The Interpreter : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: good work
Review: Suki Kim does some superb writing in this book when she is not so concerned with making all "the pieces" fit. All the sub-plots fit nicely to make a decent conclusion but with one problem. It just does not ring true. Her writing works better when she seems to be writing about her "own experiences" instead of trying to come up with an implausible story line. As a Korean American, I found the book easy to relate to and enjoyable, therefore I would recommend the book but more for Korean American girls than boys.

Rating:
Summary: Bravo!
Review: Suki Kim's analysis of the 1.5 generation Asian-Americans is right on the ball. She delves into what we have always felt as the unaccepted populace. The Interpreter is more than just a mystery novel; it cries our loneliness in a land where we are, at least for now, outsiders.

Rating:
Summary: Dark and compelling
Review: The first few sentences of any book is always a deciding factor for me on whether or not to continue reading it. "The Interpreter" passed my inititial test and kept my interest throughout. The protagonist's complexity, strength and vulnerability make her intriguing and likable, and I found myself drawn into her search for the missing pieces of her tormented past. Great story with lots of layers. I recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: A new voice
Review: The Interpreter is a psychological novel of stunning prose. The heroine is a 29 year old Korean woman who works as an interpreter in the court system. While the reader travels through her mind, overhearing her reflections on her murdered parents, her estranged sister and her many loves, the reader is also traveling into a dark terrain: the Korean underworld as it exists today in New York. Suki Kim's language is poetic: a stream of consciousness -- fearless and without sentiment -- that bores into the mind of the heroine. The Interpreter is a very impressive literary debut.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing book
Review: The language in this novel haunted me, and keeps haunting me weeks after reading it. It is as interior and quiet and stark as something by Jose Saramago. Really, a beautiful and thrilling book.

Rating:
Summary: A poor imitation of Native Speaker
Review: The novel could have been somethign quite wonderful but as it is, it suffers from a far-fetched and rather implausible plot. Kim should have left out what sounds like Hollywood-inspired twists in Suzy's investigation of her parents's murder. The book left me dissatisfied and unmoved. It seems to me a poor imitation at best of Chang-rae Lee's Native Speaker.

Rating:
Summary: Goodness, no
Review: This has been done before and much, much more deftly. Try Chang's Over the Shoulder or Lee's Native Speaker.

Rating:
Summary: A quintessential NYC novel and mystery
Review: This is an satisfying, entertaining first novel and mystery which explores New York City's Korean American immigrant and merchant community and their 1.5 Generation children. Told in the third person, we meet Suzy Park, on the cusp of turning 30, an ivy-educated, unfinished daughter of immigrant, Korean greengrocers in the Bronx. Estranged from her family, Suzy has aimlessly tripped from one adulterous relationship and temporary job to another. It is a life of unscented impermanence, with dull colored cars and a forever incomplete cathedral. She shuns her fellow 1.5 Generation members who strive in school. Her latest job is as an interpreter for the city court system. As an interpreter, she cannot take sides in court cases, but she is a keen observer and picks up the nuances and subtleties of languages, tones, and expressions. As the story unfolds, the reader will hope that Suzy not only interprets and transfers these depositions, but learns to interpret her own life choices and place in America. Although her parents were killed in a robbery of their store nearly five years ago, she never discusses the tragedy, not even with her friends or prying roommate. But when one client hints at some knowledge of a prior murder of greengrocers, Suzy picks up the trail of the mystery. Like the layers of a greengrocer's onion, the story unfolds as clues are unpeeled in each chapter. Was the robbery a murder? Why did the family move so often? Along the way, the author mixes in Korean culture, Nabokov, the INS, Japanese cinema, news radio-WINS, botany, van Gogh, and King Lear to create an absorbing, expeditious mystery.

Rating:
Summary: A quintessential NYC novel and mystery
Review: This is an satisfying, entertaining first novel and mystery which explores New York City's Korean American immigrant and merchant community and their 1.5 Generation children. Told in the third person, we meet Suzy Park, on the cusp of turning 30, an ivy-educated, unfinished daughter of immigrant, Korean greengrocers in the Bronx. Estranged from her family, Suzy has aimlessly tripped from one adulterous relationship and temporary job to another. It is a life of unscented impermanence, with dull colored cars and a forever incomplete cathedral. She shuns her fellow 1.5 Generation members who strive in school. Her latest job is as an interpreter for the city court system. As an interpreter, she cannot take sides in court cases, but she is a keen observer and picks up the nuances and subtleties of languages, tones, and expressions. As the story unfolds, the reader will hope that Suzy not only interprets and transfers these depositions, but learns to interpret her own life choices and place in America. Although her parents were killed in a robbery of their store nearly five years ago, she never discusses the tragedy, not even with her friends or prying roommate. But when one client hints at some knowledge of a prior murder of greengrocers, Suzy picks up the trail of the mystery. Like the layers of a greengrocer's onion, the story unfolds as clues are unpeeled in each chapter. Was the robbery a murder? Why did the family move so often? Along the way, the author mixes in Korean culture, Nabokov, the INS, Japanese cinema, news radio-WINS, botany, van Gogh, and King Lear to create an absorbing, expeditious mystery.

Rating:
Summary: Painfully Pointless
Review: Unfortunately, this Author did notably a bad job. She seemed to have put everything she touched here in this work without examining if all the elements and drama factors were worth being told. Especially, were they really supposed to be handled in a piece? No way, unless she merely marketed herself to get a seat in the detective novel industry by exploiting her being minority/female for the tokenism. It could be a good short story collection if it was organized and got better forms and strategies. But this work was painfully ambitious for nothing. That is enough to say, I guess. If you need the detail how bad it was, I should add such comment as that an authorship is a job to sort infos, emotions, thoughts, political messages and any thing out before getting down to the exact writing; the author's biggest failure was that she seemed to mix her own sentiment up with the story which shold be detached from its author in the end. It looked as if a bad actor failed to act because he/she did not organize and conquer one's own sentiment or personal trouble before the real act on the stage. You know how confusing as well as embarrasing it could be for the audiences? This is what the work did to readers more or less.