Hello. I'm Catherine Weller and you're listening to The Open Book.

This week's selection is Brothers by Da Chen.

A country as ancient and large as China is fertile ground for sweeping epics. The cultural richness and variety of its civilization provide ample foder for grand stories. Author Da Chen makes good use of China's abundance in his first novel, Brothers. It is the tale of two sons, one illegitimate and one not, sired by a great Chinese general. Born in 1960 the boys are raised in very different circumstances. Tan, the son of general Long's wife, lives in Beijing, attending excellent schools and living a life of luxery in the midst of communist want. Shento's young single mother committed suicide after giving birth to him. He was adopted and raised in a small southern village by a doctor and his wife. The Vietnamese invade, the village is decimated and Shento is sent to an orphanage. During the next forty years the brothers ciurcumstances expand and contract, their locations change, and the intrigue grows as they are propelled inexorably toward each other.

The boys parallel stories unfold in alternating chapters. Their unique voices are very convincing. As each boy, and then each man, narrates his present circumstances, the other's circumstances are fleshed out as well. This dual narrator structure is one of the strengths of the book. It is weakened by the addition of the voice of Sumi, a village beauty with whom each boy falls obsessively in love. Sumi's voice appears initially in the form of letters she writes to Shento, whom she believes is dead. This episiliatory insertion is at first jarring and then distracting. Sumi is soon fleshed out into a too good to be true character, a woman who exists to be sainted by the cruel actions of the men around her. This is not an unusual authorial device, but Da's employment of it is a bit obvious.

Never the less, Brothers, is a great tale of Dickensian quality. This is a strange comparison, I know, for a book set in China during the death of Mao and the rise of that country's unique form of capitalism. But the coincidences in this sweeping family saga propel the book forward with much of the same intensity, sentimentality and social outrage as the nineteenth century novels penned by Mr Dickens.

When it was published in early 2000, Da's memoir, Colors of the Mountain, was praised for its brutal and sad depiction of growning up during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Brothers is equally authentic in its setting. From the dirty little villages to old and new Peking, to New York City, the genuineness of Da's writing is the other great strength of the book. Its sense of place and time are hard to beat, and make brothers enjoyable reading.

You've been listening to The Open Book on KCPW. I'm Catherine Weller.

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