As I do with all Ha Jin's books, I wanted to like The Banished Immortal: A Life of Li Bai (Li Po) and came to the book with great hope. Li Bai, the Tang Dynasty poet, is an inherently fascinating man and influential poet. So, Ha Jin had a great subject for this non-fiction book.
He indeed does the very hard work of interpreting the importance of this great Chinese poet for an English speaking/reading audience. At times, he performs this task admirably. But most of the time, the book pursues the same tempo and rhythm: Li Bai seeks an official position to get ahead, gets close to securing it, and then loses it for some reason. This continues for the whole book.
So the pattern is monotonous. This is a fine book to learn about classical Chinese poetry, but Ha Jin makes it difficult to feel overly enthused with his flat, repetitive prose and repeating patterns.
He indeed does the very hard work of interpreting the importance of this great Chinese poet for an English speaking/reading audience. At times, he performs this task admirably. But most of the time, the book pursues the same tempo and rhythm: Li Bai seeks an official position to get ahead, gets close to securing it, and then loses it for some reason. This continues for the whole book.
So the pattern is monotonous. This is a fine book to learn about classical Chinese poetry, but Ha Jin makes it difficult to feel overly enthused with his flat, repetitive prose and repeating patterns.
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