The Fifth Book of Peace
Author: Maxine Hong Kingston
A long time ago in China, there existed three Books of Peace that proved so threatening to the reigning powers that they had them burned. Many years later Maxine Hong Kingston wrote a fourth Book of Peace, but it too was burned -- in the catastrophic Oakland-Berkeley Hills fire of 1991, a fire that coincided with the death of her father. Now in this visionary and redemptive work, Kingston completes her interrupted labor, weaving fiction and memoir into a luminous meditation on war and peace, devastation and renewal.
The New Yorker
When, fourteen years ago, Kingston embarked on a sequel to her delightful novel “Tripmaster Monkey,” she called it “The Fourth Book of Peace,” echoing a half-remembered Chinese legend about Three Books of Peace. But the manuscript was destroyed in a fire—a suggestive occurrence to Kingston, because the books in the legend were also burned. Here she re-creates her lost fictional narrative and sets it alongside an account of her life after the fire, so that the Vietnam-era doings of her antic hero, Wittman Ah Sing, who moves to Hawaii to evade the draft, are juxtaposed with her own experience teaching writing workshops for veterans of Vietnam and other wars. The book is rich in empathy and moral conviction, but Kingston is such an exuberant storyteller that fans may regret that the fictional part remains unfinished.
Publishers Weekly
In September 1991, Kingston (The Woman Warrior; China Men; etc.) drove toward her Oakland, Calif., home after attending her father's funeral. The hills were burning; she unwittingly risked her life attempting to rescue her novel-in-progress, The Fourth Book of Peace. Nothing remained of the novel except a block of ash; all that remained of her possessions were intricate twinings of molten glass, blackened jade jewelry and the chimney of what was once home to her and her husband. This work retells the novel-in-progress (an autobiographical tale of Wittman Ah Sing, a poet who flees to Hawaii to evade the Vietnam draft with his white wife and young son); details Kingston's harrowing trek to find her house amid the ruins; accompanies the author on her quest to discern myths regarding the Chinese Three Lost Books of Peace and, finally, submits Kingston's remarkable call to veterans of all wars (though Vietnam plays the largest role) to help her convey a literature of peace through their and her writings. Kingston writes in a panoply of languages: American, Chinese, poetry, dreams, mythos, song, history, hallucination, meditation, tragedy-all are invoked in this complex stream-of-consciousness memoir, which questions repeatedly and intrinsically: Why war? Why not peace? The last war on Iraq and the current one meld here, as do wars thousands of years old. Complicated, convoluted, fascinating and, in the final section, poignant almost beyond bearability, this work illumines one writer's experience of war and remembrance while elevating a personal search to a cosmic quest for truth. This is vintage Kingston: agent provocateur, she once again follows her mother's dictate to "educate the world." (Sept. 8) Forecast: As previous winner of the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Kingston has a commanding audience to rally for this long-delayed and -awaited book. Knopf plans a 50,000-copy first printing. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Acclaimed writer Kingston (The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts) has created a lyrical memoir of momentous events in her life-the death of her father and her mother, the destruction of her house by fire on the day she attended her father's funeral, the search for the ancient Chinese Books of Peace, and the organization of a series of writing workshops for Vietnam War veterans. Kingston explains that the Books of Peace were born when Chinese civilization came into being but then were lost. She works to find them, believing that their recovery may save the world from the never-ending horror of war. Kingston writes her own Book of Peace here, telling the story of a Vietnam War draft dodger. Her vivid portrayal of the too familiar elements of the Vietnamese conflict-war protests, peace demonstrations, AWOL GIs, and hippies-is disturbing and convincing. And the admirable goal of the writing workshops she conducted with the Vietnam vets was to help them "put that war into words, and through language make sense, meaning, art of it." With this memoir, Kingston continues her life's admirable task, given to her by her mother, of educating the world. Hence her powerful admonition: "In a time of destruction, create something." Highly recommended for academic and public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/03.]-Kathryn R. Bartelt, Univ. of Evansville Libs., IN Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A mix of memoir and fiction attempts to reconstruct a novel that burned-along with the author's home and family keepsakes-in the terrible Oakland Hills fire of 1991. "If a woman is to write a Book of Peace, it is given to her to know devastation," NBA-winner Kingston (Tripmaster Monkey, 1989, etc.) begins in the eloquent first section, an account of the day that fire destroyed The Fourth Book of Peace, her novel-in-progress. It is also the day of her father's funeral, and as Kingston drives home into the heart of the fire, she has two thoughts: either "the fire is to make us know Iraq" (it takes place during the first Gulf War), or "my father is trying to kill me, to take me with him." Pursuing memories of her immigrant father in a series of free-associative leaps, she remembers the Chinese lore that he and her still-living, eccentric mother have imparted to her, much of it guidance for dealing with the aftermath of devastation. A few days later, at a conference, Kingston remembers the impetus for her lost novel-to rediscover the vanished Chinese texts of the legendary Three Books of Peace-and resolves to do two things to honor it: reconstruct the text, and initiate a series of writing workshops for Vietnam veterans. The rest rambles somewhat. The reconstructed novel, set during the Vietnam War, tracks a young family fleeing California for Hawaii to avoid the draft and has little plot beyond the characters' opposition to the war; it feels rushed. The final section-a diaristic account of the workshops for vets-is well-meaning but lacks the splendid insights of Kingston's best writing. A colorful meandering that is most original and compelling when it focuses on the author's hard-won peacewith her family. First printing of 50,000; author tour
Table of Contents:
| Fire | 1 | |
| Paper | 43 | |
| Water | 63 | |
| Earth | 239 | |
| Epilogue | 399 | |
| Permissions Acknowledgments | 403 |
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