Verwandte Artikel zu Color of the Sea

Color of the Sea - Softcover

Hamamura, John

 
9780307386076: Color of the Sea
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0307386074 ISBN 13: 9780307386076
Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

Raised in Japan and Hawaii, Sam Hamada has been trained in the ways of the samurai. After graduation Sam strikes out for California and falls in love for the first time, with a beautiful young woman named Keiko. But then the Japanese attack Peal Harbor, igniting the war and making Sam, Keiko, and their families enemies of the state.

Drafted into the U.S. Army, sent on a secret mission, Sam’s very identity both puts his life at risk and gives him the strength he needs to survive. Taking us from the lush Hawaiian Islands of the 1930s to the wartime world of madness in Hiroshima, Color of the Sea is the unforgettable story of one Japanese boy’s coming-of-age.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

John Hamamura was born in the final year of WWII in a U.S. Army hospital in Minnesota. His father was a GI Japanese language instructor. His mother's family was behind barbed wire at a camp in southern Arkansas. His father's mother and siblings lived in Hiroshima; two of them survived the atomic bomb. He lives in Oakland, California and Color of the Sea is his first book.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

"Hamamura writes deftly and powerfully, whether about the subtle vibrations of the human heart or the bloody convulsions of war."--David Maine, author of "The Preservationist ""and Fallen"
Growing up in a time between wars, Sam Hamada finds that the culture of his native Japan is never far from his heart. Sam is rapidly learning the code of the samurai in the late 1930s on the lush Hawaiian Islands, where he is slowly coming into his own as a son and a man.
But after Sam strikes out for California, where he meets Keiko, the beautiful young woman destined to be the love of his life, he faces crushing disappointment---Keiko's parents take her back to Japan, forcing Keiko to endure their attempts to arrange her marriage. It is a trial complicated by how the Japanese perceive her---as too Americanized to be a proper Japanese wife and mother---and its pain is compounded by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which ignites the war that instantly taints Sam, Keiko, and their friends and family as enemies of the state.
Sam himself is most caught between cultures when, impressed by his knowledge of Japanese, the U.S. Army drafts and then promotes Sam, sending him on a secret mission into a wartime world of madness where he faces the very real risk of encountering his own brother in combat.
From the tragedies of the camps through to the bombing of Hiroshima, where Sam's mother and siblings live, Sam's very identity both puts his life at risk and provides the only reserve from which he can pull to survive. In this beautifully written historical epic about a boy in search of manhood, a girl in search of truth, and two peoples divided by war, Sam must draw upon his training, hispast, and everything he has learned if he's ever to span his two cultures and see Keiko, or his family, again.
"Hamamura's writing is sleek and powerful, and his evocation of the Japanese-American experience compelling. A haunting, beautiful story of love, honor, and dedication, "Color of the Sea" is a remarkable novel."--Holly Payne, author of "The Virgin's" "Knot" and "The Sound of Blue"
"Hamamura's first novel is a marvel, a revelation, the story of a man torn between two great loves, two great cultures, two complex and evolving worlds. Bravo."--James Dalessandro, author of "1906" and "Bohemian Heart"

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PART

ONE

January 1930-December 1938

Snow Dance

JANUARY 1930

The boy's breath steams in the gray winter light as he runs toward Ogonzan hill. Black school cap askew, uniform jacket flapping unbuttoned over a blue and white padded cotton kimono, his thin bare legs and feet flashing, he runs. The clacks of his wooden clogs echo off the houses and walls along the narrow rain-wet streets of Honura village.

Isamu spots them--Mama, his brother, Bunji, and sister, Akemi--beyond the houses on an exposed section of the trail that climbed through the pine and bamboo forests of Ogonzan hill. Before he can shout or wave, they disappear into the trees. Isamu runs harder. On either side of him, deep stone-lined gutters gurgle with clear water rushing downhill.

When Isamu comes to the bend between the last house and the edge of the forest, he gives two long hoots, cranks his arms, and runs puffing like a train around the curve. Slowing to catch his breath, he considers jumping off the tracks onto the secret fox trail that he and his friends had discovered. But this afternoon the bamboo groves look dark and spooky. In the cold still air he can hear water dripping like rain off the long thin leaves. Isamu shivers and decides to keep to the main path.

He catches up with his family just before they reach the cemetery. Three-year-old Akemi beams and puts out her arms. Isamu kneels. She climbs onto his back and wraps her chubby arms around his neck. Straightening and lifting her, Isamu speaks with the unself-conscious authority of a Japanese eldest son. "Hang on tight, Akemi, here we go." Six-year-old Bunji trotting at his side and Mama following closely, Isamu leads them up the steps through the terraced graveyard until they come to Grandfather and Grandmother's stone.

Three days of rain have washed the tall stone clean; nevertheless, they ladle water over it as they have always done. The children sweep away fallen leaves and bits of debris around the base. The boys dump out the two water cups and fill them with fresh water from a nearby cistern. Mama gives Akemi pine boughs to place in the cups, then lights sticks of incense, which the children carefully poke and stand in the wet sand and ashes of the incense bowl. Then they all put their hands together and bow.

Close behind them is a small temple dedicated to Kannon, the goddess of mercy. The humble wooden structure has only one bare, unadorned room. Leaving their grandparents' stone and approaching the temple, the children see that today the temple doors are chained and locked shut. Mama gives each child a coin to drop in the offering box, and she lights sticks of incense for them to place in the temple's incense burner.

The children put their hands together, dip their heads, then immediately run to peek through cracks and knotholes in the unpainted wooden walls of Kannon-sama's temple. Akemi tugs at her big brother's jacket. "I want to see!" Isamu lifts her to a knothole. She moves her head from side to side, surveying the empty interior. Gray light falls through gaps in the roof, through cobwebs sagging from the beams, to the wooden floor carpeted with dust and shriveled leaves, where it glistens on the surface of several small rain puddles. Isamu lowers his sister to the ground. She gives a little sigh of disappointment. "No one home."

From the front of the temple, it is only a few steps across the clearing to Kannon-sama's bell. Four sturdy posts support a black tile roof. Under the shelter of the roof hangs a beautiful old bronze bell. One after the other Mama lifts Akemi then Bunji, helping them take hold of the rope and swing the suspended log against the side of the bell.

Isamu waits for his mother and takes his turn last. He loves ringing the bell. He loves the depth and age and purity of its voice. Especially today, his last full day in Honura village, he savors the bell's song. Eyes closed, Isamu lets the final reverberations soak into him like sumi ink into rice paper.

In the stillness left by the bell, Isamu becomes aware of a soft chattering. Looking down, he discovers the sound comes from his brother's teeth. Bunji is shivering like a wet puppy. Isamu removes his school cap and drops it crookedly onto Bunji's head. Then Isamu takes off his uniform jacket and holds it while Bunji slips his arms into the too-long sleeves. Isamu wraps and smooths the jacket over Bunji's chest, then together the two brothers close the brass buttons.

Isamu feels his mother's hand on his shoulder. He turns to look at her face and sees the bell and temple behind her.

"Isamu, you are nine years old and starting a great circle in your life. Someday you will return to close that circle and begin a new one. We will be waiting to welcome you home."

Isamu nods. But feeling the ache growing in his heart and wanting desperately not to break into tears, he points at Kannon-sama's temple. "Maybe you'll be here, but I bet that creaky old temple will have fallen down."

Mama blinks, taken aback, then understanding her son's need for bravado, she smiles gently. "One of your ancestors built the first temple with his own hands. It will stand as long as Kannon-sama lives in it."

Akemi and Bunji turn to stare at the temple. Quickly Isamu knuckles the tears from his eyes. Akemi's voice chimes sweetly as crystalline bells in the still air. "Mama, I always look for her, but I never see her."

"She's in there right now."

Bunji shakes his head. "No, she's not. It's cold and dark and empty inside. And the doors are locked."

"Yes, but she didn't lock them."

Bunji grows agitated. "You're saying that Kannon-sama's in there right now?"

"Of course."

Akemi hides behind her mother and peeks timidly at Kannon-sama's temple.

"But how do you know?" demands Bunji. "How do you know she's in there?"

Suddenly Akemi lets go of Mama's hand and begins dancing in circles. "Oh, look! Look!"

"Ah, there . . ." says Mama. "The goddess has sent you a sign."

Open-mouthed, Isamu and Bunji stare at the locked temple and the last wisps curling from their incense. They look from their mother's knowing smile to the radiant wonder in Akemi's face as she laughs and twirls and lifts her tiny hands to catch the enormous snowflakes drifting silently down from the ash gray sky.

Spear

JANUARY 1930

The following morning, Isamu kneels on the station platform and says good-bye to his little sister. Akemi sobs, locking her arms around his neck, refusing to let go. He hugs and gently pats her on the back. "I'll send you a letter from Hawaii."

"Really?"

"Yes. I'll put your name on it and write it just for you."

"But you always read to me. I can't read by myself."

"Mama will read it. I'll paint and draw you pictures."

"I can do that, too. I can make pictures. Of Mama and Bunji and me."

"Then Mama will teach you how to mail them. I'll be waiting." Isamu inhales deeply, wanting to absorb everything about this moment: the blade blue morning light; Akemi's wavering smile; the weight of his mother's hand on his head; the face of his younger brother, Bunji, awestruck in the damp wind washing over the platform as the snow-clad locomotive pulls in, all whistle, bell, and hissing steam; the smell of burning coal, hot iron, and grease; Akemi's icy hand in his; his own hand sizzling slick with sweat, cooked pink with fear and excitement; his heart hammering--leaving home, leaving home . . . Leaving Japan. Leaving Mama, Bunji, and Akemi. Leaving Honura village. Going to Hawaii with Papa. To live on the...

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Verlag
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2007
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0307386074
ISBN 13 
9780307386076
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
336
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Verantwortliche Person
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