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The Americanization of Henry |
| Section: BOOK WORLD / REVIEWS |
| Author: John Whittier Treat |
| Publication: The world & I online |
| Issue Date: 6/1/1995 |
| Size: 1,973 Words, 11,523 Characters |
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NATIVE SPEAKER
Chang-rae Lee
New York: Riverhead Books, 1995
324 pp., $21.95
The private investigator, detective, or sleuth who has trouble with the women in his life is a staple of American popular literature and culture. From Raymond Chandler's novels to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, the rogue male in search of others is also the man in search of himself, and finding the one is often the clue to finding the other. In a brilliant first novel, Chang-rae Lee has used this familiar plot line to search for something else as well, namely his fellow Korean-American hero's identity as the citizen of a country where the choices we have to make are never as simple or unambiguous as our myths of America would have them.
Henry, née Byong-ho, Park is a man in his early thir...
. . .
...ie between Lee the Asian-American writer and Henry Park, his Asian-American spook. Native Speaker is recommended reading not only for its page-turning excitement, its thrilling denouement, its graceful flights of language and delicacy of description, but for its unflinching look into a heart of darkness brought home, the sight of which should make us more discerning--as well as more American.
(821 of 11,523 characters)
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