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. If you seek a novel that looks at New York from an Asian resident's view, get Fixer Chao by Han Ong, a far superior novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Confrontation between cultures!
Review: Native Speaker is written from the perspective of Henry Park, a first generation Korean-American. The novel describes the struggle that Park and other Korean immigrants had to endure in America. Park is confronted with two cultures, Korean and American. He is raised by his Korean parents, who taught and expected him to abide by Korean traditions. However, Park has been assimilated into American culture. He has married a Caucasian woman named Lelia. At times, he is caught between the demands of his father and his wife, which lead to family strife. Park readily identifies with another Korean man named John Kwang. Kwang, a city councilman, represents to Park the successful Korean immigrant. Kwang has transcended the Confucian emphasis of family to encompass strangers of various ethnicities. Unfortunately for Park, he has joined Kwang's campaign to spy on Kwang. His job is to discover and to relay any damaging information about his subject to his superiors. Although Native Speaker is disconnected and the ending is disappointing, this book explores the issues that confront many first-generation Asian Americans. It addresses questions of identity, relations with Caucasians and other minority groups, and other issues.
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Summary: I really wanted to like it.
Review: I really wanted to like this book. I really did. I kept reading in the hopes that when it was over, I would discover a meaning that would redeem its lacklastuer storyline and writing. Something to scream out "eureka!" Perhaps the fact that I am Korean and wanted a book about what it feels to be 2nd generation to be great and wonderful (so I could recommend it to everyone I knew) made me want to like this book. However, I couldn't even finish reading this book. At some point, I found myself hating Henri Park and I had to stop. The major flaw of this book is that everything about Henri Park (the cold, success driven father, the silent and obedient mother, the "let's bring you out of your shell" wife,) is based on a stereotype. A fruit stand in NY city? The only thing else that could beat that would be a laundromat out in Flushing. God forbid that a Korean man actually shows his emotion! There was nothing intriguing in Henri Park's journey (what journey was he on anyway? Was he discovering his root? Was he mourning his dead son?) except for his occupation. He was so stereotypical that I couldn't see him as a unique person with his own feelings or thoughts. I was so disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: The Irony of an Immigrant
Review: Fritz Kuhnlenz English 3-4 5 May 2001 In Chang-Rae Lee's Native Speaker Lee uses realistic occurrences and elaborate stream of conscienceness to explain the irony he sees of immigrants coming to America and trying so hard to assimilate into our country's culture, when American culture is just an amalgamation of everything that immigrants have brought and left behind. Lee's profound use of realistic occurrences in Henry Park's family life furthers his idea that immigrants are misguide themselves in wanting to become Americans when all Americans really are, are conglomerations of immigrant people. Throughout Native Speaker Henry's parents express their earnest in becoming Americans, Henry's father constantly pushes Henry to know English, even Henry's father himself learns English and the American system of trade to be more accepted, but moreover to feel more American. Later, Lee uses a very common occurrence for immigrant families, and how an immigrant mother would typically respond. "My mother, too, was even worse, and she would gladly ruin a birthday cake rather than bearing the tiniest of shames in asking her next-door neighbor and friend for the needed egg she'd run out of, the child's pinch of baking powder"(55). Henry's mother clearly views asking the neighbors for a pinch of baking powder as a weakness and wanting to pass as American, a person without flaw, she rather not make the birthday cake. Later, Lee goes into more detail about this idea by explaining his father's business, his relationship with Lelia, his wife, and his son Mitt's life as well. Through Lee's use of realistic occurrences the reader finds himself captivated by the characters and is able to better envision himself in the character's situations. Lee's use of stream of conscienceness parallel's Ernest Hemingway's in that Lee's beautifully detailed cityscapes are only intensified by knowing exactly what the character is feeling and thinking at that very moment. In Native Speaker Lee's use of stream of conscience only intensifies his theme of the irony in immigrants leaving their culture and language, only to return to a mixture of what they left. Henry craves to become the generic American boy, and have the generic American parents, but in his fascination with the American culture he misses out on his own native culture and the similarities they share. ""When I was a teenager," I so wanted to be familiar and friendly with my parents like my white friends were with theirs. You know, they'd use curses with each other, make fun of each other at dinner, maybe even get drunk together on holidays"(221). Henry's misplaced fascination with American culture is only a minimal representation of how a vast majority of Asian-Americans feel, but they fail to realize that their fascination is really just a mixture of their native selves and native others. Having a eye-opening, realistic view of what happens, and knowing exactly what the character thinks when the occurrence happens makes Native Speaker the perfect medium by which Chang-Rae Lee paints his message of the great irony demonstrated by immigrants in a new country and the perseverance they show to learn a language and culture that is a mixture of everything they left.
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Summary: Identiy Journey
Review: Chang-Rae Lee's novel Native Speaker utilizes an immigrant to portray the hardships of finding one's identity in a cultural world. True identity is one of a noble journey. The narrator Henry Park, a Korean American, accepts this quest. Henry Park is the stereotypical second generation son who doesn't know his place in the "New World" society. He spends most of the book searching for the truth. Along the way he experiences hardships that affect his journey. His wife, an American, initiates this journey by listing characteristics of him from her point of view. She leaves on a journey of her own, without him, to Europe. Henry's job as a spy symbolizes his mask in life and his hidden identity. He's task is to protect a politician who is well-liked among immigrants. The main theme in this novel is lost identity. Chang-Rae Lee's novel surfaces this common problem among Koreans in the American society. Henry's relationship with his father, mother, housekeeper, and wife all play significant roles in his quest. His relationship with his father is a typical one among first generation and second generations in a new country. The first generation is wedded to the ways of the "Old Country" and it is the second generation that forsakes them. This statement is obvious in Henry and his father's relationship. Henry wishes for his father to become assimilated into American society and "normal." Henry experiences this want of "fitting in" even from a young age. He is disillusioned throughout the whole book, unaware of what is developing around him. He at a point in the book views his cultural background as a burden unto himself and his life. Henry's family does not understand his burden. Henry doesn't realize the sacrifice his family made for him to live in a better place, to grow and become a successful man. His character is one that resembles a romantic hero. His love of nature and distrust of society is evident throughout the book. Lee uses many stylistic strategies to achieve his portrayal of lost identity. He commonly uses strong diction to reveal Henry's emotions and thoughts. Lee also uses many similes and metaphors to compare Henry's feelings and search for true self. Many motifs are used repeatedly throughout the book to reveal a layer of Henry's multi-layered character. A common motif found in the book is one of Hemingway's philosophy of NADA. This philosophy's characteristics are repeatedly found in Henry's actions. Chang-Rae's use of prose style helps the reader become easily involved in the plot and emotions of the characters. It evens achieves a sense of questioning of identity for the reader and their thoughts. Throughout the book Henry deals with the isolation, alienation, and loss of self identity to finally achieve a sense of identity in the end. He does not completely achieve it, yet he is few steps closer than before. I believe that Chang-Rae Lee's novel describes beautifully the struggle between two worlds and the journey. Overall, I liked this novel for I believe it was a realistic novel that deals with realistic problems that people face in today's society.
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Summary: A talented and insightful new writer!
Review: 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.
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Summary: Never mind the "Korean-American Experience"...
Review: It seems rather insulting to the author that so many reviewers insist upon discussing it as some sort of Korean-American cultural artifact, rather than considering it simply as a novel. Personally, I have nothing to say regarding whether it's an accurate portrayal of the "Korean-American Experience" (whatever that may mean to any given person), but I did enjoy Native Speaker as an entertaining and thought-provoking novel. Lee's writing is evocative and honest, and unlike many non-genre writers today, he actually tells a story with all those well-chosen words. The protagonist recounts the history of his relationship with his wife as events unfold in his career, but the two storylines seem to intertwine naturally, rather than jumping back and forth in a distracting way. In the end, it becomes clear that the separation between his professional life and his marriage is the cause of his problems in both.
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Summary: great book. Exciting as hell and ALSO truly great literature
Review: I read a decent amount of current fiction, and admire many of the authors that the critical guy a few reviews back likes: VS Naipaul, Kazuo Ishiguro, Hanif Kureishi. However, unlike the "Patois, CA" guy, I urgently recommend this book: it's extremely exciting and complex from cultural, political, and plot perspectives. Just a blast to read as well as making rich observations. Stick with this book. I believe it's ultimately on a par with some of those other greats mentioned above. HOWEVER, I don't recommend "Gesture Life," another book by this author. Nowhere near as complex -- from the part that I read before putting it down, it seemed like an attempt to carbon-copy kazuo ishiguro.
Rating: 
Summary: yawn-a-thon
Review: i read dis book when i done cannot sleep, mon. dis book so boring and dry, dis book a yawn-a-thon! and i liked de excerpt from he new book A Gesture Life dat i done read in Granta, mon. de characters zero engaging and de prose beyond-beyond bland and banal. don't go read dis book! you want read good book read book by Kazuo Ishiguro or William Boyd or Hanif Kureshi. dis book a sham! how it win big prize! only V.S. Naipaul write good book about immigantes and so.
Rating:
Summary: I loved it
Review: A detective story, if you'd look plainly at it. If you'd look into it, you find a consipiracy. Then you think about the whole book. It's like an onion. You peel it off and find nothing in it. But if you'd taste those coverings... Immensely beautiful. And I truly loved it.
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