Word: manchuria
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...Sylvie—haunted by the shocking cruelty of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in the 1930s—may be the most damaged of all. The daughter of murdered missionaries, Sylvie has devoted her life to altruism. Yet for her beneficiaries, Sylvie’s presence teeters precipitously between providing mercy and causing pain. Her relentless need to numb herself to the vibrancy of life—to escape into the dulling throes of opium—destroys Hector, June, and her husband, who find it impossible to sever their connection to this fading woman and her elusive love...
...serpentine prose constantly obscures the crime to be committed next, but his treatment of violence is more invested in details than gratuity, so when they occur—abruptly, though not necessarily unpredictably—they serve to emphasize the remote helplessness of the victim. In Manchuria, the Japanese cut off the eyelids of one of Sylvie’s companions in order to force him watch her be raped. Years later, in Korea, Hector is commanded to kill a tortured prisoner of war, but cannot bring himself to pull the trigger. The young bugler, legs broken beneath him, grabs...