Rating: 
Summary: great book, despite readers' bogus expectations
Review: i thought this was a wonderful book! beautiful prose, interesting characters, galloping plot. i comletely recommend it.but what really horrifies me as i read these reviews is how many people seem to assume that because lee is korean american he has some sort of duty to write about "the" korean-american experience. as if there were such a thing! i've heard other non-white authors complaining of the same thing: that their work is pigeon-holed as "xx-american" and held up as representative of all "xx-american" experience. what a ridiculous idea. and as for A Reader From New York's comment that the novel wasn't the revealing insight into Korean-American culture that s/he expected, as you seem not to have figured this one out yet, i must caution you against basing your expectations of reality on anything you read in "popular magazines".
Rating: 
Summary: Chang-Rae Lee, J'accuse
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: One of those mediocre, MFA ,ethnic novels
Review: This book is so dull, so formulaic, so redolent of a writing workshop, one has to ask himself whether a minority writer can ever write something relevant to all people instead of focusing on their little narrow immigrant lives. These kinds of immigration, assimilation, slice-of-life culture novels are the lynch pins of mediocre writers. Just look at Jhumpa Lahiri, another awful MFA writer who writes about her hum-drum Indian upbringing. And everybody fawns over these pieces, screaming that its great for multiculturalism. Yeah, great, wonderful, but that doesn't change the fact that these novels are woefully bland.
Rating:
Summary: An American Tragedy
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: From Out to In
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Not the average cuppa joe.
Review: A blend of subtle and broad strokes creating a richly textured prose in a unique and compelling novel. I enjoyed the layers and intricacies of the stories woven together to give protagonist Henry Park the profoundly human visage unearthed here. Lee uses a sensitive yet blunt observational style I found spine-tingling and poignant. For those KoAms here who thought the view of Korean immigrants stereotypical - hey, we're living it, man. Stereotypes are born of truths, painful though they may be. Look in the mirror, you'll find a lot more in common with Henry Park than you wish to admit, or you have yet to discover. Or are you just unmasking the stereotypical Korean schadenfreude in yourselves?
Lee hits the nail on the head and strikes nerves in many ways with this admirable, thought-provoking book.
Rating: 
Summary: not recommended for Korean readers
Review: As a second generation Korean-American, I am always longing for something to identify myself. Being proud of my korean culture and American culture i picked up this book hoping to find something that would attribute to my quest of an identity. Entitled Native Speaker, I was expecting a novel along the lines of a guy having a conflict between his American and Korean culture. However this is hardly the case. Henry Park, the protagonist of this novel, is portrayed as a spy against the korean culture. He works to undermine the work that has been done by Korean-American in America. Very difficult to identify with. In the novel he later begins to have a conflict with the underminging that he has been a part of and begins to regret the work that he has been participating in, but it's unpausible that a cold hearted soul who started working on a job like this would ever feel guilt about what he's done?
however some non-korean seem to identify with it so if your not korean you may like it. Up to you to decide.
Rating:
Summary: Lyrical
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Jumping paragraphs half way through...
Review: I was very excited to read this book after learning that it could be the chosen one thousands of New Yorkers would read ....this coming spring. ...The first chapters are very interesting, Lee dissects everything in sight, from relationships, through the character's jobs, failures and dreams. Half way through the book I was still excited and enjoyed the crescendo and wondered where was I headed? Somewhere interesting and fulfilling I hoped. That's when the disappointment started to sink in. Mr. Lee opened the Pandora box of his talent when writing this book and like Indiana Jones found himself in a very dangerous situation where only the likes of Harrison Ford can escape alive. Page after page, while meandering from one plot to the other I felt dizzy and couldn't see the end of the book in sight. I was not is search of a punchline and loud cymbals to clap at the end - I am snob enough to think that I can grasp the multivariate messages of most writers- . I was in search of a coherent dismount that would honor the first half of Lee's routine. Alas, I didn't see this, what I saw was more of a crash-landing. Good effort but better luck next time. Maybe I missed something, but last night I caught myself reading just keywords and jumping entire paragraphs to the end in search for the key dialogues and interesting descriptions. Wishing that I had the patience and presence of mind to follow the unbearable rhythm of this tired and repetitive ode to pseudo-stoic double faced characters. Finally around midnight I finished this book. Thank God, do yourself a favor, don't read it. There are so many good books out there and BTW for New Yorkers? That's why Tom Wolfe wrote The Bonfire of Vanities.
Rating:
Summary: A poor choice
Review: It is unfortunate that "Native Speaker" is the likely choice for New York City's ad hoc citywide reading group, as The New York Times reported Feb. 19. I typically read 25+ novels a year, and last year this novel was the least interesting and most cliched I picked up. I forced myself to finish it. "Native Speaker" is so very similar to Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities" in tone, attitude and description that it offers very little that is original and revealing. Wolfe's novel was deserving of its praise, but it does not follow that a book that apes Wolfe should also be lauded. Occasionally Lee's prose may indeed be "remarkable" as some reviewers have suggested, but more often his writing is flat, predictable and downright boring. I am not a Korean American, but I live very near Manhattan's Koreatown, spend much time there, and I speak some Korean. I was eager to read this book given my interests, yet no book recently disappointed me as much as "Native Speaker" did.
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