I was game for another dystopian futuristic novel and I hadn’t read the acclaimed author Chang-Rae Lee before so I eagerly picked up “On Such a Full Sea,” whose title is taken from a line in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.”
It takes place in a wasted American landscape where three segments of society exist: the wealthy elite that live in walled-off Charter villages; the service workers in labor settlements that support the Charters; and the less fortunate who vie for survival in the open counties where it’s dangerous and difficult to get by.
The story follows a 16-year-old girl named Fan who lives in the labor settlement B-Mor that was formerly Baltimore. She’s a well-skilled tank diver who takes care of the fish supply sold to the Charters. But one day her boyfriend, Reg, who has an immunity to C-illnesses that the population doesn’t, goes missing. Soon after, Fan leaves B-Mor on a dangerous journey into the open counties to find Reg. Along the way she meets various odd characters such as Quig, a vet-turned-doctor living in a compound who barters away his patients; a murderous acrobatic family; and Miss Cathy, a wealthy woman who holds a troupe of young artistic girls in a room at her house.
But will Fan persevere and find Reg? And what happened to him? The novel reads like a tale about two folk heroes who become symbols to the troubled workers of B-Mor, which is undergoing a decline and crackdown.
You won’t find out about Fan’s and Reg’s fates till the end, but I almost wasn’t sure I was going to make it there, even though the novel is a normal 352 pages. “On Such a Full Sea” took me quite awhile to read. It’s challenging and dense on the whole and many pages don’t have any paragraph breaks.
The book’s narration by a B-Mor resident, who tells the tale of Fan, drove me crazy. At times he’s actively telling her tale, which is interesting to follow, but at other times he’s musing philosophically about this and that, which hindered the story and was generally boring to stick with. I kept wishing that Fan had narrated her own story so that it would come more to life. As it is, she is quite distanced as this folk hero, and you don’t really get to know her well.
Although the author conjures some vivid passages and images of a futuristic world in trouble, I came away from the novel feeling that it was a bit of a slog to read. The narration muted its suspense and I kept wanting it to deliver more. I had set my sights high for this novel but on the whole I was rather disappointed.
How about you — have you read this one? Or do you plan to?
Hm, you’re not the first person to mention the fact that this book is dense. I appreciate your honesty and will probably skip it.
Yeah there were some good things but you sort of have to wade through quite a bit to get there. Thanks Kathy
I have another of this author’s books in my TBR stacks to read. Surrendered, I think it’s called. I haven’t read too much about this one but the premise sounds interesting. It is too bad it isn’t written better. I don’t think it is one I want to read right now. Maybe at some point, if the mood strikes. I’ll keep in mind your thoughts on it though, so as not to set my expectations too high.
Yeah I guess this book was a big departure for the author from his other books — in its dystopian plot etc.; so his other ones might be quite good. Don’t rule them out. Cheers.
I heard Maureen Corrigan speak, in an NPR podcast, about this one and she nearly talked me out of it, but I still want to give it a go. This would be my first of his books, but the idea truly intrigues me. Good to know that you have found it dense; I’ll choose what I read alongside carefully to help me along with that possibility.
Yeah I’ll be interested to hear what you think. I was intrigued by Fan’s character and wanted to really get behind her story but was kept a bit distant from her.