A Paradise Lost - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

Sunny, and the physical and psychological wreck Endo, a Japanese musician who was her
worst torturer. The music that permeates the novel echoes the situation of its protagonists:
“Jazz is the sound of loneliness, human need. Jazz is the tongue of exile.” 336 Again, time
frames and narrative perspectives shift and have to be pieced together by readers and
characters alike. While one may acknowledge the well-crafted plot, the mastery of rhythm
in the Forsterian sense, the connections and transitions in the story, the writer’s firm grip
on her material, she may be read critically for cliché and contrivance. A postcolonialist
reading must stumble over such Micheneresque passages as the following one:
Or one of the other “golden men” whose names had the ring of rampant health:
Surf Hanohano, Turkey Love, Blue Makua, Krash Kapakahi, the Kahanamoku
brothers. Long-limbed, muscled, they strode Waikiki sands like laughing, bronzed
gods. Beachboys in the daytime – teaching swimming, surfing, paddling –
serenaders at night, the “golden men” had even been immortalized in Hollywood
films, so that rich white women came seeking them out. At dawn they left women
slumbering in their Royal suites and drove home, exhausted, in rusty pickups. 337
Also, the cameo appearances of Pono, matriarch of Shark Dialogues (e.g. 171-3), as
fortune teller to Keo’s sister are more postmodern play with self-referentiality than
integral to the narrative.
Song of the Exile contains conflicting thoughts about the nature of history. While
Keo encounters a Chinese scholar when searching Shanghai for Sunny (“Our strength, the
strength of ants. We do not win battles. But we absorb our conquerors every time. […]
But we will turn them into Chinese. Give us five hundred years. You wait,” 127-8),
Sunny argues with her captor:
‘To starve is a tragedy, not a sin,’ she whispers. ‘My father is Korean, a people
descended from Chinese. I have been taught they were worshipped for their
wisdom. An ancient and inventive people.’ Matsuharu turned to her as if to a
child. ‘What do they do with their inventions? They invented gunpowder – and?
Made little rockets! Shot off fireworks for thousands of years. Never dreaming it
was useful for conquering people. The invention of printing. For generations they
336 Kiana Davenport, Song of the Exile, New York 2000: 73.
337 Davenport 2000: 10. Another example is the following description of a woman: “Eyes like green leaves,
face Gauguin. Even in her forties, she was so beautiful, strangers followed her, entranced” (269, my
emphasis).
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