The Call (Hersey novel)
Author | John Hersey |
---|---|
Cover artist | Sara Eisenman |
Country | United States |
Subject | Protestant missions in China |
Genre | Historical novel |
Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
The Call is a novel published in 1985 by the American writer
Plot
The novel mixes narrative, excerpts from Treadup's journal, letters written by Treadup and his wife. and excerpts from "The Search," an extended memoir which he wrote while in a Japanese internment camp during the Second Sino-Japanese War. This organization allows Hersey to show what Treadup thought at the time of events and then what he thought about them up to forty years later.[1]
The first section of the novel describes Treadup's ancestors, a long-established Anglo-Saxon family. David himself was born 1878 in western New York, then graduated from
At the 1907 China Centenary Missionary Conference in Shanghai, Treadup takes part in the debate between the older evangelists, who insist that their only mission is to spread the gospel, and the newly arrived missionaries of the Social Gospel persuasion like himself, who are convinced that their mission is good works, that is, the uplift of society through science, education, and social change. Through the decade of the 1910s, Treadup organizes campaigns to introduce modern science to the educated men of the city in the hope that they will spread this knowledge down to the masses. He uses posters, pictures, and scientific demonstrations to arouse interest among the audience, for instance a gyroscope, with which he performs impressive feats. This work is modeled on that of Hersey's father, Roscoe.[2]
The science campaigns are successful but conversions few. Treadup then meets the dynamic Christian "Johnny Wu," modeled on "Jimmy Yen" (
At the start of the
After the end of the war in 1945, as Mao's forces take over China, Treadup leaves for home disillusioned with the American mission in China. He reflects that he came to China motivated by personal need, group psychology, hypnotism by the preacher who aroused his idealism, and fear for himself.
The novel ends with a note that Treadup's oldest son, Philip, tried in vain to get his father's ashes buried in Shanghai in 1981.
Background and major themes
The novel is dedicated "To The Memory of Roscoe Monroe Hersey, Senior," Hersey's father, who also appears as a minor character in the book. Hersey himself was born in
Many of the other characters are closely based on historical figures and most of the events depicted actually happened, although not necessarily in exactly the same order or to the analogous people. "Johnny Wu," for instance, is based on "Jimmy" Yen (
The distinguished American historian Arthur Waldron wrote that the novel is "a tale of lost faith and futility in the face of bland Chinese indifference to Western concerns...." He sees this theme especially at the novel's "tragicomic conclusion," when Treadup's son returns in an attempt to bury his parents' ashes, as they had wished, in Shanghai's Christian cemetery. The cemetery has been destroyed and forgotten: a concrete apartment house now fills the site. "All that effort for nothing," the son concludes, speaking, says Waldron, perhaps, "not only of his attempt to fulfill his filial duty, but of the entire missionary enterprise in China."[6]
Shortly after the novel was published, Hersey told an interviewer
- The deep impulse that I wanted to try to write about in The Call was, I think, a very American one, of wanting to be useful and helpful in the world. It's not by any means simply a Christian or missionary impulse; it's manifested in the Peace Corps, and in the kind of response the starvation in Africa has brought. But it seems to me that in the last twenty-five years the impulse of greed has grown in this country, the self-centered drive that makes people primarily fight for their own. The whole swing of the dominant political force toward the right has been, I think, a reflection of and stimulus to this move toward self-centeredness or greed. I find it very distressing. [7]
The book contains a section of notes and a listing of the archives, interviews, and secondary sources Heresy used in gathering background material.[5] When asked about the role of factual, historical research for the book as a novel, Hersey replied:
- It's a substitute for memory, I suppose... But Flannery O'Connor said in one of her essays that fiction is an incarnational act; you're trying to make flesh and blood of things that are remembered. And in order to do that it's absolutely essential to make the past concrete. There have to be real, palpable objects, things seen, things heard. So either memory or a substitute for memory has to operate to bring those things into the fields of vision and hearing. Research in this case was partly a substitute, partly a supplement, to memory. I had at least a child's memory of the world of China, [7]
An entire section of Treadup's journal is lifted verbatim, without attribution, from an actual letter written by William W. Lockwood, General Secretary of the Shanghai YMCA from 1903-1936.[citation needed]
Reception
Reviewers recognized and welcomed the novel as a portrayal of the American missionary experience in China. China historians were especially warm.
Beverly Causey, writing in the
References
- Causey, Beverley D. Jr. (1986). "The Call (Review)". Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church. 55 (2): 166–168. JSTOR 42974119.
- Dee, Jonathan (1986), "Interviews John Hersey, The Art of Fiction No. 92", The Paris Review, 100
- Fairbank, John (30 May 1985), "Mission Impossible", New York Review of Books: 17–18, reprinted in Fairbank (1987). China Watch. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 27–34. ISBN 978-0-674-11765-5.
John Hersey The Call .
. - Hersey, John (1985). The Call. New York: Knopf.
- Lancashire, Douglas (1987). "Review". The China Quarterly. 109: 142–143. .
- Lian, Xi (1997). The Conversion of Missionaries: Liberalism in American Protestant Missions in China, 1907–1932. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 978-0-271-01606-1.
- Sheppard, R.Z. (6 May 1985), "Awakening a Sleeping Giant: The Call", Time Magazine, archived from the original on May 8, 2009
- Jonathan Spence, "Emissary in the East," New Republic (May 13, 1985): 28–30.
Notes
- ^ Fairbank (1987), p. 31.
- ISBN 978-0-674-81220-8.
- ^ Lian (1997), p. 207-208, 216–224.
- ^ Sheppard (1985).
- ^ a b c Hersey (1985), p. 693- 696.
- ^ a b Dee (1986).
- ^ Fairbank (1987), pp. 29, 31.
- ^ Causey (1986), p. 166.