Native Speaker

Rating:
Summary: Literary Review of Native Speaker
Review: This novel depicts the problems involving alienation, isolation, and self-identity crisis that the immigrants face as the minority and outsiders in the American society. This novel takes the structure of detective fiction, developing a story of a spy who investigates an ambitious politician. Its main action concerns an amazingly charismatic New York City councilman, John Kwang, the idol of thousands of immigrant voters in his home district of Queens. Someone wants to see him go down, and it is Henry's job to provide the dirty laundry. Also this story of trust and betrayal is connected together with other, more delicate threads: his troubled relationship with his traditional Korean father, his troubled marriage to his American wife? His Confucian inability to express live to either of them except through silence. Beautifully written and intriguingly plotted, the novel interweaves politics, love, family, and loss as Park starts to make sense of the rhythm of his life. As he does, his experiences illuminate the many-layered immigrant experience in general, and the Asian immigrant experience in particular, in a way that many readers will understand and appreciate. Through the life of Henry Park, the author exposes the alienation and isolation that many immigrants and their children faces from the American society. Also he depicts the conflicts between 1st generation immigrants and 2nd generation America-born children caused from the cultural differences and the incompatible perspectives toward their lives. Through the motif of a spy, the author successfully creates feeling of uncertainty of identity and place from a point view of a perpetual outcast looking at American culture from a distance. Beginning to fear That he has betrayed both Korean and American worlds and belong to neither, the only thing that Henry Park acquired from his life as a spy and an outsider is the confirmation of his true identity filled with pain and sorrow. There are many qualities of this novel that resembles the qualities of Romanticism of Great Gatzby as Henry Park, the hero of the novel, quests for truth of his identity and displays a strong disbelief toward civilization and love toward the nature. Also Henry Park has some characteristics of the hero of Hemingway such as NADA, inability to sleep during night, and the belief of grace under pressure. Who am I? This question is thrown to the author, Chang-rae Lee himself as well as to Henry Park. Even though he immigrated to United States when he was only three, graduated from the Yale University, and established himself as Native Speaker who uses the English as his native language, he still feels that he is an outsider who can not assimilate into American society. For this sense, we could view this novel as author's honest experience of his life. The novel Native Speaker approaches the readers as an important meaning for it deals with racial problem, a peculiar aspect of American society, and boldly exposes the alienation of modern people.

Rating:
Summary: Identiy Journey
Review: Chang-Rae Lee's novel Native Speaker utilizes an immigrant to portray the hardships of finding one's identity in a cultural world. True identity is one of a noble journey. The narrator Henry Park, a Korean American, accepts this quest. Henry Park is the stereotypical second generation son who doesn't know his place in the "New World" society. He spends most of the book searching for the truth. Along the way he experiences hardships that affect his journey. His wife, an American, initiates this journey by listing characteristics of him from her point of view. She leaves on a journey of her own, without him, to Europe. Henry's job as a spy symbolizes his mask in life and his hidden identity. He's task is to protect a politician who is well-liked among immigrants. The main theme in this novel is lost identity. Chang-Rae Lee's novel surfaces this common problem among Koreans in the American society. Henry's relationship with his father, mother, housekeeper, and wife all play significant roles in his quest. His relationship with his father is a typical one among first generation and second generations in a new country. The first generation is wedded to the ways of the "Old Country" and it is the second generation that forsakes them. This statement is obvious in Henry and his father's relationship. Henry wishes for his father to become assimilated into American society and "normal." Henry experiences this want of "fitting in" even from a young age. He is disillusioned throughout the whole book, unaware of what is developing around him. He at a point in the book views his cultural background as a burden unto himself and his life. Henry's family does not understand his burden. Henry doesn't realize the sacrifice his family made for him to live in a better place, to grow and become a successful man. His character is one that resembles a romantic hero. His love of nature and distrust of society is evident throughout the book. Lee uses many stylistic strategies to achieve his portrayal of lost identity. He commonly uses strong diction to reveal Henry's emotions and thoughts. Lee also uses many similes and metaphors to compare Henry's feelings and search for true self. Many motifs are used repeatedly throughout the book to reveal a layer of Henry's multi-layered character. A common motif found in the book is one of Hemingway's philosophy of NADA. This philosophy's characteristics are repeatedly found in Henry's actions. Chang-Rae's use of prose style helps the reader become easily involved in the plot and emotions of the characters. It evens achieves a sense of questioning of identity for the reader and their thoughts. Throughout the book Henry deals with the isolation, alienation, and loss of self identity to finally achieve a sense of identity in the end. He does not completely achieve it, yet he is few steps closer than before. I believe that Chang-Rae Lee's novel describes beautifully the struggle between two worlds and the journey. Overall, I liked this novel for I believe it was a realistic novel that deals with realistic problems that people face in today's society.

Rating:
Summary: One of those mediocre, MFA ,ethnic novels
Review: This book is so dull, so formulaic, so redolent of a writing workshop, one has to ask himself whether a minority writer can ever write something relevant to all people instead of focusing on their little narrow immigrant lives. These kinds of immigration, assimilation, slice-of-life culture novels are the lynch pins of mediocre writers. Just look at Jhumpa Lahiri, another awful MFA writer who writes about her hum-drum Indian upbringing. And everybody fawns over these pieces, screaming that its great for multiculturalism. Yeah, great, wonderful, but that doesn't change the fact that these novels are woefully bland.

Rating:
Summary: An American Tragedy
Review: If you read a great deal, you recognize that only a few books are truly profound and will be regarded as noteworthy among those written in a particular era. Having just finished "Native Speaker" I was both moved, and extremely impressed. This is clearly one of the distinguished books of this generation.

Chang Rae Lee is clearly a man of acute depth and insights, and he eloquently represents distinctly different cultures, and the angst, disillusionment, and metamorphisis arising from survival that affects immigrants. He also probes fundamental issues of family, loyalty, betrayal, and the question of what constitutes success. While he employs Korean, and Korean American prototypes, his themes and issues are fundamentally human, but perhaps distinctly American.

Furthermore, Lee is a superb wordsmith and a beautiful writer, with a masterful command of the English language, which he skillfully and artistically, employs to convey his complex tale and profound concepts.

I was motivated to read this book when I read that this was the book that had been recommended by many as that which diverse, fractious, and iconoclastic NYC should claim as it's own in the trend for each of the nation's cities to focus on a book to read. However, this is an important book for all Americans, as it trully speaks to the American experience. I noted one review compared it to Ellison's "Invisible Man". While I think that it stands alone, if I were to compare it with other American classics they would instead be Dreiser's "An American Tragedy" and Richard Wright's "Native Son". I am very pleased that I chose to read this book; it is noble, touching, and important.

Rating:
Summary: From Out to In
Review: In this spy novel / cultural expose, Lee attempts to share his feelings as a non-native speaker. He is able to brilliantly weave many different stories into a well-written novel that explores his feelings as an immigrant. Lee is able to show us Americans - or "Native Speakers" - how it feels to be labeled an outsider and some one that just cannot fit in. He carefully reveals through his well written prose the disappointment and shame that can flow through the minds of one that is shunned by the very people they are striving to become. In this novel Lee begins with Henry, the protagonist, reflecting on a list left by his wife which covered the things she had discovered he had become, or had always been. She stated "you are surreptitious, B+ student of life, illegal alien, emotional alien, Yellow peril: neo-American, stranger, follower, traitor, spy..." This list of traits is developed throughout the novel, and helps to reveal Henry's quest for identity. This quest for identity becomes a major motif as Henry represents the immigrants living in America struggling to become native speakers. Another symbol of the book was Lee being a spy. A spy, one that looks on others but is not seen by others, is a perfect symbol of the feelings of an outsider. Although some criticize him for his attempt at a spy novel, this clever detail helps the reader to see the feelings and thoughts of a non-native speaker. As the book closes Lee has discovered his true self. Through his quest to regain the love of his life - his wife - and his effort to succeed in his career, Henry discovers the true essence of living as a non-native speaker. This book will be intriguing to all that are open minded and are prepared to accept the truth as it is seen by an outside seeker.

Rating:
Summary: Not the average cuppa joe.
Review: A blend of subtle and broad strokes creating a richly textured prose in a unique and compelling novel. I enjoyed the layers and intricacies of the stories woven together to give protagonist Henry Park the profoundly human visage unearthed here. Lee uses a sensitive yet blunt observational style I found spine-tingling and poignant.

For those KoAms here who thought the view of Korean immigrants stereotypical - hey, we're living it, man. Stereotypes are born of truths, painful though they may be. Look in the mirror, you'll find a lot more in common with Henry Park than you wish to admit, or you have yet to discover. Or are you just unmasking the stereotypical Korean schadenfreude in yourselves?
Lee hits the nail on the head and strikes nerves in many ways with this admirable, thought-provoking book.

Rating:
Summary: Chang-Rae Lee, J'accuse
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: not recommended for Korean readers
Review: As a second generation Korean-American, I am always longing for something to identify myself. Being proud of my korean culture and American culture i picked up this book hoping to find something that would attribute to my quest of an identity. Entitled Native Speaker, I was expecting a novel along the lines of a guy having a conflict between his American and Korean culture. However this is hardly the case. Henry Park, the protagonist of this novel, is portrayed as a spy against the korean culture. He works to undermine the work that has been done by Korean-American in America. Very difficult to identify with. In the novel he later begins to have a conflict with the underminging that he has been a part of and begins to regret the work that he has been participating in, but it's unpausible that a cold hearted soul who started working on a job like this would ever feel guilt about what he's done?
however some non-korean seem to identify with it so if your not korean you may like it. Up to you to decide.

Rating:
Summary: Lyrical
Review: Perhaps the highest compliment I could give this book is one that I already have in the title line: this book is lyrical. And like a good lyric it acts upon your imagination to produce visuals and emotions that last with you long after you have finished the book.

I am a father and Lee touches on my deepest fears in this book and makes me emphatize with him, even though I am not Korean-American. And that is the beauty of the book, that because of its specificity, it becomes universal.

I do not know if the Korean-American experience is truthfully recorded here, however I do believe that truth is present in the words. The truth of father, a husband, an employee, a minority, a human ... if you are interested in a beautifully-structured and well-written book on life, loss and love .. this is the book to read.

Rating:
Summary: Jumping paragraphs half way through...
Review: I was very excited to read this book after learning that it could be the chosen one thousands of New Yorkers would read ....this coming spring.

...The first chapters are very interesting, Lee dissects everything in sight, from relationships, through the character's jobs, failures and dreams. Half way through the book I was still excited and enjoyed the crescendo and wondered where was I headed? Somewhere interesting and fulfilling I hoped. That's when the disappointment started to sink in. Mr. Lee opened the Pandora box of his talent when writing this book and like Indiana Jones found himself in a very dangerous situation where only the likes of Harrison Ford can escape alive.

Page after page, while meandering from one plot to the other I felt dizzy and couldn't see the end of the book in sight. I was not is search of a punchline and loud cymbals to clap at the end - I am snob enough to think that I can grasp the multivariate messages of most writers- . I was in search of a coherent dismount that would honor the first half of Lee's routine. Alas, I didn't see this, what I saw was more of a crash-landing. Good effort but better luck next time.

Maybe I missed something, but last night I caught myself reading just keywords and jumping entire paragraphs to the end in search for the key dialogues and interesting descriptions. Wishing that I had the patience and presence of mind to follow the unbearable rhythm of this tired and repetitive ode to pseudo-stoic double faced characters. Finally around midnight I finished this book. Thank God, do yourself a favor, don't read it. There are so many good books out there and BTW for New Yorkers? That's why Tom Wolfe wrote The Bonfire of Vanities.