The Island of Bicycle Dancers : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Promising Debut
Review: An uneven, but enjoyable debut by Mr. Adachi!

This coming of age story centers around Yurika Song, a half-Japanese, half-Korean young woman who comes to New York to stay with her Korean relatives. Exiled to America by her exasperated parents due to her wild lifestyle back in Japan, Yurika works at her uncle and aunt's deli and soon becomes friendly with the bike messengers who come in daily.

Adachi has a wonderful style of writing. With a few choice words, he throws you into the fast-paced, liberating world of bike messengers, the quiet rapture of Yurika's love of the English language, and the mean-spirited, claustrophobic life of Yurika's aunt. Plotwise, the story lags after the first half, but I was driven to finish nonetheless and eagerly await the next book out of this author.

Rating:
Summary: A multicultural coming of age story
Review: Imagine going to a country in which you do not speak the language. Your parents have sent you to live with your aunt and uncle to prevent the "bad" influences from your own country from affecting you. When you reach this new country you quickly find the only relief you have from an overbearing aunt is the bicyle messanger gangs that roam through the city and learning the slang language that they speak. Throw in a case of mistaken love, a death of a close friend, learning a new language, and most importantly who you are and you have discovered the beautiful story the The Island of the Bicycle Dancers by Jiro Adachi. I highly recommend this to adults and older teen readers.

Rating:
Summary: A multicultural coming of age story
Review: Imagine going to a country in which you do not speak the language. Your parents have sent you to live with your aunt and uncle to prevent the "bad" influences from your own country from affecting you. When you reach this new country you quickly find the only relief you have from an overbearing aunt is the bicyle messanger gangs that roam through the city and learning the slang language that they speak. Throw in a case of mistaken love, a death of a close friend, learning a new language, and most importantly who you are and you have discovered the beautiful story the The Island of the Bicycle Dancers by Jiro Adachi. I highly recommend this to adults and older teen readers.

Rating:
Summary: An Enjoyable and Unpredictable Read
Review: It is said that the best way to really learn a language is through immersion. By relying on the language for your everyday survival, you can completely internalize and understand it, and use idioms and slang. In his novel THE ISLAND OF BICYCLE DANCERS, Jiro Adachi builds on this basic idea and presents a tale not only of language and culture but also of family, friendships, sexuality and self-awareness.

A unique take on both coming-of-age stories and immigrant stories, Adachi's novel centers on Yurika Song, a twenty-year-old woman from Japan who is in America for the first time, ostensibly to learn English. An aimless, lazy young woman, Yurika finds herself in New York City with her Korean relatives. Working at their convenience store under the watchful eye of her resentful aunt, she begins to learn American English from the customers and neighbors she meets every day. She also becomes friends with a group of bicycle messengers who frequent the store; she is fascinated by their slang and attracted to their rebellious lifestyle. As she becomes close with one messenger in particular, she is drawn to another one who she often sees riding by.

Whitey, an eccentric messenger with a smile full of crooked teeth, is immediately smitten by Yurika. She loves his use of language and his openness. They become friends, and Whitey shows her a magical New York City. However, as Whitey's feelings for Yurika grow stronger and stronger, she begins a highly charged affair with Bone, a messenger considered an outsider even within the messenger subculture. As things between Yurika and Bone heat up and tensions arise between them and Whitey, their misunderstood relationship is the catalyst for tragic violence.

Suddenly Yurika's American experience is torn apart at the seams. She must face painful loss amid growing family tensions. Just as she must come to terms with the truth about her relationships with both Whitey and Bone, she must finally confront the truth about her choices in the past and her relationship with her family.

THE ISLAND OF BICYCLE DANCERS is full of interesting and well-written characters. Yurika's culture shock in New York easily could have overtaken the story, but Adachi wisely wrote her emotional growth as the most important component of the story. The book could also have been overcome with details, as there are several interesting story lines --- but again, Adachi controls his story and characters with a seemingly natural ease.

This novel is an enjoyable and unpredictable read. Yurika is surrounded by many teachers who most unwittingly guide her in her transformation from a selfish and unmotivated girl to a thoughtful and driven woman. Her transformation does not happen easily; her maturity and independence are hard-earned. Adachi is successful at blending this realism into a story that is also concerned with the magic and mystery of language.

Written with an uncommon sensitivity, Adachi's debut is all at once about love, friendship, sex, language, family, immigration and growing up. Yurika is a likeable though realistically flawed protagonist, and is a great vehicle for Adachi's intelligent and insightful style.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

Rating:
Summary: Another celebration of stereotypes of Asians
Review: The author should have known better how negative this type of work could turn out while it is pleasing certain audiences, especially those who want to see Asian people as some kind of servile novelty who are incapable of interpreting racial and gender struggle and never get to challenge to their masters, White Americans.

I was appalled to read the way this work's celebrating the negative stereotypes of Korean/Japanese in NY time and time again who are to be just obedient to those who are perpetually dictating the hegemony against them, largely because of the linguistic limitation as this novel triumphantly puts some emphasis on. It only seems to me that this author is a typical American who perpetuates the friendly form of racism and exploits those who are new and unfamiliar to the way people fight each other with the hate to their guts. Besides what can you do when you are supposed to put some words into other's mouth and call it Teaching? I just don't want this type of ugly ventrillaquism any more. I mean, aren't you get tired, especially about people's putting words in Asian people's mouthes?
Obviously Adachi's work was not meant to liberate those Korean/Japanese immigrants from the burdensome political situation but even to reinforces the predicament for them by depicting it as a very flat, one dimensional,one sided and not very intelligent manner. Well, another work of 'better to be rediculed than be ignored?' I can't stand this type of publication passes even without any proper argument but hyped up.
It is not fair to depict people in the manner Adachi did even though it's got some facts in it; if your persepective is fixed as one of those who feel superior to those who happened to be non native English speaker and from the third world, those facts are not necessarily true as you believe but biased. Think about the fact that those Korean/Japanese's bi-lingualness and bi-culturalness while you only handle one language and very ignorant about anything even about a block away from your neighborhood. So-called globalization always go advance just at the cost of minorities. This novel offered just another example of it.