Clay Walls

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful book about a Korean family's life in America
Review: I had to read Kim Ronyoung's "Clay Walls" for an Asian Literature class, and when I began it seemed like a cliched story about all the bad things that could happen to Koreans upon coming to the U.S. However, once it gets going you realize that through a simple story of a love for one's homeland and a desire to succeed in a new land can be so uplifting. The book is written from three perspectives: (1) Haesu, the mother of the family. She is very stubborn, but loves Korea passionately. When the family goes back she sees how bad it has become and then wants success for her family in America, even though her expectations can very rarely be met. (2) Chun, the father, works hard and accepts what comes to him. His story is very good as he struggles to keep his business afloat. He ultimately winds up in a poker game that will make or break the family's future, which is probably the best single scene in the book. (Is there anything more dramatic than stories about gambling?) (3) Faye, the youngest of the three children and only daughter, has the most complex story. Haesu doesn't want her daughter to ever have to work, yet she also wants her to stay home forever. The book is great because it is a narrative, but the points of view shift in each section. Ronyoung shifts into the viewpoint of a young girl extraordinarily well, and I think that the depth of Faye's story is what makes the book linger on after you're finished reading it. It is one of the best examples of developing ideas of national identity, love, gender, and perception I've ever read. The book isn't sentimental and covers so many areas--all to a degree that makes them deeply felt--that it feels like an epic even though the book is only 300 pages. It's not one of those "I feel like a better person" books either. This is quite simply a tragic and uplifting story about most of life's essential ideas, and it's ambition is never held back by its scope. Ronyoung died a year after writing this, but I thank her for leaving this beautiful moment. A must.

Rating:
Summary: Being Korean in America
Review: What a wonderful book this is! *Clay Walls* is a superb examination of the anxieties of the Korean immigrant and Korean American experience; it sheds a bright light on the struggles and achievments of two generations of Koreans in America. I particularly appreciate the fact that it seeks to give voice to disenfranchised Korean *women* pre and post World War II. I did find the language a little anachronistic but perhaps that is a deliberate rhetorical device since the novel is set in the first 50 years of this century. Also--and this is one of the many good things about the novel--one gets the sense that the English used is not "standard" English but is instead sifted through another language; in this case Korean. *Clay Walls* pushes open the boundaries--cultural, racial and geographical--of America and American-ess. It also historcises an experience--being Korean in the US in the early part of the 20th century--that has traditionally not been given much attention. A must read for any one interested in immigrant narratives, Asian American voices and the duality/plurality of cultural experience lived out by so many Americans today.