Chang-Rae Lee (born July 29, 1965) is a first-generation Korean American novelist.Lee was born in Korea in 1965. He emigrated to the United States with his family when he was 3 years old. Raised in Westchester, New York, Lee attended Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. He graduated from Yale University with a degree in English and from the University of Oregon with a MFA in writing. He worked as a Wall Street financial analyst for a year before turning to writing full time.

Chang-rae Lee, the first Korean-American novelist to be published by a major press, focuses on the experiences of first-and second-generation immigrants. His novels explore the nuances of intergenerational relations, the problems of assimilation, and the relationship of culture and memory to identity. While these concerns link him to other contemporary Asian-American writers, Lee’s fiction also draws heavily on other influences.

Lee experiments with form in his first novel, Native Speaker (1995), which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and centers around a Korean American industrial spy. The novel explores themes of alienation and betrayal as felt or perpetrated by immigrants and first-generation citizens, and played out in local politics. It is part detective story, part minimalist chronicle of a failing marriage, reminiscent of John Updike. His prose style has been compared to that of both John Cheever and Kazuo Ishiguro. In 1999, he published his second novel, A Gesture Life. This elaborated on his themes of identity and assimilation through the narrative of an elderly physician who remembers treating Korean comfort women during World War II. His 2004 novel Aloft received mixed notices from the critics and featured Lee’s first protagonist who is not Asian American, but a disengaged and isolated Italian-American suburbanite forced to deal with his world. Lee teaches writing at Princeton University, where he has served as the director of Princeton’s Program in Creative Writing. He is taking a sabbatical to serve as writer-in residence at Punahou School.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang-Rae_Lee

http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4525/Lee-Chang-rae.html 

Bibliography 

Native Speaker – Publisher: Penguin Group (USA). March 1996

A Gesture Life – Publisher: Penguin Group (USA). October 2000

Langue natale - Publisher: Editions de l’Olivier. French. March 2003

Aloft – Publisher: Penguin Group (USA). March 2004

Turbulenzen - Publisher: Fischer Taschenbuch Vlg. April 2006

The Surrendered – Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover. April 2008 

Annotated Bibliography 

Belluck, Pam. “Being of Two Cultures and Belonging to Neither.” New York Times, July 10, 1995, B1.This article is a book review of Native Speaker, which has prompted similar soul-searching among some Koreans and other Asian-American readers. It has explored the same confusion of many Asian-American people. 

Homans, John. “Soft Aloft - Chang-rac Lee’s new novel of the Long Island suburgs, Aloft, is billowing and insubstantial, like a cloud on a summer afternoon.” New York Book Review, Mar 1, 2004.It is a book review of Aloft. The author compared Aloft with Lee’s first two novels, and described the meaning of the title of the book. 

Kakutani, Michiko. “BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Fitting In Perfectly on the Outside, but Lost Within.” The New York Times. April7, 2008.Review of Change-Rae Lee’s novel, “A Gesture Life.” This article compares “A Gesture Life” with “Native Speaker” by comparing belonging, assimilation, self-knowledge, and genuine emotional connection.  

Cooper, Rand Richards. “Excess Identities.” The New York Times. April 9, 1995A review of a novel, “Native Speaker,” which focuses on the character of the book, Henry, and how he is almost a reflection of the “American immigrant.” 

Weesner, Ted. “Some-thang to Behold.” Powel’s Books. September 17, 2006.Review of “Aloft.” The review goes into intensive description of the main character of the book, Jerry. Also the review focuses on the language style that it is written in.

In 1969 in New York City, Colson Whitehead was born.  He grew up in Manhattan.  He attended Trinity School, eventually attending Harvard College, the undergraduate college of Harvard Universtiy.  He graduated in 1991.  After graduating, he returned to New York and is now residing in Brooklyn.

            Following graduation, Whitehead worked as an assistant editor for Village Voice.  He then became a pop culture critic where he had the duties of writing reviews for books and music.  Eventually he became the magazines television columnist.  His other writings have been featured in Vibe, New York Times, New York Magazine, and Newsday. 

            Whitehead had his first novel, The Intuitionist, published in 1999 and won a Whiting Writers’ Award in 2000.  He was also praised as “Writer on the Verge” by the Voice Literary Supplement.  The novel was well-liked by many, including Boston Globe and San Francisco Chronicle, who named it the Best Book of the Year, and GQ, who named it one of the Top Twenty Books of the Millennium.  The next novel that was published was John Henry Days in 2001.  It was named one of the “Best 5 Books of the Year” by New York Times and was acclaimed by Newsweek, the Washington Post, and USA Today to name a few.  The novel was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Anisfield-Wolf Prize for its issues of race and the Young Lions Award.

            In 2002, Whitehead received the MacArthur Fellowship.  The following year his third book, The Colossus of New York, was published; his only nonfiction book to date.  Next to be published was Apex Hides the Hurt in 2006.  It was renowned as one of the New York Times’ 100 Most Notable Books of the Year and was well-received by Entertainment Weekly, the New York Observer, and the Charleston Gazette.

Sources

http://books.google.com/books?id=Sl5kaqcSSAcC&pg=PA333&lpg=PA333&dq=colson+whitehead+1969+new+york+city&source=web&ots=ZlaZ-ssfFY&sig=fyWWYxeN9YP1qSz1RDKgbzKnGJI&hl=en#PPA333,M1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apex_Hides_the_Hurt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colson_Whitehead

http://www.colsonwhitehead.com/biography.shtml

 Bibliography 

Whitehead, Colson. Apex Hides the Hurt. New York: Anchor Books, 2007.

Whitehead, Colson. John Henry Days. New York: Anchor Books, 2001.

Whitehead, Colson. The Colossus of New York. New York, Anchor Books, 2004.

Whitehead, Colson. The Intuitionist. New York: Anchor Books, 2000. Annotated Bibliography

1.) Aubrey, Bryan.  “The Intuitionist.”  Work Analysis on Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist. Magill’s Literary Annual 2000.  Salem Press, Inc. 

 Aubrey writes about Whitehead’s work, The Intuitionist and explores deep seriousness issues of racism and urban decay, as well as different ideas about ways of acquiring knowledge.

2.) Bérubé, Michael. “Race and Modernity in Colson Whitehead’s the Intuitionist.” The Holodeck in the Garden: Science and Technology in Contemporary American Fiction. Ed. Peter Freese and Charles B. Harris. Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive, xxviii, 2004. 163-178.

The essay examines the themes of race and modernity in the novel “The Intuitionist,” by Whitehead.  A plot overview is given of the novel along with a description of the physical and social setting.  The prominence of the main character’s disability is examined.

3.) Butler, Robert. “The Postmodern City in Colson Whitehead’s the Colossus of New York and Jeffrey Renard Allen’s Rails Under My Back.” CLA Journal 48.1 (2004): 71-87.

4.) Cassidy, Thomas.  “John Henry Days.”  Work Analysis on Colson Whitehead’s John HenryDays.  Magill’s Literary Annual 2002.  Salem Press, Inc.

 This is a review done of Whitehead’s novel, John Henry Days. Cassidy claim this book takes on a “serio-comic” view of race and the meaning in American life.  

5.) Liggins, Saundra. “The Urban Gothic Vision of Colson Whitehead’s the Intuitionist (1999).” African American Review 40.2 (2006): 358-69

This article discusses how Whitehead’s book, The Intuitionist, fits into contemporary African American gothic literature. Whitehead uses gothic landscape and conventions to show African American’s struggle for upward mobility and their bleak outlook on life. Liggins argues that the setting of the story illustrates the isolation African Americans face. Whitehead sets up a contrast with the poverty and prosperity of the characters, showing the racial and gender discrimination that took place in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

6.) Sherman, Suzan. “Colson Whitehead.” Bomb 76 (2001): 74-80.

Sherman writes about Whitehead’s metaphors for upward mobility, race, and religion in the book, The Intuitionist. She also writes about other works by Whitehead, including his ability to bring forgotten parts of history back into modern day in John Henry Days.  

Throughout the book Chang-rae Lee shows the Jerry only fly’s his plane alone to think about everything that has gone on. Jerry flying his plane alone is like his get away from everything in the world. The passages I am writing about have Theresa in the cockpit with Jerry, making it both of their getaways. She has been going with him to her Brother Jack’s house every time he fly’s there. This trip is significant because Theresa is asking her father to let Jack and his family move in with him, which surprises him at first. Jack is apparently losing his home and almost everything he owns. Jerry is assuming he will be moving into a condo that he can afford, but Theresa is convincing him to let them move in to his home.
Theresa states Jerry has enough room for Jack’s family and should consider calling Jack to tell him to move in. Jerry soon finds out that this was all planned out from the start, and basically everything was set before her father made the decision. She was just helping him make the decision in an easier fashion. Everything during the plane ride was going fine until they hit a storm that didn’t look like much. Jerry warned Theresa about the turbulence that could come about, and she obeyed his directions. Jerry was particularly scared because he never wants anyone on the plane with him. They flew through the storm and made it safely, although something was wrong with Theresa. Her water had broken and it was spilling all over the ground, at first glance her father said “I hope you peed,” but he knew there was something else wrong.
Sure enough Theresa needed to be rushed to the hospital at Yale. Her hospital was in a different direction of the way they were flying. Jerry had to make a quick decision to call into the tower and get clearance to land on the runway. He then blamed himself for what was happening because he should have said no to her when she asked to get on the plane. Jerry ended up landing the plane and getting her to the hospital where she died because of her conditions. If you read the book or any passage written on the blog you will see that Theresa was not being treated for her cancer because she wanted to have the child first. This makes for NOT a happy ending at all. It turns out that Jack’s family moves in with Jerry after all.
I did kind of enjoy the part when Jack built the pool and Jerry stands in it once or twice a day. I think it is a binary opposite because he loves to be in the plane way up in the sky to think about everything. Now he is in the ground standing in a hole that would soon be his pool thinking about things. It was kind of interesting I really don’t know why.

“There’s no respect anymore. People want what they want and they want it now. Nothing comes before them…They think they can go anywhere and do anything, as if none of their actions has any bearing except on themselves, like they’re in their own mini-biosphere, all needs self-providing, everything self-contained, setting it up like God would do himself. It doesn’t matter that there are people the the ourside tapping at the glass, saying, ‘Hey, hey, I’m here. Look out here.’”

Theresa refuses to talk about her cancer and avoids the subject at all costs. Everytime Jerry got into his plane, he was up in the air in his own little world. By doing this, he shut out all the people that he claimed to love, especially Rita. He could have taken Rita with him on any number of occasions, but chose instead to leave her home because he needed his “Jerry time.” Similarly, Theresa won’t talk about her illness with anyone including her husband. She has made up her mind about deciding to wait for the baby before treating it. If you read the book, you know this results in her death.

The question then is when has a person gone too far? When do they pass the point of no return? When does a person stop caring about what other people want and only listen to the voice inside their heads? For Jerry, the day he changed is when he started treating Daisy like she was some maid/housewife where she took orders and got an allowance. Instead of trying to figure out what was wrong with Daisy, he assumed she needed a little tough love to get her back to normal. Instead of looking at the situation from all angles, he saw the recent shopping sprees as Daisy being disobidient.

Jerry passed the point of no return the day he yelled at Daisy. Once he “scolded” her for her behavior and decided to put her on an allowance, he ruined their relationship. Had she lived, maybe they would’ve been able to fix it. Jerry stopped thinking about his wife and started thinking about some “perfect” wife that does exactly what her man says. He tried to shape Daisy into this woman and ignored her crys for help like swinging naked in the park.

It is interesting because had Daisy gotten the appropriate medical care she probably would’ve lived a longer life. Maybe this is why Jerry feels the need to get into his plane everytime he has a problem. The last time he reacted to a problem, he let Daisy die. But what does shutting someone out do? Nothing. It makes them feel like they’re not even important enough to talk to. Rita probably felt like Jerry only cared about Jerry and not about the stability and love that they shared. He didn’t have enough faith in himself to not make the same mistake again.

Jerry loves his plane, but I also think he loves his family. He just doesn’t know how to communicate those feelings. He doesn’t want to directly confront a problem because he killed Daisy the last time. So, he aviods at all costs any discussion of problems by flying his plane. By the time he comes down, the problem has most likely blown over and things are back to normal with no resolution ever really coming.

Jerry and Red are both the older opponents in the struggle for the prize. Just as Red was the leader of the pride and the lair for a long time, Jerry and Rita were in a relationship for a long time. Red showed “his appreciation of the hunting prowess of his lionesses by serving them sexually whenever they are in heat and then spending the rest of his time power-dozing.” That is just like Jerry in the sense that he does what is told to do by Rita and nothing more. The only time he does something without being asked is when it benefits him.

When Nero comes to the territory, he “[makes] a show of himself as an electable new king.” He shows of that he is strong and young. Although Richie is not much younger than Jerry, he does show off his fortunes. He shows Rita that he is the better than Jerry as a partner for her. He shows off his mansion, his large property, and his many cars. When talking to Jerry, Richie confesses to him that he felt that he needed all his material fortunes to attract and keep a woman.

In the show, there is an unseen battle between Red and Nero. The battle is represented in the book as the tennis match. Richie and Jerry have a tennis match where if Richie wins, he gets Jerry’s ’67 Impala and Donnie and if Jerry wins, he gets Richie’s ’92 Ferrari. There is also the underlying incentive of Rita. There is the impression that the winner will win her affections. During the match Jerry gets injured just as Red did. This is where the two differ. The outcome of the lion’s tale is Red is mauled and eventually dies, being eaten by a pack of hyenas, making Nero the new leader of the territory. In the case of the novel, Jerry wins the material goods but the more important reward. He gets the Ferrari and keeps his car and Donnie. The more important prize is not for certain Jerry’s to claim. He goes to return the Ferrari and learns that Richie and Rita have broken up. With that new information, he goes to Rita’s and they begin to make love. Their relationship is not yet restored but there is the possibility.

The two stories have very similar ideas and events. Red and Jerry are the older leaders while Nero and Richie are the younger possible new leaders. In both cases they are fighting for something, whether it is land or love. The conclusions slightly differ in that Nero wins the land and Jerry wins the material possessions but not yet the love of Rita.

An interesting part of the plot so far in this book is the situation with Theresa and her family. The situation being Theresa is pregnant and being diagnosed with a cancerous or cancer-like disease. I just thought it was interesting because I started to wonder what I would decide to do if I had to choose between the life of an unborn child and my own life. So far Theresa has seemed to choose her child’s life over hers and wants to wait for her child to be born before taking any kind of treatment for her illness. Her fiancé Paul and Jerry seem to want Theresa to start treatment right away and worry about her life instead of the baby. At first this seemed like a cruel thing to say, but after thinking about it from the perspective of Paul and Jerry it seems pretty reasonable. To the men Theresa is real to them and already has life, but the baby is not. After seeing multiple doctors she seems to have accepted that there is a good chance that she will not start her treatment in time. She sort of shows this when she is talking to Jerry at the Dairy Queen and asks him to take care of Paul in case anything happens. I’m sure that making that kind of decision is different for women and men because of the baby actually developing in the woman. How Theresa handle this situation explains a lot about her character. Although it takes two people to create a child she chooses to exclude her fiancée in all of this. She does not tell Paul much about what happens to her and even tells her doctors not to tell him anything as well. Also she doesn’t even explain anything to her father who you would expect her to talk to even if their relationship isn’t the best. At first it seems that she is an independent person and wants to handle the situation on her own, but it sort of seems like she might already know the outcome if she chooses to have the baby before having her treatment and doesn’t want to worry her family. When Theresa and Jerry are at the Dairy Queen Jerry finally asks what is going on and tells Theresa he wants to be a part of what she’s going through and she seems to finally give in and explain to him her morning sickness and about her red blood cell count. After telling Jerry that she vomited blood that morning, Jerry tells her to call the doctor right then and there, but Theresa refuses saying she’s going to see another doctor soon anyway and the doctor was probably going to say the same thing as the rest of the doctors anyway. Theresa seems to have already accepted that there might be a chance she won’t be able to live too long after the baby is born if she can even make it that long. Jerry has finally confronted Theresa about her illness and the baby after leaving her alone for a while and I wonder if Paul will ever come out and confront this situation. It seems that Theresa is still in the early stages of her pregnancy so there is a chance she might end up giving up the baby in order to receive treatment. My prediction is that Theresa will have the baby and she’ll be able to survive too, just so that the book has a happy ending.

Jerry decides to buy a plane and take up flying. His main reason for doing this is because he has a strong desire to escape and disappear. The question is, however, what does Jerry want to escape from? Jerry states, “From up here, I can’t see the messy rest, none of the pedestrian, sea-level flotsam that surely blemishes our good scene” (3). Jerry wants to be in a world that’s his own, not one which has been tainted by humanity. From reading further into the novel, it is apparent that the world Jerry lives in is full of pain and conflict. With his daughter having Hodgkin’s disease while being pregnant, his friend attempting to commit suicide, and Rita leaving him for another man, Jerry wants to be in a place where he doesn’t have to be around these negative things. This escapism is paralleled within the story of Sir Harold. With Sir Harold being around the same age as Jerry and also taking up a similar hobby, it is no wonder why Jerry becomes slightly obsessed with his story. Jerry sees himself in Sir Harold. He sees a man who is stuck in the middle of his life with no where to go and simply wants to get away from everything and be in the air where nothing bothers him.

Another striking similarity between the stories of Sir Harold and Jerry Battle is that both of their lives are spinning out of control and they are left feeling helpless. In the novel, the placement of the story of Sir Harold comes around the time after Jerry finds out that his daughter has Hodgkin’s disease. The story is told while Jerry battles his ex girlfriend’s new boyfriend in a tennis match. Here, Jerry is seemingly overpowered by the elements of his age and lack of physical fitness. This is primarily where the story of Sir Harold is revealed. While Jerry battles Richard in a tennis match, Sir Harold battles the elements of the weather in his hot air balloon. Sir Harold, who thought that he had control over his hot air balloon quickly finds out that he is not match for the outside weather. This last part of the story seems to be symbolic of Jerry’s life. Jerry feels that he is losing the battle over his life and is losing the people in it. Jerry reads news on Sir Harold, which states, “… a grainy shot of Sir Harold’s deflated silver balloon afloat in the water. Another shot is of the damaged pod, one side of it crushed in like a half eaten whorl” (200). This balloon, which is symbolic of freedom and control, has been defeated by the elements. Much like Jerry’s life, which he feels he has lost control over, the balloon and Jerry (in the tennis match) have been defeated by stronger outside forces.

Jerry and Sir Harold, two middle aged white men, who both have the luxury to invest in the expensive hobby of flying, are strikingly similar in the lives they lead. While Sir Harold battles the weather and loses, Jerry battles Richard in a tennis match for his love, Rita. In the end, they both seem to lose what they were fighting for, and end up losing control over their lives, which is ironic, because all they really wanted to do was escape from the world and go to a place where they weren’t affected by the elements and the pain of losing people.

How about let us imagine the life when people retire? People may still get up early in the morning, watch TV for an hour or two, then, water their plants outside the front door. They probably would take a walk in a warm afternoon, or have a cup of tea in the backyard. But after reading through the book a little bit I have found out this book was not just talking about an ordinary story about an old people’s life. From one point, I felt the author tried to express some unique ideas through Jerry’s emotionally change to display some phenomenon of the society. 

Although Jerry’s wife, Daisy Han, died very early, he still should have had reasons to satisfy with his old age. His overeducated daughter Theresa was engagement to her boyfriend Paul, and his son, Jack, had plans for expanding his original business. He accumulated himself more than enough wealth for retirement. Also, it looked like he always had female friends around him, no matter his ex-girlfriend, Rita, his coworker, Kelly, or even Terri, the woman he dated in a summer, no matter how close to him they were. But he was still lonely.   

When he sold his shares in his company he had not realized there was no place left for him to go. That was why the first paragraph in the first Chapter was mentioned “From up here, a half mile above the Earth, everything looks perfect to me.” While I was reading through the book, I was feeling Jerry hinted us from the first sentence that he perhaps wanted to escape from something. He liked to travel with his plane a lot, used to with Rita, but most time himself. When he flew aloft he thought he had left everything on the ground. He tried using his plane as the tool to release himself, but he did not realize that when the plane landed, he still needed to pick up whatever he had to bear, and whatever he had to face.  

It is helpless and contradictory, not only to Jerry, but also to most of the people in the world. People always tried to hide themselves and escape from reality. And to some of them, when they find out they have to face their situation, they can not even afford it.

Especially when discussing his relationships with his family, Jerry notes the differences in ethnicity. When he attends his daughter’s dinner party, Jerry comments on the multiracial identities of his children and family. Although Jerry seems to state the ethnicities of his family matter-of-factly, the fact that Jerry notices it at all seems to create an even greater emphasis. Why mention this at all? Maybe Jerry is like many Americans in feeling that merely noticing differences and stating that you accept those differences makes you a better person who is culturally well-rounded. However, even just noting differences appears to have the opposite effect.

Another example of Jerry’s false type of acceptance is the way in which he describes his romantic interests. Jerry seems to characterize both Rita and his first wife by their cultures. Jerry mentions that his first wife was Korean and his long-term girlfriend, Rita, is Hispanic. In the novel, Jerry seems very aware of the fact that he becomes involved in multiracial relationships. Especially when he meets Rita, the reader sees that Jerry is conscious of how other people view his relationships with women of different ethnic backgrounds. He becomes conscious of the other people viewing his interactions with Rita on the boat and then discusses how she becomes his nanny. This appears to be unimportant information. However, it appears to bother Jerry especially because Rita is Puerto Rican and he is white. In the novel, Jerry seems fascinated by women of other cultures. He seems to feel that he is a better person for accepting these women as his romantic interests.

In the beginning of the novel, Jerry is introduced as he is flying a plane. It seems that Lee is trying to comment on the fact that Jerry’s “whiteness” is floating away into invisibility. This is even more relevant since Lee, an Asian-American, is writing with a white narrator. Perhaps, Lee is criticizing assimilation in this instance. Why would Lee write with a white narrator when he knew that he would be questioned about it? It seems he wanted to make a statement that White seems to only want minorities stepping on their territory when it is beneficial to them. In other instances, it is either looked down upon or questioned. This also goes back to the fact that Asian-Americans were assimilated into American or White culture for economic benefit. I could be wrong, but I think this is the statement that Lee is trying to make in the novel’s use of a white narrator. He again seems to be criticizing false acceptance. Also, Lee may be making a statement about how white culture seems to be disappearing from the American majority when he uses the plane scene at the beginning of the novel.