Customer Reviews

The Fruit 'N Food

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Enter Thomas Pak, isolated Korean-American set apart from the world by circumstance, by generational boundaries. He is an individual that becomes inextricably tied to the Fruit N' Food, a job that offers him human connections, as well as money, for a basic need: survival & life. However, the racial rage that envelops this mileu brings to it a certain sacrifice: racism begets racism in this world, and often brings down everyone within it. With a clear, meticulous literary voice, Chang describes this setting with a stylistic candor; bringing to the fore themes of the Asian "American-dream", race, hate and class struggle. Tom Pak is rendered through a Stranger-eque portrait with sometimes graphic observation, only for us to realize his lost role in a society that bewilders him even further.

everyone's fighting the hell out of each other trying to get at that American Dream and it's not a pretty sight...crab cage with the claws out chopping and clamping and poor old Tom Pak is getting the crap beaten out of him...this is the closest i've seen to some writer getting at the screwed-up racial mess the cities are going through and i'm glad he wrote this...

I kept thinking of Camus when I read this novel, but I don't think the existential underpinnings were fully explored by the author. I think he subordinated the idea of the quotidian existence for the flash and excitement of racial tension (and the boycotts). He also took Sartre's idea of NAUSEA a little too literally, I thought. Nevertheless, this was much more ambitious than most first novels coming out these days...

This is pretty hard-hitting stuff. But even so, I thought there WAS hope and redemption at the end, because even in the ruins, the characters knew what to do, where to go--what was next. There was forwardness in their vision. Mrs. Rhee even has that tough, I-will-kick-ass viewpoint at the end. I thought it was great.

I had to read this for a class, and expected another one of those precious "ghost" novels, with ancestors and fake Asian myths. Instead, this novel was really surprisingly true and real. I liked it a lot, and am going to take a look at his second book.

Chang's novel is the first Asian-American novel that I read that did not give in with the stereo-type of asians and blacks. Instead it is an intricate observation of people and the space they create for themselves. The space is manifested in many forms-race, generation, language and in this novel Chang put them all in a pot, then let human nature take it's course. The result is a frightening look at America.

This novel reminds me of Malamud's The Assistant, but the conflicts here are not only generational and class-based, but racialized as well. Compressed within a short time-span and basically a few locations, this novel explores the life of a clerk who causes havoc at this store, the immigrant success story gone completely awry, and I couldn't stop reading it. The writing is pretty vivid, and turns almost surreal at times, mirroring the confusion of all the events that occur.

I've never read anything like this before. This isn't the cliched Asian American fiction we see a lot these days. It's scary, violent, and apocalyptic

Although the subject matter and themes seem very important, I found myself repelled a bit by the violence and utter desperation of the characters. The writing was often great, but I wished there could've been more uplift, more hope. Or is that too naive?