Interior Chinatown (National Book Award Winner) by Charles Yu
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Web ID: 11774831Contemplative but confusing
It was a hard for me to get into this book and understand due to the alternating screenplay in snippets and novel format. The characters also shuffle between different roles that are assigned to Asians/Asian Americans. I think this is an important book due to its social commentary on the immigrant experience, challenges, and representation, but I didn’t find much that have not already been discussed in similar works.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Fascinating, funny, and so much more
Creatively written, though provoking, excellent.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Satire, but with a message.
The use of satire in this novel is very effective in highlighting Asian American stereotypes and the immigrant experience. Funny, honest but also a little sad. Interior Chinatown won the National Book Award so it’s been getting plenty of attention and I will say that it’s much deserved. You need to know going in that it’s satire and told completely in script format. Hence the title, Interior Chinatown, which is how many scripts begin. Interior, exterior, you get the gist. Willis Wu has one dream. He wants to be “Kung Fu Guy”. If you’ve ever watched a TV show or movie where Asian American actors are included, you know this guy. He’s the guy that shows up, cleans house with his martial arts skills and has a lot of close-ups. He’s also the guy who ends up with the pretty woman. But Willis Wu is always: Asian Guy Making a Strange Face Asian Delivery Driver Generic Asian Man #1, #2, #3 Dead Asian Guy These roles are played by Willis both in real life and in a TV show called Black and White. His desire to be “Kung Fu Guy” eclipses all things, including his family. He constantly struggles to have enough to eat and yet he’s a good guy and cares for his elderly neighbors in the run down building he lives in by offering a bit of meat to them now and then. He shows up to work. Does what he is told but through his observant eyes he continually yearns to be “that” person, the person he is not. Plus, his own mother and father lived similar lives. At first the pretty or handsome Asian and then later Old Asian Woman or Man. There is a very blurred line in this novel between what is happening or what we think is happening. Is it real life or a TV show? Or both? I grew up with a father who cared little about me or his family but cared a lot about Bruce Lee. This infatuation with Lee is also found in this novel. He was bigger than life. He was the one Asian to be. His fame crossed many continents and he married an American school teacher but look at the tragedy that was his life. As you know, his son Brandon also died tragically and on set to boot. Have you seen the movie Once Upon a Time In Hollywood? There is an actor who portrays Lee at the height of his career. The scene received much criticism for perpetuating Asian stereotypes. Even after Lee’s success in Hollywood, the stereotypes continued. Few movies cast Asian American actors without including a stereotype to go with it. Interior Chinatown, with its script format and humorous tone will keep you reading and you will chuckle here and there. Yu has a sense of humor but if you sit with it for awhile, you will also note the longing the main character feels and how difficult is is for an immigrant family to make a home for themselves in this country. The story is well-written and balanced. I highly recommend it.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Mesmerizing Look behind the Inscrutable Screen
Rarely do you get a chance to peek behind an intriguing veil of mystery drawn over decades of misunderstanding and defensiveness. Such does Charles Yu’s 2020 Interior Chinatown” provide this glimpse with wit and adventure in a marvelous and unusual approach. Through seven chapters we follow the lives and family of Willis Wu living inside a building of one-room apartments (single room occupancies or SROs) above the ground floor Golden Palace restaurant where some of them work. Not surprisingly, the building is in the Chinatown section of an unnamed US city. Aside from bussing and waiting in the restaurant, Willis is an actor aspiring through small TV roles to be Kung Fu Master, or Sifu, a role his father had played, and the pinnacle of Asian American acting accomplishment in the US. His adventures are related sometimes as pure narrative and other times as script dialogue in a cop TV show, “Black and White”, in which Willis has assorted roles. Yu shuttles us back and forth between these worlds, sometimes with deadpan humor and other times with poignancy for lives lived in deliberate obscurity but always longing to be part of mainstream acceptance. And there is something magical about how time floats forward and backward for the major players as their stories are revealed. Each chapter lifts one veil after another of misperception, sometimes confusing but ultimately resolving into a bigger, clearer picture of how some in this community are adjusting to being in this new world. In fact, toward the end the author makes it quite clear there is no going back to the original homeland of Taiwan. Yu blends a mix of writing styles – from block script dialogue with directorial cues to more traditional narrative for the family passages to a few, excellent stream-of-consciousness segments running phrases together channeling James Joyce. Challenging at times but never tiring. The opening invocation sets the stage for a great experience: “Take what you can get. Try to build a Life. A life at the margin Made from bit parts.” Read and savor every morsel.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Great read from a great author!
The Hollywood scene as viewed by the "generic Asian man" actor is a delightful send up of the entertainment industry. Written with the heart and humor that Charles Yu is know for, this book will have you laughing out loud, smiling quietly to yourself, and finding the charm of the characters who are crafted beautifully.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Incredibly inventive National Book Award winner
Don't miss this wonderful, witty story about belonging and community that's structured like a screenplay, told in an intriguing second-person voice, and packed with pop culture references. No one else is doing quite what Charles Yu does on the page; the story never stops, the writing is sublime, and the jokes are sly -- you'll definitely want to pick up his story collection Sorry Please Thank You, and his debut, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe as soon as you've finished reading Interior Chinatown.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com