 'Japs' were the same, individual identities were unimportant. I also enjoyed the unemotional writing which leaves the reader to think their own way through what internment might have been like.

While this is a work of historical fiction, internment isn't history. Guatanamo Bay and, in Britain, detention under the Terrorism Act and the skewing of stop and search towards those who 'look like terrorists', make When The Emperor Was Divine a relevant and thought-provoking novel.

Show Less

LibraryThing member nittnut

Simply written and spare, this is the story of a Japanese American family whose father is arrested and without him, they go to an internment camp in Utah. The author captures the sense of loss and longing very well. She never names her characters, which gives a sense that they could be anyone.

I

loved the "everyday" quality to the narrative. I did not love the transition from camp to home, it felt too abrupt. I wanted to know more of the father's story. I get why we were not told, but still, I wanted to know. This is very different from other books of the same genre. Worth a read.

Show Less

LibraryThing member TimBazzett

WHEN THE EMPEROR WAS DIVINE, by Julie Otsuka, is a starkly evocative look at the way Japanese-American citizens were treated - or, perhaps more accurately, MIStreated - during the Second World War. Camp Topaz, in the Utah Desert, was just one of many internment, or 'relocation,' centers where whole

families were kept locked up behind barbed wire fences with armed watchtowers surrounding them. Such internment camps have often been compared to concentration camps, but I'm not sure that's a fair comparison. Nevertheless, a whole group of Americans were rounded up, dispossessed and imprisoned for 3-4 years simply because of their ethnic heritage.

Otsuka's novel is perhaps even more effective because her protagonists - four members of one family - are never named. They are simply, the mother, the father, the boy and the girl. The unnamed family members could be any Japanese-American family of that time. The father is spirited away in the night; the rest of the family is given only a few days to pack their suitcases and leave their homes, transported first to processing centers - in stables - and then to a desolate desert camp in Utah. The psychological, physical and emotional effects of this callous uprooting are devastating. Otsuka's eye for detail and ear for dialogue are simply superb. Her novel is a microcosmic look at what happened to tens of thousands of families across the western U.S.

I was immediately reminded of the excellent YA classic, FAREWELL TO MANZANAR, which I read many years ago, one of many books about the relocation camps. But Otsuka's WHEN THE EMPEROR WAS DIVINE is especially stunning and unique in its multiple and anonymous points of view. This is an outstanding fictional look at a shameful episode in our country's history. Highly recommended.

Show Less

LibraryThing member Marzia22

This spare novel is emotionally charged and brought me to tears at the end.

LibraryThing member Aeyan

Otsuka's style is terse, yet rich; her characters' perspectives are blunt, yet dynamic. Offering a glimpse of a moment in history (one I failed to realize lasted for a much longer time than a mere moment) which is often elided in the history books, this book left me wondering if the blatant

mistrust and discrimination has found new outlet in our country.

Show Less

LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50

When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka tells the story of the internment of a Japanese-American family during World War II. The author based her story on her own family history and has created a small gem of a story, with her careful yet precise prose which highlights the unjust treatment of a

people whose only crime was to look different.

When the book opens, the father of the family has already been arrested and sent to a camp in New Mexico. Now it has been decided to round up all Japanese-Americans and we follow the mother, her daughter and son as they are sent to the Topaz Camp in Utah. The author captures the confusion and lack of understanding that the characters experienced. One day they were American citizens, accepted members of the community, but overnight they become aliens that are untrustworthy and dangerous. For almost three years they live in a camp in the desert never knowing when or even if they would ever return to their home in California.

While the topic of When the Emperor was Divine is emotional and heartbreaking, the author chooses to tell the story simply without embellishment resulting in a haunting evocation and, without pointing any fingers, this book becomes a lesson for us all. This subtle, lyrical story shines a light on a difficult period in history and although short packs quite the punch.

Show Less

LibraryThing member yarkan

Interesting how she doesn't name the characters. The woman, the girl, the boy, the man. Perhaps because it refers to so many. Theirs is not a unique story. So disturbing. Interesting how they came back. I wonder if that is harder in a way. But it must be better to at least have a house. But let's

not compare. They had armed guards and someone got shot. And the desert rather than the mountains. And the complexity of Japan being involved.

Show Less

LibraryThing member CasualFriday

When the Emperor was Divine is a short and understated portrayal of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Events are viewed through the eyes of one family, never named. We see the initial evacuation through the eyes of the mother, the ride to the camp through the eyes of the

girl, and everyday life in the camps through the eyes of the boy, who aches for his father, imprisoned in a camp for disloyals.

What strikes me about the book is the author's superb control of tone: plain and unsensational, suggesting a superficial sense of resignation that masks a clear-eyed anger about the injustices these internees suffered. My only criticism is that sometimes the technique of deliberate understatement serves to distance the reader from the characters. I wish I knew more about the mother, in particular, who is the most fully drawn character in the book. She comes off as pragmatic and tough as nails, and her descent into depression is very sad.

Show Less

LibraryThing member Othemts

A thin novel tells the story of one Japanese-American family in an internment camp in the Second World War. Each chapter tells the story from the point of view of a different character. The writing at first is stark, almost minimalist, (reflecting the barren Utah landscape of the camp) and while

detailing the mundane reveals the psychological suffering of the family. Later in the book Otsuka’s writing starts to get too symbolic (like a paragraph about the mother keeping her house key tied around her neck and touching it each morning and night) and then positively maudlin. A sad, sad book though, it makes you think.

(The mother declining a job offer after the war): “I was afraid I might accidentally remember who I was and … offend myself.” (p. 129)

Show Less

LibraryThing member SqueakyChu

Wow, this is a beautiful book. It’s tender and full of grace. However, deep down, it’s also very painful. This is the story of an American family – mom, dad, daughter, and son. It takes place during World War II, and, unfortunately for this family, their life changes when the father is taken

away hatless and in slippers without notice and, later, the mother and her two children are sent to a hot, dusty camp to dwell with others families during the rest of the war years. You see, this American family from Berkeley, California, is labeled the enemy because it, along other families thus displaced, are of Japanese heritage.

What is so utterly disturbing about a book such as this is the truth it tells and the horrors it cushions in its soft language. We must ask ourselves the question whenever we confront the “enemy” as to exactly what we mean by this word. Julie Otsuka brings this question to the forefront as she describes one family’s situation through the narrative voices of the mother, daughter, son, and, in the end, the father.

Show Less

LibraryThing member bcquinnsmom

Every so often there is a book that really makes you think. This is one of them. What blew me away was the story that was packed into a mere 144 pages. Without having to lengthen out the novel, the author manages to provide the points of view of all of the nameless family members (Mother, sister,

brother) during their stay at and return from a Japanese Internment camp in the Utah desert from 1942 to 1946. The father also has a story after having been incarcerated in various federal institutions harboring "dangerous enemy aliens" for "disloyalty."

Otsuka's novel is so clean, so quiet yet so eloquent at the same time. It is not filled with a lot of unnecessary verbiage; just a wonderful story.

I highly recommend this one to anyone, especially anyone with an interest in
a) how humans can turn out to be inhuman in the name of "patriotism" (still apropos after all this time) and
b) the internment camps from the inside point of view.

Show Less

LibraryThing member PinkPandaParade

The international conflict that eventually became known as World War II affected more just than the soldiers fighting it: Mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, victims of war and victors of war are all touched by the war and its devastation. It is possible that no novel reflects this so poignantly

or poetically as Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor Was Divine, which takes on the point of view of various members of a Japanese family in California during the time of Japanese internment in the early 1940s. The family members remain anonymous, though certainly not unfamiliar – Otsuka's method of keeping the family members nameless has the effect of making the readers identify and sympathize with the characters, but also helps readers to view these characters simply as human beings outside of their political, economic or racial identities. While oftentimes only hinted at, the rage surrounding the Japanese during the war is pervasive. Rocks, bricks and bottles are thrown through windows on multiple occasions, and the Japanese (or even other Asians perceived as possibly being Japanese) find themselves losing jobs and being denied basic services. In spite of this constant discrimination, the picture of the family before the war is a typical one: the nameless characters are depicted by Otsuka as being the all-American family engaged in all the images associated with being American. The disconnection implied by the anonymity of these characters is in effect both a narrowing of their boundaries to the reader as it is a distancing, both of which appear to be intended by the author. When the family returns home after nearly three-and-a-half years confined to the camp, the mother keeps her head down, unwilling or maybe unable to acknowledge herself to others unless absolutely necessary. In a lecture given to them, the children are taught to become anonymous as a way of self-preservation – to not answer questions in class even when they know the answer, to follow all rules no matter how unusual they may seem, and to remain common, unmemorable, and nameless. The novel's title, When the Emperor was Divine, hearkens back to a time before the war, when the Japanese American person was allowed to be both Japanese and American without having to contend with the possibility that being Japanese could be construed as being un-American. The family comes out of the experience of the war and the interment as wholly changed and seemingly unrecognizable. The novel exists as a warning that this kind of devastation can be avoided only if people are seen as something more than their names and racial identities.

Show Less

LibraryThing member porch_reader

In When the Emperor Was Divine, Otsuka tells the story of a Japanese American family in an internment camp during World War II. Many stories of injustice are told in horrific detail, making readers cringe as they imagine the horrors. This story is different. It is told in spare, simple prose. The

family remains unnamed, and their experiences are told in a matter-of-fact voice. This style makes the book's story even more powerful. As small details of life in and after the internment camp are revealed in the book's 160 pages, Otsuka creates a vivid picture of this period in history that will stay with me for a long time.

Show Less

LibraryThing member JEOCantoni

Japanese Americans-Evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945-Fiction
World War, 1939-1945-California-Fiction
Japanese American families-Fiction
Concentration Camps-Fiction
California-Fiction

LibraryThing member debnance

A Japanese American family is ordered to leave their home and is sent to a detention camp during World War II. The writing has a powerful immediacy that kept me turning pages to the end. Recommended.

LibraryThing member jopearson56

Very good book, quick read, compelling story of one Japanese-American family's experience during the War; very sad to think about how the U.S. treated its own citizens during this difficult time and how these families' lives were forever changed.

Fewer