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Title: A Free Life

Author: Ha Jin

Narrator: Jason Ma

Format: Unabridged

Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-12-07

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 65 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

At first, their future seems well-assured. Nan's graduate work in political science at Brandeis University ensures him a teaching position. But after the fallout from Tiananmen, his disillusionment turns him toward his first love, poetry. Leaving his studies, he takes on a variety of menial jobs as Pingping works for a wealthy widow as a cook and housekeeper. As Nan struggles to adapt to a new language and culture, his love of poetry and literature sustains him through difficult, lean years. As Pingping and Taotao slowly adjust to American life, Nan still feels a strange attachment to his homeland, though he violently disagrees with Communist policy. But severing all ties, including his love for a woman who rejected him in his youth, proves to be more difficult than he could have ever imagined.

Critic Reviews:

"A poet as well as a fiction writer, Ha Jin writes of sacrifice, isolation, and valor with uncommon perception." (Booklist)

Members Reviews:

Did not enjoy it.

I did not enjoy this audiobook. Not sure if I would have liked it as a "regular" book, but I didn't like the reader. He tries to use a Chinese accent for some of the characters, but it comes off as mocking & inauthentic.

Better to read

I couldn't get past the first 7 hours. Accents were annoying and the repetition of names was boring. I'll get the book from the library and read it because I liked the original reviews...but I'm not going to finish listening to it.

A long story that leads to simplicity

This traces the heroes life from China to the American dream. He is married and has a child, buys a home, and even buys a Chinese restaurant. In China he was a teacher, but when he arrives in America he can only find work as a janitor. This gives him time to work on poetry, since he only has to clean up and check off his work hourly, but his ambitions grow and he discovers that the American dream he believed so strongly in wasn't his dream after all. This was a great way to see America from a recent immigrants eyes.

A Free Life

While I forced myself to listen to this story (and the story was interesting) I did not like the narrator's characterizations nor his inflections. I was also tired of the whining tone of the book and hearing "if only..."

Enjoyed the book!

The book seems a little slow in the beginning, but it's a good one in essence!