Customer Reviews

Native Speaker

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

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.

Henry Park, the son of a Korean grocer who lives in New York, is deserted suddenly by his Caucasian American wife. Reflecting back on his life and and the events that lead him to this situation, he considers the way deceipt over his vocation has clouded his marriage. He reviews how his life had been when his dad was alive, when his son was alive, and the lack of understanding by his wife of his Korean culture.

A pervading sense of something having gone wrong opens this book. The search for its cause and more details is the powerful driving force behind this intriguing first novel. Its finest characteristic, however, is the way in which the author expresses what it feels like to be an ethnic Korean growing up in America---the alienation, the anguish, the longing to be a necessary part of the wider culture. It addresses the dichotomy of two divergent cultures that must be embraced by the child of an American immigrant who strives to improve his station in life, the tension that exists between Asians and non-Asians who find themselves living and working side by side, and the intergenerational clash that often occurs between the immigrant generation and its children. NATIVE SPEAKER is an absorbing story and a welcome addition to any growing collection of Asian-American literature.

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.

I picked up a copy of this book after reading rave reviews in England about his second novel, A Gesture Life. I thought I'd read Native Speaker first. I was not disappointed. I know the comparison to Kazuo Ishiguro has been made a thousand times but stylistically it has to be said that they do share a calm, measured prose which gives the reader a strong path through a jungle of emotions, memories and misunderstandings. Also, like the narrators of Ishiguro's first three novels, Lee's narrator here does not seem to see all that we as the reader can see, he does not always read the actions of those around him as we might. The narrator, a Korean-American, has a lot on his plate. He is working as a private detective whilst coming to terms with the death of his child and trying to save his marriage to a white American. I personally learnt a lot about the Korean-American community in New York from this novel. Obviously I cannot say how accurate it is and other reviewers of this book have questioned its accuracy. However, it opened my eyes to a side of the city which no film or book has ever told me about. Again, like Ishiguro's books, you come out at the other end feeling a bit hazy, not quite sure what to make of it. The only reason I gave this four stars instead of five is that I found it quite hard-going at times. The prose does not run quite as smoothly as Ishiguro's. Having said that I will certainly read his second novel and would recommend this to people looking for a new writer with new perspectives.

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.

Chang-Rae Lee supplies so many levels to this tale of political espionage that the reader cannot help but emerge wiser. Lee is an engaging storyteller, hooking the reader with the first line and never relinquishing his grip, giving his readers a suspenseful plot, compelling characters, precise language, and an exploration of issues facing America today. The metaphor of the second-generation American as spy is simply brilliant.

This book is a rare find: a page-turner with real substance.

Chang-rae Lee's Native Speaker is arguably one of the most beautifully written books of the 20th Century. Written when Lee was only 28 years old as his MFA thesis project, Native Speaker is a moving and often painful account of the immigrant/1.5 generation's experience in the United States. While the book moves back and forth between Henry Park's life as a spy and his relationship with his estranged wife, Lelia, the underlying theme encompassing the entire novel is that of the invisibility and displacement of Asian Americans in the United States.

While some reviewers have deemed Henry's career as a spy a curious or strange career, anyone familiar with the invisiblity of the Asian American population in the United States will appreciate and empathize with this career choice. As a spy, Henry's job is to be invisible, the unseen. As a first generation Korean American in the United States, Henry is often the unseen minority who because of his skin color and the stereotypes of the quiet, passive, model minority keep him in the background of society. In sum, the entire novel as well as Henry himself serve as a metaphor and commentary of the invisibility of Asian Americans in the United States, while in reality they are a large percentage of society with the immigrant population continuing to grow.

In addition to crafting a story commenting on Asian Americans in the United States, Lee also created an interracial relationship between Henry and Lelia (Scotch American) free of the exoticism and/or fetishism often found in stories involving interracial relationships. While there is little doubt that Henry loves Lelia, their relationship often causes him to undergo feelings of self-contempt and inferiorty as he fears his Korean ethnicity, Asian race, and perceived imperfect English mark him as less than an equal partner. While Lelia is free with her emotions and wishes for Henry to react in the same way, his upbrining in a somewhat violent as well as verbally repressed family often causes him to react to emotional situations with stoicism and silence. Thus, while Henry and Lelia are perfectly matched in many ways, they must still negotiate their differences in culture and ethnicity. The ethnic and cultural differences that the couple face are perhaps most apparent in their diverging beliefs on how to raise their mixed race son. Here, Henry's feelings of inferiorty surface as he worries that his son will look too Korean, will not speak perfect English, and will be subject to the same kind of abuse Henry suffered as a child. On the contrary, while Lelia becomes more consciousness of her whiteness and the privilege it carries after becoming a mother to an Korean American child, she is the one who encourages Mitt's learning about his culture as well as the Korean language.

With the creation of Henry and Lelia's child, Mitt, Lee provides a commentary and his own take on the Eurasian character so often depicted in Anglo as well as Asian American literature as the "tragic" Eurasian, "yellow peril," or the "best of both worlds." Lee's foray into expanding the definition of Asian American (which he continues to do in his later novels, A Gesture Life and Aloft) begins with Mitt as the Hapa child and the first mixed child born of both families.

Finally, Native Speaker should not solely be classified as Asian American fiction but must be categorized as "American" literature (a category so exclusive that only one Asian American writer to date has been admitted) as it expands beyond the Korean American and Asian American experience to include anyone who remains invisible while striving for visibility and recognition (i.e., all immigrants/refugees at one time or another living in America),and stands out as one of the best written works of the 20th century and beyond, as the prose places Lee is a category of writers whose skill with manipulating and crafting the English language draws readers in and touches them to the core. Native Speaker is truly one of those rare books you can pick up at any time, read any page and become instantly absorbed.

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.

I can understand some of the ambivalence which surrounds the reception to this book; more often than not, people love it, but some really dislike enough of it to give it low ratings. While the author has very studied and elaborate style, which is actually beautiful at times, maybe people come to expect too much from the plot and the development of "Parky." The very graceful, "riddling" prose may make the development of the story seem unsatisfactory at times. At any rate, people seem intrigued or perplexed enough to have formed strong opinions about it.

As for the story, I think it would have been too crass for it to have ended in any other way, given the length of the book and what a brooding and quietly melancholic character Henry is. I haven't read Lee's successive work, but I would probably need a break to take in some sunshine and laugh a bit before I delved into his world again.

Mr. Lee's necessary explanation of why Henry became the man he is seems utterly convincing, drawing at length from his childhood and the contrasting influences of his family and his adopted country. Given this, it's probably difficult for people to accept the book as being anything other than a Korean-American experience novel - but though for me it somehow isn't; Henry's "sentimentalist," yet "emotional alien" character defies common logic (and yes I am Korean, though not Korean-American), and makes the reading of the man's thoughts via the narrative as intensely interesting as his manner is surreptitious and secretive. Someone elsewhere wrote that Lee's novels seem to be "more personal therapy than art," and it seems unlikely to me that Lee could borrow so deeply and richly from any other personality than his own.

I'll certainly be looking foward to his future works (after a bit of a break, as I said), but his very unique and accomplished style makes it unfair for him to be bracketed as just another Korean -American writer; he should be allowed to stand on his own merits, and be appreciated as a storyteller of an different order, and not as a voice for Korean-Amercans. I imagine the scope of any ethnicity's experiences are too broad to be squeezed into the narrative voice of one author, so let's just appreciate his work for what it is, and not be disappointed that it isn't "definitive".

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.