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Waiting
Waiting
Waiting
Audiobook10 hours

Waiting

Written by Frank M. Robinson

Narrated by Roger Dressler

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

()

About this audiobook

From the author who brought us the distinguished spy thriller Death of a Marionette and The Towering Inferno, one of the most popular films of the '70s, comes Waiting, an intense novel of contemporary menace, in the mode of Robinson's 1950s classic, The Power.

There are people living among us, who look just like normal human beings. They've been here for a long time—waiting. But they aren't exactly like us at all. Some of them can read minds, and in subtle ways take over what your are thinking, control you for a while.
They can make you love.
They can make you die.
One ordinary man in San Francisco, Arthur Banks, begins to find them out, and immediately his life and his family are in danger. It's a paranoid's worst nightmare. But that's just where it starts. He may well be fighting for the survival of the entire human race.

"I've always maintained that Frank M. Robinson's The Power was one of the best terror tales ever told. Waiting is even better, rich with character, suspense and constant surprise. This is one of the best chillers of the entire decade. It is guaranteed to give you nightmares. Reading this book was a pure pleasure."—Mystery Scene

LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 8, 2008
ISBN9781423371373
Author

Frank M. Robinson

Frank M. Robinson brought us The Towering Inferno, one of the most popular films of the '70s, as well as the 1950s classic, The Power. His novel, The Dark Beyond the Stars, won the Lambda Literary Award. He lives in San Francisco.

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Reviews for Waiting

Rating: 3.553515161594963 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

953 ratings51 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was a great book and I also believe that this will happen. This is obviously about Rh negative blood types I believe
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The main character discovers the existence of Old People, a 35,000-year-old cousin species of man with the ability to share racial memories and control the thoughts and actions of others, living among us and waging a secret war against us, with some of his closest friends numbered among them. An interesting storyline, but a muddled, ill-developed plot and such thinly drawn characters that it's difficult to remember who's who make this novel substandard.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Casual misogyny, unnecessary and continuous infodumps, preachy tone, lousy wordcraft, and a truly hackneyed, telegraphed plot with stale, one-dimensional characters and foreshadowing you can see from Alpha Centauri.It all adds up to a truly AWFUL book. I only kept reading because it's what I had at the gym, and I was honestly hoping someone would kill the main character in a particularly squishy way.No, really, this book was awful. The women were all either heartless bitches, sex toys, or nags - or a combination of the above - and seemed only to be there to be toys for the men in one way or another. The central mystery was...not a mystery. You could tell exactly what was going to happen starting on page, oh, 35 or so. The writing was slipshod and clumsy. The continual infodumps about ecological problems were poorly integrated, and quite grating. Did I mention the random appearance of a Saviour Figure at the end, with no lead-up and no explanation? Just...random saviour tossed in there, as though to make up for the cliched and/or offensive characterizations elsewhere in the book.Yeah.Simply awful. Save yourself the pain and do not bother reading this.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A complicated novel about arranged marriages versus marrying for love. Set in Communist China.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Set in China during the Cultural Revolution, protagonist Lin Kong is a doctor living and working at a hospital in the city of Mija China. He wants to divorce his wife, who lives apart from him in the countryside with their daughter. China’s laws and customs do not make it easy to obtain a divorce. Lin is thwarted year after year. In the meantime, he has developed a loving, but platonic, relationship a colleague. They wish to marry once he obtains a divorce.

    As the title indicates, this book is about waiting. It is as if Lin is continuously waiting for his life to start. To me, this book reads as an excellent example of the phrase “You Only Live Once,” which has become so popular recently. It shows the need to act rather than wait for life to happen to you. It also shows what can happen to someone who is not satisfied with his life, always thinking that life would be better if only circumstances could change (while doing little to effect change or to find a way to enjoy what he currently has).

    I particularly enjoyed the glimpse of Chinese life under Mao Tse Tung, where the people appear to be waiting for the benefits of his regime to be made clear. There is one horrific event that came out of the blue, so be prepared for something awful to happen in this otherwise quiet book. I liked it but I felt like I was waiting for a revelation that never occurred.

    3.5
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A Chinese novel written in English by a man who decided to stay in the West after the Tiananmen Square events of 1989. Which does not make either the novel or the author less Chinese - but it makes the novel a bit more accessible than translated novels. My library initially shelved this into its romance section but then re-shelved under General Fiction (and never covered the old label fully so it is still vaguely visible). And I am not surprised. On the surface it looks like a romance novel. In a way it is a romance novel - in the same way Anna Karenina is a romance novel for example. Lin Kong is trying to find a way to be with the woman he loves. He is an army doctor, living in the city but married to a woman in a distant village who he sees once a year. He never chose his bride, Shuyu - his parents arranged his marriage and he meekly accepted. He even managed to produce a daughter with her - and while she took care of his dying parents one after the other, he built his life in the city. Shuyu is old-fashioned even for the village - she has bound feet (which she is the wrong generation for - her mother's generation was supposed to be the last one to suffer with that but she was not spared, she is uneducated and unsophisticated - the wrong woman for Lin Kong in all possible ways. And there is Manna Wu, a nurse in the same hospital, Lin Kong's sweetheart who he cannot even hold hands with or go on a walk with outside of the hospital compound because of the rules that everyone lives with. China of the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s is not exactly known for allowing a lot of freedom. So when the novel opens, Lin Kong and Shuyu are in front of a judge, after 17 years of separation, in 1983, asking for a divorce. Until Shuyu changes her mind again and the judge denies the request again. That had been happening over and over for more than a decade and Lin Kong is getting disheartened. But that's not really where the story must start - because after this interlude, we go back to 1963 to see Lin Kong becoming a doctor and falling in love and then living through all the years until we can catch up with them in 1983. And as much as it is the story of Manna Wu and Lin Kong, it is also the a glimpse into the history of China and the relationships in it in this era - restricted, monitored, always on the verge of becoming a disaster. And the two women represent the old and the new, the traditional and the modern and in places become more symbols than actual human beings. But underneath that they are people, with feelings and regrets and the symbolic person and the real one merge into a single entity. People are people - it does not matter what ideology you believe in, love is always going to be there. But at the same time the novel is also an exploration of what happens to love when it needs to wait and what happens when people try to hang to dreams from decades ago. In a way the novel has a happy ending but not in the way one would expect. It makes one wonder what is worth fighting for and if dreams are worth getting realized at the end. In that triangle, the weakest link is always Lin Kong - his indecisiveness ends up costing decades of the lives of both women connected to him and at the end he is the one who gets to complain. There is a lot to be said about the female characters here and the place of women in the society - the "we are all the same" of communism was always a nice slogan but never really worked like that. I ended up liking this novel a lot. It has a melancholy feeling that works in a way I did not expect it to work - underneath the seemingly easy novel sits a meditation on love and choices, on dreams coming true too late and on human nature.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    “Waiting”is a novel filled with the culture of Chinese relationships. This novel explored a world I knew next to nothing about and I found it quite interesting .Lin, a doctor in the Chinese army has been in a loveless marriage for over 18 years. Because of party rules and ancient traditions , he is finding it difficult to divorce her to marry the woman he has promised to marry for 18 years. Manna is a nurse in the same compound bound by culture herself. There’s a great deal of irony and humorous in this novel, pathos plus frustration as you want to give Lin a good shake. A slow moving novel that did grow on me.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Subtle and compelling reflection on the tensions inherent in a life made of choices, even in a culture where few choices seem to exist.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    At first, I was a little bored by this book....a couple waiting close to 18 years to marry or even to become lovers? Just get on with it! But, that feeling didn't last long as this is a deeper story about love, loyalty and life in a more rigid culture than we enjoy in today's Canada. Lin is married to a peasant woman who lives on the family farm, looking after his aging parents and raising their daughter. He is an Army doctor living in a far-off city, where he falls in love with a nurse. There are many rules and norms that prevent Lin and his true love from being together: Army rules, Communist Party Rules, laws that require divorce to be consensual, family expectations. The real tragedy is that Lin is unable to break free of any of these bonds, thereby missing out on a satisfying marriage, his daughter's life, time with his true love. The messages are subtle, but heart wrenching at the same time.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was a great novel about life in China during Mao's regime.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I was listening to this on audio and got distracted from it. It wasn't holding my interest to begin with, and I realize I'm not going to go back to it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book is based on a real life event, after Jin and his wife met a doctor at a hospital who had done just what the blurb says. I really enjoyed this – it was an easy read, but fast paced and the characters are well-written and believable. I learnt a bit about what life is like in communist China (our country may be far from perfect, but I count my blessings that we have the freedom we have). This is a novel about love, and about wasted opportunities and about how the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence. Very enjoyable.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I read this on a recommendation, and I'm not entirely sure how I felt about it. It was so different from my normal reads, I think it's taking some time to sink in.

    The culture represented in this book is SO DIFFERENT than anything I can wrap my head around. The Chinese politics and customs depicted are so different than anything I've ever experienced as a Westerner. I sometimes felt a bit detached from the characters, but I think it was partly because their social customs forced them to interact in a very specific, restrained way.

    About halfway through, I found myself trying to decide whether I really liked or disliked anyone. The only answer I had at the time was that I liked the long-suffering Shuyu. By the end, though, I think I felt differently. Behaviors that irritated me. The characters were simply acting within the constraints of the society in which they lived, and this prevented them from figuring out HOW they wanted to live, and what would bring them real happiness. It made me sad for them.

    This book really made me think, and forced me to leave my own comfort zone, which is something I really appreciated.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    How do we spend the moments of our life? How do years get away from us? What promises do we make to others? I very much enjoyed Jin's story. The protaganist's inability to decide what he wants, to take initiative, or to want what he has was facinating. This novel is limited in subject matter (don't expect it to go beyond a description of a love triangle), but enjoy the poignant exploration of how unresolved weakness destroys our lives and the lives around us.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A few reviewers here have mentioned that they found Ha Jin's "Waiting" interesting because one doesn't see too many novels based in mid-twentieth century China. While I admired the way that the author described the challenges that his characters face without explicitly giving his readers a history of modern China, I'd have to agree. But in other ways "Waiting" will also seem familiar, perhaps even classic. Its description of China's opaque, slow-moving bureaucracy reminded me of those nineteenth-century British novels where the characters' fates depended on the vagaries of inheritance law or the finer points of social convention. The novel's characters make difficult choices, deal with the consequences as best they can and, as the title suggests, wait. The book is appropriately slow and sad, and the author does a wonderful job of showing how difficult it can be to live your life in an environment that's almost entirely dominated by large, inflexible institutions. Manna and Li's desires -- to live with each other as a married couple -- are relatively simple, but in a time and place distinguished by economic scarcity and a lack of personal freedom, this wish takes on the cast of a nearly impossible lifelong project. Ha Jin makes sure the reader understands these characters' hardships, and it doesn't always make this novel an easy read. Even so, despite the fact that the book's setting often seems hopelessly static, the author's also good and tracing the changes that Chinese society underwent from the fifties to the eighties and how they might have affected his characters. The fact that the author is able to convey unchanging routine and encroaching and undeniable social change says a lot about his talents, as does this novel's perfectly calibrated structure. A wonderful example of novel-writing, and an unusual book that may seem simultaneously fresh and familiar to many readers. Recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Well written, compelling, beautiful. Perfectly paced and spare.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    National Book Award winner. Chinese man struggles with loyalty toward his wife of many years and his affection for a nurse with whom he works. Allegory about China's being poised between the old and the new.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Waiting, by Ha Jin, is a romance story but not a typical one. Sure the boy meets the girl and they eventually fall in love or so they think, but there's a continual obstacle on their way to bliss: the boy has a wife back home. For nearly twenty years, Lin Kong has loved the modern, educated Manna Wu, who works with him at a hospital but back home, rooted in millennia of Chinese tradition, is his wife whom his family chose for him years ago. Every summer he goes home to divorce her but, although his wife agrees at first, she always withdraws.

    Ha Jin portrays the problems, pitfalls, and occasional joys of romance and love in the bizarre days of the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath, where even a couple talking together in private was viewed with extreme suspicion. The extent to which everyday life was controlled under the Maoist system is startling - even preferences for books had to be carefully chosen: one character voices concern over his own liking for then-out-of-vogue Russian novels.

    This novel though is primarily one focusing on the character of Lin Kong: he is a decent, average man, if a little weak-willed, and Ha Jin shows his development, or indeed lack thereof, over the two decades that pass in the novel's timeline. Throughout the novel, Lin Kong always pines over the woman he cannot have: at first, this is merely Manna Wu but after his eventual divorce from his first wife and their eventual marriage, he starts to see how his former object of affections no longer offers him the same thrills as before. Towards the novel's end Lin Kong confesses that he will wait for his former wife since Manna Wu has a chronic heart condition and will die soon. Ultimately then, the reader sees the depths of the flaws in Lin Kong (for which Ja Jin is to be commended): he is unable to love wholeheartedly or with maturity, always longing for what he cannot have. This mind-set is explored in an inner monologue Lin Kong has and sets the novel's finale up.

    Ha Jin, then, has ably portrayed not only the minefield of love during the time of Mao, but also has shown and explored the complexities of human longing, of how circumstances and time often unfairly intervene in the best-laid plans of men.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the second time I read this book. The first time, I totally dismissed it as boring. This time, I had more time and perhaps more patience. This book requires patience. It's slow, somewhat repetitious, yet interesting. The culture of China during the 1960-70's is more than just a backdrop to the story. The affects of the Cultural Revolution and the overwhelming philosophy of control so shape the main character that he is unable to come to grips with who he really is. He is a doctor, a brother, a husband, a father, a government worker, and those roles always determine what he thinks and who he is. He almost never contradicts what he thinks is expected of him; his life is always determined by others especially others who are the least personally involved in his life. His respect and feelings for his boss, his roommates, his professional acquaintances is stronger than his respect or feelings of his wife and the "other woman". Only his daughter can cause some kind of emotional reaction in him.Lin is a person who is entirely shaped by others, what people think and how they react to him. Everything is analyzed; nothing is felt. The wife, Shuyu, is almost unbelievably complacent, but again, that's the role that the culture assigned her. Manna, the woman who waits eighteen year to finally marry him, shows the most independent emotion, but she also is so restricted by the culture. This is a sad book in many ways. Lin thinks at one point: "How we're each sequestered in our own suffering" His life is an example of unintended selfishness; he simply knows no other way to be. He has no ability to emotionally connect with those who should be closest to him.It is so subtly sad that it is humorous at times. The deception and posturing of the characters is so exaggerated in places that it is laughable. Laughable to us in modern American; seriously repressive to those lives we see in this novel.The writing is beautifully done; the reader can almost feel the chill which seems to pervade the buildings and the air itself. It is a dreary and lifeless environment. The buildings are functional, concrete, where a few cuttings of red paper on the window can create a "festive" feel. Lin, in his effort to be perfect, simply forgets to live. He was "certain ..between love and peace of mind he would choose the later. He would prefer a peaceful home." Just too bad that love and relationships have to mess it all up.If you want an exciting read, this isn't it, but if you want to meet a man who is the exact opposite of Zorba, the Greek, come meet Lin Kong.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I'm going to start this with the caveat that I know very little about China, and even less about Chinese culture. I've read reviews where the author has been lambasted for creating a book about China that white people would be happy with, and I can see how the accusations might be correct... sadly, I just don't know enough to be able to make a call about that.

    This book was just OK. It was slow to read, slow in pace. However, it was an easy, gentle read, so not terrible.

    The story centers around an army doctor. He was married in an arranged marriage by his parents and is ashamed/doesn't like his wife. She's too country and subservient. While she is at home, tending his farm, he lives an abstinent life yearning for a more modern coworker/nurse at his hospital, who is completely in love with him. When he finally does get his divorce, he finds that married life with his love isn't so great after all, and starts looking back at his subservient former-wife.

    The main character, Lin, is just really boring and really ineffectual. He never takes action, he just lets things happen (to him or others), which makes him a very frustrating character. He seems to have no strong opinions or the willingness to fix his life.

    So the title of the book is apt. Lin is waiting for life to happen, his wife is waiting for him to come to his senses, his future wife is waiting for him to do anything to forward his life. I was waiting for something to happen.

    Resounding "meh."
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A simple book, sparse in words and meaning. A bit dull. Characters blend together.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    What happens when you wait 2+ years to marry the person you love? That is what Ha Jin explores in Waiting. And it doesn't seem to be very pretty for either side. Manna Wu becomes bitter over time and Lin Kong wonders if he's made the right decision after all this time.I really wanted to connect with the characters but couldn't for some reason.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Delicate, poetic prose, character-driven novel. Enjoyed, although it evoked ennui. The protgonist seemed autistic.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    As far as plot goes this book is pretty uneventful. From the outset we are told that the male protagonist, Lin Kong, fulfills his filial piety duty by marrying a complete stranger who looks after his aging parents, manages the housework, farms the land and raises their child single-handedly. But all this fails to impress Lin Kong; it is a loveless marriage. Upon graduation he works in a city hospital, where he forges a relationship with a female colleague; but it is a forbidden love, as state law decrees that he must divorce his wife first.What this book lacks in plot makes up for in characters. Righteous, methodical, good-nature people who find themselves caught in a quandary. Each character makes a sacrifice; years of waiting turns dreams into doubts. Their illusions of love is distorted by the reality and practicality of daily life: earning a living, domestic chores, raising children, as well as the stifling social and political influences surrounding them - all takes its toll on them and strains their marriage. In the end, we see how relationships can evolve and it is very much a learning process.Fave quote: "The grass gathered the essence of heaven and earth, yin and yang, and the material and the spiritual, and that it unified the body and the soul, the living and the dead, celebrating the infinity and the abundance of life. In brief, it was a very progressive symbol, charged with the proletarian spirit."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    China's cultural revolutionary years took their toll not only on the country's industrial and economic development, but also the her people's lives. Hunger and famine struck, and many families were separated with members being assigned to rural farms to work. Ha Jin's beautifully written novel takes place during this era in China's history. Lin, a doctor in the People's Liberation Army lives his life according to what he believes to be his duty. He goes through an arranged marriage to a woman in a village but does not love her. He is even embarrassed by her because she has bound feet. His wife stays in the village to raise their daughter and look after his ailing mother. The army does not allow him a divorce except with his wife's consent or unless he has waited for 18 years. He visits his village once a year, and each time, asks his wife for a divorce and each time leaves denied his freedom. Lin has a girlfriend, Manna, at the hospital he works in but they suffer an unconsummated relationship because of his marital status and she enters the waiting game as well, stoically, hopefully, and frustratingly for him to be truly free to love her. The prose is deliberate throughout, and you get the sense of Lin's frustration with and resignation to his situation. When he finally does obtain his divorce, the political landscape in China also goes through fevered changes, and the pace picks up quite forcefully. I found this a moving story of love and missed opportunities as a result of a man's duty to his family and then the army.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Waiting tells the story of an army doctor married against his will to a village woman whom he leaves behind at home to conduct an affair with a city nurse. Each summer, he asks his wife for a divorce, and each year, she agrees before changing her mind at the court house. Thanks to the tight regulations of the Cultural Revolution, the doctor and his beloved nurse are forced to live as if they are nothing more than friends. I was impressed by the way the novel didn't allow me to believe that any of the characters were bad people; I understood all of their motives and rooted for each one, even when I understood that their heart's desire would hurt another character. And, even though the story moved slowly, I cared so much about each character that I never though of quitting the book. To fully enjoy the story, readers should keep in mind that this is a Chinese novel, not an American one. Viewed through the lens of Chinese culture, each character's behavior makes sense, and so do the pay-offs each receives at the end of the book. If you try to analyze this exclusively on American terms, you will probably find the characters frustrating and the ending inexplicable.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    China 1950-80.....interesting read. It is a minimalist read. Unusual detail, limited vocabulary and sentence structure. After reading into the book the style became part of the whole. China no one was an individual, everything was decided by the government. The People lived and died and that was all there was except LOVE if you found it. At the end the main character Lin decided that 3 children, 2 sons and 1 daughter made him a lucky man. characters: Lin - father; Shuyu - 1st wife, Hua -daughter; Manna - 2nd wife; Lake and River - twin boys born when he was old.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The writing seems very spare. It's not a translation by the way, but by a man whose native language is Chinese writing in English.The characters often exasperated me with their varieties of passivity: Lin in not insisting on divorce or letting Manna go; his wife Shuyu in her submissiveness and passive-aggressive refusal to divorce; Manna in her--waiting. That's very much the plot and theme for two-thirds of the book--waiting. And the last third... well. That would be a spoiler, but not much, because it would imply much happens. Also, the cover has a blurb from The New Yorker calling this a "bracingly tough-minded love story." I think that's misleading. The story does involve the emotion of love. But it's not a romance or romantic. However, I did find so many details of the China of the Cultural Revolution and its totalitarian absurdities and squashing of happiness fascinating. One detail in particular stuck with me. When a girl, Manna had been called "an angel" by an elderly Christian. She didn't know what that was having grown up in Communist China--and the very word had been expunged from the dictionaries. It's the picture of life in that time and place that kept me reading and made it worth reading even though I found the plot thin, the characters unappealing, and the prose dull.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Read in September 2000. You really get a sense of waiting forever in this book and there are times when you just want to shake the characters and ask them to get on with it. We had mixed feelings about this book ...... for some loved it and others were irritated with the characters. A good discussion, though!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book was like so many others about the Asian Culture, wonderful. It was plum full of love, heartbreak, suffering, and over all passion for life. Ha Jin has a wonderful way with words that will allow you to feel the moment and not just read about it. Easily one of the best books I have read this year. My only regret is that I didn't read it sooner.