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hillaryreadseverything's review against another edition
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
arimhan's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
ergospring's review against another edition
i loved it
my dad flexed on me that he met him in 1997
my dad flexed on me that he met him in 1997
in_and_out_of_the_stash's review against another edition
3.0
"Know that the blacks who spend money in your store and help put food on your table and send your children to college cannot open their own stores. Why? Why can't they? Why don't they even try? Because banks will not lend to them because they are black. Because these neighborhoods are troubled, high risk. Because of they did open stores no one would insure them. And if they do not have the same strong community you enjoy , the one you bough from Korea, which can pool money and efforts for its members - it is because this community has been broken and dissolved through history."
This book was published in 1995 and it is interesting how much is still relevant.
This book was published in 1995 and it is interesting how much is still relevant.
cameronbradley's review against another edition
3.0
Native Speaker is a lot of things: a spy thriller, a portrayal of the immigrant experience, a marriage drama, and a personal tragedy tale. If you're wondering whether all those elements merge and crackle into a fusion bomb of excitement and awe...they, disappointingly, do not.
Not that this is a bad book per se. In fact, it's an extroardinarly ambitious first novel by Chang-rae Lee, which was published when he was only 29. The prose is mostly excellent, and I devoured the first fifty or so pages in a single sitting.
In a nutshell, Henry Park, the novel's first-generation Korean-American protagonist, is left with nothing but a note after his wife leaves him. In meandering patches, we catch glimpses of his rough upbringing in a traditional household, his ingratiation into the political campaign of an upstart Korean politician named John Kwang, his foray into the world of industrial spywork, the tragic fate of his child, his....yeah...there's a lot going on; and the lens through which the reader watches the story unfold is shaky and unfocused.
The plot suffers as a result, and although my copy of the book is only roughly 350 pages, it took me nearly three months to get around to finishing it. (To put that in perspective, I typically read about fifty books a year [a book a week]).
Yet as I finished the last page, I got chills thinking about how powerful this book could've been: Henry Park, torn between two worlds, forever feeling himself to be an outcast, is pressured to betray a rising politician who stands for everything he should be aligned with, yet his numbness to his Korean heritage and his somnabulant devotion to a country that seems to view him as an outcast bends him into a shape unrecognizable to everyone, including—it seems—himself.
If only the journey was as satisfying as the destination.
------------------------------------------------
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Not that this is a bad book per se. In fact, it's an extroardinarly ambitious first novel by Chang-rae Lee, which was published when he was only 29. The prose is mostly excellent, and I devoured the first fifty or so pages in a single sitting.
In a nutshell, Henry Park, the novel's first-generation Korean-American protagonist, is left with nothing but a note after his wife leaves him. In meandering patches, we catch glimpses of his rough upbringing in a traditional household, his ingratiation into the political campaign of an upstart Korean politician named John Kwang, his foray into the world of industrial spywork, the tragic fate of his child, his....yeah...there's a lot going on; and the lens through which the reader watches the story unfold is shaky and unfocused.
The plot suffers as a result, and although my copy of the book is only roughly 350 pages, it took me nearly three months to get around to finishing it. (To put that in perspective, I typically read about fifty books a year [a book a week]).
Yet as I finished the last page, I got chills thinking about how powerful this book could've been: Henry Park, torn between two worlds, forever feeling himself to be an outcast, is pressured to betray a rising politician who stands for everything he should be aligned with, yet his numbness to his Korean heritage and his somnabulant devotion to a country that seems to view him as an outcast bends him into a shape unrecognizable to everyone, including—it seems—himself.
If only the journey was as satisfying as the destination.
------------------------------------------------
[Subscribe to my free newsletter Lit Smithery and receive curated links to poems, books, and literary knicknacks directly into your inbox.]
serenova's review against another edition
1.0
I didn't particularly like this novel.
I was required to read it for my Asian American Literature class. We had some every interesting class discussions, talking about the use of language and the fact that Hnery uses language almost as a barrier.
If you are interested in a (fake) autobiographical novel about a civilian spy, then you might like it. But it's not my kind of book.
I was required to read it for my Asian American Literature class. We had some every interesting class discussions, talking about the use of language and the fact that Hnery uses language almost as a barrier.
If you are interested in a (fake) autobiographical novel about a civilian spy, then you might like it. But it's not my kind of book.
sfujii's review against another edition
3.0
Meh - got to the end and was like, what was the point of that? I think I have Lee overload - his books all explore the same theme of Korean-American identity crisis...
sunui's review against another edition
4.0
this seems to inhabit a type of Asian American anxiety that is partially familiar to me, but in the same way that history textbooks are familiar. it's all Asian men who marry white women, minorities clashing up against one another, Korean Americans who lose their native tongue and struggle to see themselves in Koreans. Sometimes that all combines to feel a bit artificial but I guess that's the form that anxiety at that time must have demanded, real intricacy in both its formation and its rebuttal. I also can’t help but feel that whatever makes this book feel foreign to me is also what makes it so important. this was a huge trap book but still a banger
catherine_louise's review against another edition
3.0
i think this book needed more time from me than i had to give it - it needs a careful reader to be fully appreciated & understood