Native Speaker by Chang-rae Lee Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Native Speaker
Book Review: An inspiring read
Summary: 5 Stars
"Native Speaker" is a novel about discovering your true identity in the American society. It is a story that explores the depths of our cultural heritage and the vast amount of knowledge we can gain from being exposed to a diverse range of cultures. In the context of the book, Chang-Rae Lee communicates this idea through the eyes of the Korean-American Henry Park, however, I believe that the integration of culture not only applies from an immigrant's perspective but is important to any society in the world. "Native Speaker" ingeniously delivers this key focus to its readers, leaving a thought provoking message that remains with you long after you've finished its last pages.
The reader is introduced to Henry Park, a Korean-American who has spent his entire life trying to become a true American to fit into the society that he was born into, but never quite felt a part of. Henry's strict Korean upbringing has taught him to hide his emotions, and living as an emotional alien in the American culture has led him into a profession as a spy at an intelligence agency. But the very attributes that help Henry to excel in his profession put a strain on his marriage with his American wife and stand in the way of his coming to terms with his young son's death. When Henry is assigned to spy on a rising Korean-American politician, his very identity is tested and he has to find his true identity in his multicultural background in order to figure out who he is as a man, a son, a husband and a father.
The novel uses a very unique style of writing that is characteristic of Chang-Rae Lee. The sentences are broken in places I did not expect it to be broken, but I must admit that I rather enjoyed this stylistic writing that seems to express the words of the "native speaker" in the best way possible. I also liked the usage of Korean words and phrases in the novel, because it really adds to the ethnicity of tone and gives the reader an idea of the Korean language, and just how different it is from English.
I really enjoyed this novel and learnt a lot from reading its insightful passages that deal with race and cultural differences. "Native Speaker" won The Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award and I believe that it was a well deserved recognition for the brilliance of the writing. I would recommend this book to anyone who feels strongly about cultural identity and heritage, and if you are Korean it would particularly touch your heart to read this novel.
Book Review: Auspicious Literary Debut by a Great American Writer of Fiction
Summary: 5 Stars
For a long time I have resisted reading Chang Rae Lee's "Native Speaker", even though it's been recommended to me by others on numerous occasions. I suppose that resistance is due to my reluctance to embrace fully the work of Asian-American writers, when I see myself as someone who is an American who just happens to be of East Asian descent, and thus, interested in reading what I believe is great American literature. Happily, I have read finally "Native Speaker", which I regard as an auspicious literary debut by a great American writer of fiction. Without question this was among the most memorable novels published by an American author in the 1990s, worthy of comparison to Richard Wright's "Native Speaker" and Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy".
Chang Rae Lee uses the metaphor of espionage to explore the emotional and intellectual complexity of his protagonist Henry Park. We meet Park as he is struggling to cope with his dissolving marriage to an attractive young White American woman, and his rather stoic reaction to the recent unexpected, tragic death of their young son. He finds solace by undertaking undercover work on behalf of a shadowy organization, infiltrating the staff of a popular Korean-American New York City councilman from Queens. Soon he finds himself completely immersed in the politician's corrupt, almost Byzantine, political universe, becoming an active participant in the politician's relationship with his Korean-American community. Lee accomplishes his admirable literary feat of fine writing with a crisp ear for dialogue and splendid, almost lyrical, prose, creating compelling characters like Henry Park and his estranged wife.
Book Review: Chang-Rae Lee, J'accuse
Summary: 4 Stars
When this book arrived in 1995, it was hailed as a crossover success. My Asian-Am friends all felt `vindicated' by Lee's emotionally rich characters, his finely pitched all-embracing Whitmanic prose style. I've read this book a couple of times and tried to figure out why it found such a ready and willing audience. I haven't found any close readings online, so here are some notes, my close reading, my overworked accusations.This book can be divided into roughly two halves. The first centers around our narrator's, Henry Park's father. His father speaks in a mangled pidgeon, won't let his son ask him about his work, hires a `replacement' when the mother dies. He is incapable of showing himself as vulnerable; when he is robbed and pistol whipped at the grocery, he comes home and locks the door to his room, so that neither his wife nor son can see him or talk to him. Henry learns from his father to hide his emotions, which comes across in his relationship to Lelia, the WASPy Bostonian he has made his wife.
The second half closes in on Henry's relationship to John Kwang, a Korean Councilman from Queens who he is assigned to by the spy agency he works for (founded by another creepy father figure, the all-American Dennis Hoagland). Kwang is everything Henry's father is not, he embraces black folks and takes it upon himself to heal the tensions between African-Americans and Koreans in the city. He is "effortlessly Korean, effortlessly American," not the embarrasingly accented provisional citizen that Henry's father embodies. Henry infiltrates Kwang's political organization so thoroughly that Kwang tells him everything, and according to Henry "shows him his true face." Henry calls him his necessary invention, a clue that Henry is not really a spy but... an writer who wants to escape the ghetto of Asian-American lit.
The father's character, masterful as it is, is what one might expect from a writer of identity literature. The writer relishes most the painfully intimate detail, the dark family secret. Kwang is pure invention, or at least exercise in psychological redemption. Around the midway point of the book, Park goes into a self-reflective mini-story about his relationship with another of his subjects, a Filipino who he betrays, as he must betray all of those he is paid to spy on. He talks, unsurprisingly, a lot about his father in his sessions. At one point he reflects that Dr. Luzan employs an unusual therapeutic technique, one which depends not on fast association but on slow _narrative_. This brings us to Park's relationship with Hoagland, his boss. Hoagland demands that his spies transmit back flat character description, or "registers" that sum up the profile in as few words as possible, reduce the subjects to pure "identity." Park was originally the best of his group at this, a teacher's pet. But since his botched operation with Dr. Luzan, has been crafting narratives that Hoagland finds useless, too heavy on story, not enough cold character assessment.
Kwang is a great invention, a redemptive counter to Henry's dad. We see Kwang both as mediated by the reactive and faintly jingoistic tabloids and in his unguarded father-son conferences with Henry. His character slips in and out of the realm of folk tale; when Henry tries to restrain him, example, he finds that Kwang is inhumanely strong. At his lows, he exhibits a Fu Manchu-like sadism. Most important to Henry, he displays his weakness and humanity without reserve. In their last encounter, Henry is wildly brawling with the attackers of Kwang, whom the whole city has turned against.
In _Native Speaker_, Lee leapt from the prison-house of identity literature, but he seems to have crossed over into a vein of contemporary high literary fiction which is hugely influenced by notions of clinical THERAPY. In this book, Park and his wife, Lelia (herself a professional speech therapist), spend most of their efforts on healing the wound of their LOSS, the loss of their perfect and only son, MITT. These are the kind of people that reenact the accidental asphyxiation in bed and at the same time are painfully aware that they are conducting a therapeutic exercise, one which will help them MOVE ON from their loss. Lee's break from the ghetto of Asian-Am Lit. is admirable, his embrace of therapy as form and subject is ... a loss.
Book Review: Elegant Difficulties
Summary: 5 Stars
A smooth, evenly paced view of one Korean-American's life, "Native Speaker" is a page turner with substance. You can read it on many different levels - a portrait of Korean-American culture, the semi-tragic story of one man's search for happiness, a love story, a subtle indictment of racism in modern America, a treatise on dominant culture and "otherness." Don't get me wrong - this is no pomo essay. Despite an overall lack of explosions, the novel's low-grade spy conceit makes it a fun read. But unlike your garden-variety spy novel, the conceit serves as a metaphor for the tension between communities, fitting in while maintaining identity, and the Korean-American experience.
All in all, touching, alienating, beautiful.
Book Review: Excellent, Enigmatic and Enlightening
Summary: 5 Stars
Excellent, Enigmatic and Enlightening: 'I have only known proximity' -Chang Rae Lee (Native Speaker)
Henry is a wonderfully inventive trope, a figure I fear few will fully comprehend -- including his intended audience. The idea of a 'native speaker' working for an industrial-espionage service, precisely because he fits the required ethnic description is an almost explosive image: what does it mean for an hyphenated american to ingratiate himself into a closed political circle headed by a man not unlike himself?
Lee explores/exploits the potential within the story-line as closely as he can, and mines more ore from it than any number of american novels I can think of at the moment. (Note that I do not classify this as an ethnic american novel, per se).
Lee does employ what others have derided as 'riddling' prose. But what could be more riddling than to spy on your secret-sharer? To share and not share a language with him?
So it is language -- spoken language -- that Lee focuses his lens on in this text. His conclusion? Lanugage is not only the glue, or rather, the key to membership in this (or any) culture; it CREATES reality.
Head and shoulders above the shameful work of Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club), it is a fantastic read and highly recommended. Re-discover the possibilities of language! Get the book!