Aloft

Rating:
Summary: Long time
Review: Not since McCrae's "The Bark of the Dogwood" have I so been affected by a subtle yet powerful novel. But this is exactly what happened with Chang-Rae Lee's "Aloft." His third novel, Lee has hit the proverbial nail on the head when it comes to drawing characters. Jerry is the perfect middle-aged man, complete with all the baggage that comes with that territory, and this, accompanied by the other elements that Lee gives us about the family, make for a riveting book.

Rating:
Summary: Crash and Burn
Review: Once again I bought a book based on professional reviews, this one in the NY Times of all places. This author was lauded and I eagerly purchased the book, excited about discovering a new novelist. Well---it's not awful, but it's not very good. Did the reviewers read it? Are they crazy? Or is this another publisher's hoodwink of the public. I swear, I sometimes think they hire the reviewers themselves?
About the work. John Updike did this masterfully. He captured suburban America. This author is way, way off the mark. For starters. Such sophisticated reflections from a blue collar worker, a landscaper---Gimme a break. Where's the editor, I want to shoot him. How could they let this author commit such a crime of poor judgement.The main character is incongruous which reflects on and weakens all the other characters. The story is a fragmented jumble of parts, it lacks unity, interest,and some of it is just plain boring. The prose, interesting at times, soon tires because of its oddity and how it simply doesn't fit the character who is mouthing it. I am about half way through the book but don't know if I can finish it. This is a second or third rate work.
Don't, don't buy it. You are wasting your money. It will be worth about one dollar at the sidewalk book sellers in NYC.

Rating:
Summary: Bird's-eye view
Review: The writing in this Chang-Rae Lee novel is some of the most beautiful prose you'll ever come across. Metaphors and the like abound at every turn, and the words flow like water over smooth stones. And as if that weren't enough, Lee has given us a great story. Jerry Battle is the main character in this riveting tale of suburbia, race relations, assimilation, and insight into the human heart. His name alone is loaded with meaning. "Battle." And that's exactly what he does: battle himself, his ideals, and everyone else. My only reservation with this stellar read was some of the details regarding the flying of the plane. Other than that it was excellent---on the same level as Perrotta's "Little Children" or McCrae's "Bark of the Dogwood." Two other books dealing with suburbia, assimiliation, dysfunction, and the kitchen sink.

Rating:
Summary: I may have read a different novel...
Review: There are so many poorly written, unimaginative novels published every year that one should welcome any thoughtful, literate work with a distinct voice. Aloft is undoubtedly thoughtful and thought-provoking and Mr. Lee's style is undoubtedly distinct. Nevertheless, I cannot recognize in this book the qualities so enthusiastically praised by so many other reviewers.

First, the characters. As the narrator introduces each character he gives us a clear summary of their personality. Does the narrator have a distorted view? Has he misread any of these personalities? Not really, what he tells us is pretty much what we get, little is added little is changed. There is not much depth here.

Next, the plot. There is an active plot of everyday events: births, marriages, rearing children, aging, deaths, business grow and fail. For the most part we see ordinary people leading ordinary lives. Most of us and our lives are ordinary. If you choose to compare and contrast your ordinariness with theirs, the exercise may be beneficial - but then again it may not be, Mr. Lee seems quite happy to leave it to you.

Finally, the style. Long sentences abound and meander. Many reflect the narrator's internal debate. I found them hard to follow and after a while I found I didn't need to. Yes, there are allusions to a wide range of cultural, literary, and culinary topics. These reveal in the narrator a multi-faceted intelligence which never seems to surface in his dealings with the other characters. That may be the central paradox of the novel but, once again, Mr. Lee seems quite happy to leave it to us to decide. I do praise the dialogue, however, this is closer to the way real people talk than is usually found.

For me this was an unsatisfying read and one I would not recommend.

Rating:
Summary: Novel About Multicultural America
Review: This is an interesting novel narrated by a former WWII Japanese Imperial Army medic living in New York. Despite his comfortable lifestyle, he is not content owing to problems with his family who are still in Japan. He has a close friend who is an Italian-American airline pilot.

The pilot friend is a most intriguing character who also freelances as a writer for cooking magazines and who once crashed his own plane into a lake. Both the medic and the pilot collaborate on a novel.

In many ways, the pilot friend is really the main character in the book. He is certainly the most interesting.

Chang-Rae Lee is a special author who writes with conviction and insight about life in the multicultural society that we call America. As such, Aloft is a most thought-provoking novel.

Rating:
Summary: Big disappointment
Review: This is easily the worst of Lee's three books so far, a real disappointment after his first two beautifully written novels. This book has none of the grace or elegance of A Gesture Life, and none of the pathos of Native Speaker. It feels like the work of an author who at one time was original and independent, but who now has lowered himself to mainstream mediocrity. There's nothing in this book to challenge the reader to think. Everything about it is glossy and dumbed-down. And that would be fine if it were coming from a different author, but it's not fine when it's coming from an author from whom we expect so much more. There is very little genuine in this book. The main character feels fake, artificial, not quite real. His voice doesn't ring true. It's as if Lee couldn't quite decide what kind of person this character should be. Is he intellectual and introspective, or blue-collar and simple? I don't know, and I get the impression that Lee didn't quite know either. There's something to be said for a character with multiple layers, but that's not what we have here. We have a character who is drawn rather inconsistently, and that is just plain frustrating for a reader. The dialog, also, falls flat in this novel. Rarely does it sound genuine, like a real conversation that real people could actually have. Perhaps that's because the novel is narrated in first-person, a choice that doesn't allow for the semi-omniscient commentary that is often so practical with the distance of a third-person narrator. All in all, this is a real pedestrian effort by Lee. I certainly won't be waiting as eagerly for his next book as I did for this one.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Writing; Slow Story
Review: Unlike many of the other reviewers of Aloft, this was my first experience with Chang-Rae Lee. I bought the book after reading rave reviews from the owner of a local bookstore. The book has its merits, but I'd hesitate to recommend it to any of my friends.

The book jacket calls Lee's writing as "elliptical," and that's a perfect description. If you like sentences with multiple clauses, long paragraphs and tangential storytelling, you'll probably enjoy this book. Jerry Battle's narrative often goes off on tangents, just the way my own thoughts often do. While I admire Lee for capturing the way a middle-aged man might reflect on his life, it made for frustrating reading. If you're looking for a quickly paced book with a linear narrative, this is NOT the book for you.

Rating:
Summary: "Both of us are guiding this ship in at the controls"
Review: With a measured, relaxed style Chang, gives us quite a nuanced portrayal of an American "everyman." The main protagonist, Jerry Battle is an upper middle class retiree, and while financially secure, works part time in a local travel agency. Jerry lives the good life - he owns his own home, and plane, and comfortably lives off the investments of the family business. His first wife Daisy, drunk and dissolute, died when swimming in their backyard pool, and now he's mourning the break-up of his relationship with Rita, a Puerto Rican princess, who has helped him raise his two children, Teresa and Jack.

While loosely plotted, the narrative chooses instead to focus primarily on the relationship that Jerry has with his children, their partners, and also with his aging father who is living rather dejectedly in an upscale nursing home. But while having lived the "American dream" Jerry has "an unnerving sense of being dangerously unmoored." He has a feeling of being "aloft" and detached from life and relationships, where he can hardly understand anybody anymore and that among the only real things left to him in this life is a shared condition of bemusement and sorrowful wonder.

His children, equally bemused by his detachment, have their own problems to deal with. Jack, who has started to drink heavily, is running the family landscaping business into the ground, while his wife Eunice, seems far too preoccupied with their over adorned and embellished house, which they don't quite have enough money for. His daughter, Theresa - who is the most fully realized character - finds out that she is both pregnant and sick with cancer. She refuses to have an abortion, when it is clear that her own life will be endangered.

The book does captivate certainly, but more important, the book admirably sees the world as it really is, and in many respects, it is unsurpassed as a story of a modern American man traveling through a morally ambivalent universe. Jerry's thoughts on contemporary life are indeed idiosyncratic and subjective and his ruminations are set against a vivid and colorful background of suburban life. Chang peppers the narrative with Jerry's thoughts on assisted living centers, modified American meal plans, organized Club Med-type activities, and the ultimate luxuries of "ease and convenience."

Midway through the book, however, Jerry's rambling and sprawling narrative becomes almost tiresome and tedious, and his constant verbose and pompous musings may somewhat test the reader's patience. Although one may wonder where all this gesticulation might be leading, Aloft does present a very artful and evocative plea of a bourgeois family living a full life with all its joys and tragedies. Chang adroitly demonstrates just what a baffling, intractable, and multifaceted thing one person's life can be and that at some point you can try, and try but you can't avoid and "glide above the already anticipated turbulence" that may bring one's family the most harm. Mike Leonard May 04.

Rating:
Summary: Genius--even the sentences serve as metaphors
Review: Without giving too much of the plot away, chang-rae Lee has written the 21st century American novel. Jerry Battle is the quintessential American male in today's suburbs. Partly out of place because he is not a blue blood, he is in a bind of trying to preserve or pass down his work ethic to his children, who have grown up comfortably because of battle's successes. Battle notices things society has said are politically incorrect, most notably people's races. Battle's grapples with himself, the ennui which he finds himself in, rita, his son and his besieged daughter, is presented in ways that oftentimes cuts right through in unexpected parts of the novel. To novice readers, this may seem incoherent. it is not. It is brilliantly placed -- as if to signal that beneath the potemkin calmness of the suburban life -- one cannot escape these problems.

More impressively, the book has been ridiculously criticized as having been written too smoothly. The prose is flawless--the novel is not as coherent as it should--these highbrow critics assert.

They are mistaken.

The genius of the novel is in its prose. By telling the embattled--and in the end a hopeful and optimistic--take of Jerry Battle--with sentences and paragraphs that are technically brilliant and flawless while still leaving something to be desired--or a bit of a troubling aftertaste--Chang-Rae lee shows us he is a brilliant wordsmith who used the medium and his prose to both serve as metaphors for the embattled jerry battles everywhere, facing external and internal turmoil beneath a facade of perfection.

The 21st century's Great Gatsby. I had never heard of this author before, but I am going to buy his other books.