The Foreign Student : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A+. Susan Choi captures the essence of rural American
Review: A+. Like an addiction! I love this book. Susan Choi captures the essence of rural America in her odd, thrilling first novel. Choi has cooked up two radically distinct story lines, each one wonderful. With its longing, thoughtful prose, Katherine's tale reveals a woman whose life revolves around a single daring act, while Chang's story is a devastaing unveiling of pain. In the scene where Katherine confronts Chang in the Silliman dining hall, Choi cunningly reheats an observation first made by the lyricist Anton Regalado "Men and lions can die. Kingdoms fall and time will end. Only our pride survives." Powerful characters, keenly drawn emotions--a feast. I can't wait for the next serving from Choi!

Rating:
Summary: Powerful!
Review: Hey, Susie, I knew you would be a great writer, after all that scribbling and confident dreaming in middle school -- get in touch with me, willya, and give your mom my love. Megan E. Gray

Rating:
Summary: Some first-novel flaws -- but worth a read
Review: I usually dislike reading KA fiction because it gets irritating when authors write about Korea but describe the country with skewed, distorted myths about it's culture and history and auto-Orientalist themes that cater to the mainstream.

Not so with this novel. I found myself completely lost in the story, not even caring about the "authenticity" issue because Choi does what all great writers do: she re-imagines and re-creates a palpable "real" universe that stops time. The fictional world transcends almost everything else I've read by Korean Americans, making you believe the characters, the location, the feelings. In short, it is a beautifully written novel and my personal favorite of all the Asian American novels I've read.

That having been said, I am happy to attest that Choi does indeed write about the truth of the Korean War that goes against the conventional American myths about this unknown conflict. Choi does not hesitate to go into little known aspects of the war such as S. Korean President Syngman Rhee's execution of political prisoners and the Cheju/Yosu rebellions which took 100,000 lives even before the Korean War erupted in June 1950. Moreover, Choi depicts the Orientalist, racist experiences for Chang, a foreigner in America's South, and subtly links it to America's damaging foreign policies that warped Korea. She even resurrects a devastatingly convincing portrait of Gen. Hodge, the commander of the US military government in S. Korea--you can practically hear him breathing and speaking. This novel is startling in its audacity to depict America's occluded responsibility for the war that probably even challenges what most Koreans over 50 believe. As a former fact-checker for the New Yorker magazine, I suspect that she used her skills to do meticulous research into the origins of the Korean War. Having lived in Korea (and in Chicago, where her description of Clark and Belmont is right on) I am surpised by her accuracy and the "truth" of her details. I've read an article where Choi downplays the "authenticity" issue of her novel, and emphasizes that it is fiction. She's right, of course, but I am simply delighted that she has rendered a beautiful story that will not only impress the common reader, but satisfy those familiar with Korean history. Her research only heightens the pleasure of reading this gem of a novel.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful story, solid character development rings true.
Review: Sewanee, Tennessee is a real place, and I went to college there for four years. The alumni of the University of the South are going to hate Susan Choi's geographical liberties, but I believe she has captured the spirit of the place as well as one can without using any of the real-life characters who live there, or did live there in the fifties. I attended Sewanee in the eighties, not the fifties, and while I have lived in Asia, I'm actually from Alabama. However, Susan Choi's interpretation of what it must have been like for foreign students at Sewanee in the fifties, or women in Sewanee before women were allowed to attend the university, rings true, to an amazing degree.

But that is not why you should buy _The Foreign Student_. You should buy the book for its powerful story and fine characters. Be warned, though. Don't read this book if you need your sleep. You won't want to sleep until you've read the last page, and you'll wake up wishing you didn't have to wait for Susan Choi to publish another book!

Rating:
Summary: good if uneven writing
Review: Susan Choi writes well. But alas, she doesn't know much about Korea. I quickly noticed this as I am from Korea. I think that's the most glaring flaw of this book--the war part in Korea is written so woodenly, it's almost painful to read. I could see that Choi wrote down the mere facts from what she dug up from her research. And also it goes on too long without giving the reader a clear picutre or map of the situation in general, so it was all so very vuague to me.

The best character in this book was Edison. The relationship between him and Katherine is very well depicted. In fact, come to think of it, it was almost like reading two books in one.

If Choi sticks to the world she knows mor intimately, which seems to me western rather than eastern, American rather than Korean, she would produce something wonderful with her talent.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, Searing, Flawed
Review: THE FOREIGN STUDENT is a well crafted novel that deserves more attention than it received when it was initally released. Perhaps with the increasing interest in written works by Asians there will be a belated audience - author Choi deserves it. There were elements in reading Ha Jin's "The Bridegroom" stories that rang a responsive memory bell about Choi's book, encouraging a return to re-approach Choi's work. On second reading it gains in quality. Choi has quite successfully captured the sense of buried secrets carried by us all, but epitomized in her Chang, her Katherine, and the entire tenor of contemporary life in the South - both American and Korean. Similarites to the youthful struggle with ideolgies, loss, muted desire, resolution or dissipation.....Choi captures it all with smooth, elegant yet walloping writing. This is a fine novel.....let's hope more are coming.

Rating:
Summary: Hurry Susan, Let's Have Another
Review: There is an error in the Amazon reviewer's comments on "The Foreign Student." I feel it should be corrected because it has a bearing on the story. Chang, the foreign student, was not tortured in a Communist internment camp, but in a South Korean prison. There is a sadness and brutality in that distinction that I am sure was important to Susan Choi.

Choi's first novel is quite good and I anxiously await her next work. Hurry up, Susan! My special interest in "The Foreign Student" is twofold. Korea was my home for twenty years, and I wanted to see how well Choi presented a Korean male protagonist to the American reading public. She did an excellent job but with a soft spot here and there.

There is a scene in this novel that made me put the book aside for a moment in wonder at such grand writing. Chang is thinking about his best friend Kim, a Communist, who might be dead or in the Communist north, and never to be seen again. He remembers Kim once saying to him, "Do you know what I think makes a great man? It's not what he does, but whether or not he has passion, the kind we have now, when he is old. And I will. I shall."

I think that thought is true and thank Susan Choi for reminding me of it in such a lyrical way.

This novel deserves five stars but I give it four so that Choi might work quickly on her next piece and not lose her young passion.-----Joe Psarto, Westlake, Ohio

Rating:
Summary: Some first-novel flaws -- but worth a read
Review: While this novel has a lot to recommend, I felt that the two storylines (Katherine's and Chang's) didn't fit together cohesively. As one other reviewer noted, I didn't feel that there was a strong enough or believable enough reason why these two people would be so deeply attracted to each other. Thus their coming together seemed like simply a plot contrivance -- as though Choi had two really interesting storylines on different subjects that she was developing separately, but didn't have enough on each to sustain a full novel, so she awkwardly tied them together. Yes, both Chang and Katherine are outcasts, in a way, but that just wasn't enough -- particularly as Chang's story becomes increasingly grim. I could see how Katherine's attraction to Chang might have stemmed from her character (Choi makes a point of saying, in one section, that Katherine feels like love should be completely illogical, that she should fall in love with someone that no one else would approve of or understand), but I couldn't see how Chang's relationship with Katherine connected with his previous, horrifying experiences in the war, except on a superficial level. What does he need from Katherine? His life has been about guilt and betrayal; is Choi trying to stretch the point that in embracing Katherine, he is finally embracing his guilt? It's certainly possible to think up similar kinds of connections and themes, but they seemed flimsy and forced to me.

Finally, I found the writing somewhat tedious at times (even while it was intelligent and lucid throughout). The somewhat journalistic passages about the Korean War didn't bother me as much as it seems to have bothered other reviewers (in fact, I found them helpful and informative); rather, it was the long passages of exposition, wherein a character would ponder his/her thoughts and feelings in depth, that I found unnecessarily slow and overwritten.

Despite all this (overly long, I'll admit) criticism, I believe that many readers will find this book a worthwhile read. Choi writes with intelligence and a strong sense of character; I have no doubt that more fine books will come from her.