Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
My first review!
(If you've been reading my blog, this review will come as no surprise)
Black Rain is a novel about the Hiroshima bombing during WWII. It's a fiction story, but the author did a good amount of research and incorporated much of his research into the story, in such a way that the story almost exists in a realm somewhere between fiction and non-fiction.
The main family is an aunt and uncle and their barely-adult niece. It is never explained so far as I could tell why the niece is living with them (it is even mentioned at one point that her father is still alive...perhaps her mother has died and the father sent her to them?).
They are from a small town well outside Hiroshima city, but they are living in Hiroshima at present for work. The uncle and niece both work at factories, where some people are "drafted" or basically forced to work and cannot quit while the war is going on. I think the uncle wasn't drafted and he's in a nice quasi-managerial position, but he knew the niece could be drafted so he pulled some strings to get her a somewhat cushy job at another factory.
The story actually begins many years after this and many years after the bomb, with the family back living in their small town. The uncle is one of the few survivors of radiation poisoning still alive in the area, while the aunt is relatively OK and the niece seems fine but was exposed to the radiation.
Their position in town is in question. While they are apparently somewhat well off, the uncle can not do any actual work for fear of radiation poisoning killing him. It is known that people with radiation poisoning who work too hard, even only briefly, often get sick fast and die. But this culture is one of hard work and duty, so he is seen as a slacker by some despite knowing his circumstances.
On the other hand, the niece is having no luck in marrying. Though not "really" affected by the radiation, there's a rumour around town that she was closer to the epicenter of the bombing than she really was, which would mean people think she's more likely to be affected by radiation than she really is, which scares away any suitors after the rumours reach them.
A man from another town notices the niece and begins the customary communications, and the family are determined not to mess this up, as it could be the last chance for the niece to marry. But apparently the intermediate has heard something about them being in Hiroshima during the bombing and asks for more information. Wanting to assuage them, the uncle decides to copy out the niece's diary and his diary of the events to show how the niece wasn't nearly as close or exposed to the radiation as he was. Most of the story are these diaries.
I went into the book very hesitant. I didn't really want to read it, but did as part of a book club I'm a member in (and was outvoted on). I found the subject matter unappealing but went in hoping the author's talent would win me over. Unfortunately, it never really did.
I really did give it a chance, time and again. But I found the book to be too grim, and a bit unnecessary, sort of like people who slow down to watch the aftermath of a car wreck. I feel that perhaps many who read this read it for the "car wreck" sensationalism of it, but justify it because it's about an "important" subject.
While the author doesn't revel in the horrors as much as he perhaps could have, he certainly does revel in them a good bit.
There are also problems with the structure of the story. First, the diaries are way too detailed to be believable. We are supposed to believe that these family members keeps novel-like diaries and have photographic memories and an author's artistic touch. I don't buy it.
Plus, the author has apparently taken many real-life accounts of Hiroshima and tried to intertwine them into the story. Taken individually, it's one thing. But trying to fit many of them into one storyline of this family, it comes across as too much and unbelievable. For example, even after surviving the bomb, the uncle ends up having to visit Hiroshima over and over again day after day (and I mean, the very next days after the bombing), purportedly for his company's business of all things. But in reality we know it's a lazy plot device for the author to get the uncle back to Hiroshima again and again so we can see more and more horrors.
I feel like the author decided he wanted to write a story about Hiroshima, collected a bunch of different real stories, then mashed them all up together into this, hoping to make something "important" out of it. Apparently it worked, at least in Japan, for it's apparently very famous and award-winning there. But in my opinion it's not up to par, and I think others give it a pass because of its subject matter and the research and because of the research the realism of many scenes.
I think it'd be better off reading non-fiction accounts if that's what one wants.
Also, there is one plot point I found especially questionable. The main family apparently tries to hide the niece's radiation exposure from others even as they complain about how there are rumours that she was closer than she really was to the bomb. So, let me get this straight, the family doesn't like that the rumours are that the niece was closer to the radiation than she really was, but yet have no problem trying to hide the fact that she was more exposed to radiation than they'd like others to know. They even apparently would be OK hiding that fact to suitors who may marry her and then become widows or have radiation-affected children.
It just seems all very unsavoury to me, particularly because the author paints these as the protagonists who are basically good people and doesn't ever comment that what they are doing is bad; in fact it seems to be insinuated that we should be on their side and agree with what they're doing.
That all said, this book wasn't terrible and I have a feeling I'm being particularly hard on it because I'm not a fan of the subject matter. While the author apparently isn't so good at setting up a good structure to the book (he could've easily made the diaries more realistic or re-worked the plot so that the uncle wasn't traipsing back to Hiroshima again and again), what he was good at was writing some pretty passages, and overall I felt that his words were well-written. I just wish they were used to flesh out a better structure.
If the book sounds at all interesting to you, I'm sure you will probably love it. If it doesn't sound interesting to you, like it didn't to me, I wouldn't recommend bothering with it.
So as not to leave on a bad note, I'll leave you with my favourite passage, which is a repeat from a previous post. The author's best writing was actually about the small town the family was living in years after the war, and rememberances of things way before the war. It's too bad that bomb covered up so much of this story.
Anyway, in this passage, the uncle is remembering a big old gingko tree in the small town that they're from that used to stand by a neighbour's house before it was chopped down for wood for the war effort:
When the frosts came and the gingko tree began to shed its leaves, the roof of Kotaro's house would be transformed into a yellow roof, smothered with dead leaves. Whenever a breeze sprang up, they would pour down from the eaves in a yellow waterfall, and when it eddied they would swirl up into the air - up and up to twice, three times the height of the roof - then descend in yellow whirlpools onto the road up the slope and onto the oak grove.This always delighted the children. As the wind dropped and the leaves came dancing down, the boys would stretch up their hands to clutch at them, and the girls would catch them in their outspread aprons.
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