Interior Chinatown

 Interior Chinatown

By Charles Yu

This one was nothing if not unique. This book tells the story of Willis Wu, a bit-actor trying to make his way

up the ranks to the pinnacle of Asian acting: Kung Fu Man. But, of course, it is not simply the tale of Willis; it is also, in a way, the story of all Americans of Asian descent. The idea that Yu posits is that America is a black and white world that does not know what to do with this "other" category of people, which, despite centuries on American soil, therefore cannot shake the idea that they are somehow foreign. Asian stereotypes run so deep that Americans in this category are expected to play a role, what Yu dubs Generic Asian Man (or woman). 

He emphasizes this point by writing the book as if it is a movie script. Often times, Willis' acting jobs blend into real life. He will be playing "Special Guest Star" on a cop show, for instance, when he starts chatting with a fellow actor about the humiliation of having to do an accent when he was born and raised in the US. It's often a humorous, if disorienting, effect.

I found out after I started reading that the book won the National Book Award. It's easy to see why. It is inventive, funny, and, at times, powerful. I do wish, though, that it had been a bit heavier on plot. Often times, the book reads less like a novel and more like an essay. The blurring of "reality" and TV show -- which, I know, was part of the point -- added to this. So it was hard to commit to the characters. But a good read nonetheless.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

 The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

By David Mitchell

Set in the Dutch trading post of Djimi outside of Nagasaki, Japan, at the turn of the 19th century, this story

tells the tale of (as the title implies) a young clerk named Jacob de Zoet, who has signed on with the Dutch East India Company in a bid to win his fortune -- and the hand of a better-to-do Dutch woman he hopes to marry. He tries, and partially succeeds, but his rectitude proves an impediment to true wealth.

But what he finds instead might be more valuable. He falls in love with a young medical apprentice named Dr. Aibagawa, or Orito, and accidentally proposes. it is nearly accepted when fate, in the form of a near-demonic local lord, intervenes and banishes Orito to a strange mountain-top abbey.

The historical nature of this book is fascinating. I loved the way Mitchell recreated the Dutch-Japanese relationship of this period. It provides much dramatic tension in and of itself, particularly with the backstabbing politics of the DEIC and the arrival, toward the end of the book, of a British naval frigate (or some other navy-type boat). It raises lots of questions, such as: Was Japan better off as an isolated nation? What does it mean to be rich? Is it possible to be honest and successful? Can two people of such different backgrounds fall in love? What are the benefits and drawbacks of a strictly hierarchical society?

There is a supernatural element to this novel, though, that I found off-putting and, frankly, unnecessary. It involves a powerful Lord Abbot who is in charge of the Abbey to which Orito is banished. I'm not exactly sure why the author included this bit, ad it seemed to undermine the otherwise enthralling plot. 

State of Wonder

 State of Wonder

By Anne Patchett

Anne Patchett must have a penchant for South America. (I cannot be the only one who has delighted in the

paring of Patchett an penchant.) The last novel of hers I read, Bel Canto, told the story of an attempted coup in an unknown South American country. This one, though it starts in Minnesota, has as its climactic backdrop the Amazon basin. Patchett's bio reveals little about any time spent there, so she must have one heckofa imagination.

The basic plot is this: An American pharmaceutical company has heavily invested in a researcher who appears to have found a compound that would extend fertility well into a woman's 70s in the Amazon. But that researcher is fairly prickly and not prone to answering calls/e-mails/letters. So to protect that investment, they send down an eager employee, likely drawn there by his love of birding, who reportedly dies as a result. The president of the company, Jim Fox -- also a name of a former Valley News editor -- therefore turns to his employee-turned-lover Marina to find the researcher and the truth about what happened. Complicating Marina's trip is not just the danger and remoteness of the Amazon, but also the fact that the researcher, Dr. Annick Swenson, was her former medical school teacher, whose gruffness in the wake of a botched c-section led her to eschew working with patients in lieu of pharmacology. 

What Marina finds in the Amazon is, of course, not what she expects. I wouldn't want to give too much away to my phantom readers, so I'll just say that the most important surprise to Marina is her own competence. So when Swenson, in a plea to keep her in the Amazon, tells Marina, "Trust e, you won't fit in there anymore. You've changed," she's right. I suspect there is more to this story, particularly around fertility as a symbol for...something. I can't say my critical reading eyes are as sharp as they should be.

All in all, a great read.