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imiji's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
lee's prose is genuinely beautiful in parts, if overtly literary, and there's a part of me that understands why this is seen as such a foundational text in the asian american canon. but possibly because this is an older text, some things grated -- the persistent maleness of the narration, the dismissal of women, the essentialism around the supposed inherent pathos of korean culture and identity, the conflation of all immigrant experiences.
mythaster's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
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
4.0
adamvolle's review against another edition
2.0
It seems like every First Novel published during or after an author's stint in a university's Creative Writing program suffers from the same flaws.
clairelorraine's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
mustardseed's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-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
Native Speaker: A Soliloquy of Self as Symbol & Stranger
The story follows Henry Park, a second generation Korean-American spy. The bulk of the novel is focused on his own personal life (struggles with the family he created with his wife, the influence of his father) and his job as a spy on a prominent Korean politician in America, John Kwang.
Much like John Kwang is “representative, easily drawn and iconic, the idea being if you know him you can know a whole people”, Henry too is a symbol, his reminisciences on his own condition as an “alien” (as his white wife says) in America the story of an entire diaspora even as it is his own. Political tensions are picked apart, “yellow against black”, “white against black”, “white and yellow” through his eyes, and we get the sense of a forever observer, standing at the uncertain precipice between viewing from a distance and being intimately involved. The novel weaves in such parallels, like his mishap in a mission with a Filippino psychiatrist where he observes and yet weaves his responses with bits of his true self, losing sight of his job—we see a sort of unravelling of Henry, his emotional and psychological simultaneous distance and nearness.
In many senses too, this novel is beyond an exploration of the diasporic condition, this sense of alienation and “strangeness”—it is also a moving portrait of a man. Beyond his ethnic identity, there is a real sense and build of a person, with touching meditations on grief, love, pain—a human experience. It is written with prose neither simplistic nor elaborate, but a lucidity and precision of expression.
Native Speaker is a deeply emotive and simultaneously socio-politically astute novel. It reminds me of something I once heard, that it is by telling the most personal stories that you can relate the most globally.
The novel begins with Henry's wife leaving him, and the list she leaves behind describing who he is. These labels echo throughout the novel, whether explicitly or not, as he negotiates with his idea of selfhood. I get the sense that, written in first person, Native Speaker is his letter of response, both to the world, and to himself.
jawjuhh's review against another edition
3.0
occasionally moments that stuck with me, but this book dragged on for me.
cais's review against another edition
3.0
For a debut novel this is a good book with some solid, thoughtful writing about identity, grief and political power. The writing often seems forced, though. Lee's attempt to weave together three ideas, the immigrant experience, personal tragedy and spy/political intrigue, into an examination of his main character's identity crisis as a first-generation Korean American sometimes works well, but more often than not it is distracting. This book feels a bit dated, as well, like watching a television show from the 90s and thinking, Is that how people really looked and sounded or was that obviously fake even at the time? I'm glad that I read this, but something about it is lacking and unsatisfying.
cyn2hia's review
reflective
medium-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
2.25
the plot felt very confusing and i still have no real idea what was going on. was expecting henry to grapple with his identity or for the problems in his marriage to have some sort of consequence but it felt like nothing mattered.
crow_toes's review against another edition
1.0
Based on the synopsis, I was hoping for more of a politics focus than there ended up being. I struggled with this one - starting with just not connecting much with the story of rebuilding a relationship after the death of a child. Beyond that, there were a lot of themes that I didn’t find connecting satisfactorily, the characters felt flat and indistinct, and I didn’t find that the threads felt resolved in the end. I got lost in the verbose prose and found myself missing a lot of events that should have felt major - I kept going back to reread deaths and bombings to figure out what had happened.