When literature is polyphonic singing

The beautiful novel by Julie Otsuka is a gem.
What is immediately striking is the style. The use of "we" and the use of repeating the opening paragraphs and sometimes at the beginning of each sentence create a very special music, a hymn to the intoxicating and hypnotic cadence as Ravel's Bolero.
From Time Immemorial and oblivion, the author makes us hear the voices of tens, hundreds of Japanese young, sometimes barely out of childhood, who immigrated to the United States in the early 20th century to married with strangers who had touted their bells and whistles, and offer them for most of that sad lives of toil, misery and oppression.
This novel addition to his literary strength also sheds light on a little known period and inglorious US, and evokes with great finesse of Japanese culture and the clash of cultures.
A beautiful book in this literary season in 2012 not to be missed.

"They knew hide their fear. They knew that some are born under better auspices than others and that things in this world do not always turn out as we would like.
Yet they dreamed. One had vowed to marry a pastor to not having to pick fruit on Sunday. One wanted to save enough money to pay for his own farm. One wanted to grow tomatoes like his father. One wanted to be anything but. [...] "