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Runa is a young Japanese woman teaching English in a secondary school in a small city in Japan. Ralph is from Carlisle and has come to Japan to find a wife to replace his first, a Thai woman who has left him, mysteriously disappeared, or died. Runa is also running away, from the consequences of being exposed as having had an affair with one of her young students. She steals her sister's passport and heads for China, in search of an old friend. Ralph is going to China too, after being rejected by even the "C list" women at the marriage broker in Japan. With the kind of ironic inevitability that reminds us more of Thomas Hardy than modern Japan, the two meet aboard a ferry headed for Shanghai, with predictably tragic consequences. WATER LILY (the title appears as one word on the cover, as two everywhere else) is Susanna Jones's second novel, following THE EARTHQUAKE BIRD. Both books have much in common. Jones seems to specialize in elaborating characters who appear profoundly out of place in their surroundings. In THE EARTHQUAKE BIRD, we followed the fates of two English girls in Japan, here we are thrust into the consciousness of a Japanese woman who cannot accept conventional social expectations but who also can only rebel against them in self-destructive ways. In Ralph, we view the workings of a thoroughly unpleasant mind, a sexual inadequate who deludes himself that he will find unquestioning gratitude and acceptance from an "oriental" bride. Admittedly, Jones's work will not be to everyone's taste. Both her main characters here are exceptionally difficult in different ways. Ralph's self-delusions, self-pity, muted anger, and barely suppressed violence make it impossible for the reader to feel anything for him but disgust. Runa seems so stunned, so uncomprehending that we do lose patience with her. Nevertheless, we can comprehend why she is behaving as she is, even if we wish she wouldn't. Jones writes with great control and with an evident familiarity with Japan that holds the reader's interest. For readers who enjoy fiction that explores aberrant psychology effectively and without sensationalism and who do not demand a great deal in the way of an optimistic resolution, both of Jones's novels are worth reading.
Reviewed by Yvonne Klein, February 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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