"Interior Chinatown" by Charles Yu (2020)

"'For my friend Fong,' he says, and begins singing John Denver.  If you didn't know it already, now you do: old dudes from rural Taiwan are comfortable with their karaoke and when they do karaoke for some reason they love no one like they love John Denver."

Charles Yu is a Taiwanese-American author and lawyer who lives in California.  Besides Interior Chinatown he's written one other novel, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and two short story collections.  Interior Chinatown won the National Book Award and was adapted into a TV series.

Interior Chinatown illustrates the life and times of Willis Wu, an aspiring Asian American actor living in Los Angeles' Chinatown.  Typecast in a number of familiar Asian-centric movie and TV roles, Willis strives to become a "Kung Fu Guy," a function within the Hollywood industry that he's coveted since his earliest years.

The novel is written in the form of a screenplay, and in my opinion this format sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.  I wasn't always sure if what was happening was "real" or if it was some kind of metaphor, but perhaps that sort of ambiguity was the author's intention.

I think Interior Chinatown is a good book, though I do have certain objections to it.  In terms of narrative structure it's relatively solid, even if the character's trajectory is a bit predictable.  I enjoyed the author's observations on what it means to be a Taiwanese immigrant in America, though after a certain point one wonders if Willis Wu isn't just feeling incredibly sorry for himself.  Is there a point in wanting a country to love and respect you?  Maybe my saying so is a reflection of my age, but I think carrying around an expectation that strangers - and by extension an entire nation - will understand you the way in which you want to be understood is somewhat pointless.

Does America have a history of discrimination when it comes to Asian immigrants?  Certainly.  But I'm not sure what good it does anyone to regurgitate racist laws from the 1800s, or to expect that the outside world is going to see beyond the handier aspects of one's culture.  That kind of social justice thinking can only be carried so far, and if you're meditating upon it all the time you're probably only causing yourself a great deal of distress.  People are racist sometimes.  Stereotypes exist.  It doesn't make you (or them) any less American.  I suspect it might be better to approach others and their assumptions with forgiveness, rather than seeing in their (sometimes false) assumptions some sinister plot to keep you and yours down.

Besides, it's 2026.  Assuming that society has doomed you to life in Chinatown - or any other ghetto - is too much like playing the victim.  Injustice exists, but if you want something or if you want to be somewhere then it's up to you to go out and make that happen to the best of your ability.  No one's going to give it to you.  You have to go out and take it.

And yes, this "going out and taking it" is itself an Asian-American story, and moreover one we would all do well to remember.

Related Entries:

"Bullet Train" by Kotaro Isaka (2010)

"Trilobites & Other Stories" by Breece D'J Pancake (1992)

"Mecca" by Susan Straight (2022)

"Human Acts" by Han Kang (2014)

"Bleak House" by Charles Dickens (1852)

 "'I mean a man whose hopes or aims may sometimes lie (as most men's sometimes do, I dare say) above the ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough after all of it should prove to be a way of usefulness and good service leading to no other.  All generous spirits are ambitious, I suppose, but the ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road, instead of spasmodically trying to fly over it, is the kind I care for.'"

Charles Dickens was the author of Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, and A Tale of Two Cities.  I think it's fair to say he was the greatest author of his generation, even if he had some stiff competition from other American, British and Russian authors of the time.  For all the excellent authors of the early and late 1800s, its probably Dickens who casts the greatest shadow over Western thought and culture.

Bleak House is probably the last of his books I'll read for some time.  Why?  Because I've read all of the other famous ones.  His bibliography is huge, and there are some odds and ends I haven't read, but I'm not likely to come across any of those other, far more obscure works any time soon.

In Bleak House Esther Summerson, a young woman of unknown origins, is released into the care of her guardian, a Mr. Jarndyce.  From that point on her fortunes become increasingly entwined within an ongoing inheritance dispute within the Court of Chancery.  Lurking in the background of her story is the highborn Lady Dedlock, a woman with whom she shares a mysterious relation.

I could never fault Dickens in terms of style, so let me just say that Bleak House is Dickens at his most densely descriptive.  He tells this story with his characteristic lack of moral ambiguity, but given the literature of the time I can't fault him for that.  In the mid-1800s very few people were ready to venture into those waters.

For the most part I found Bleak House very hard to get through, and this is coming from someone who's thoroughly enjoyed all of his other famous books.  My main complaint is that so very little happens actually happens in this story, and it's extraordinary length becomes a real obstacle after a certain point.  I liked the ending, and there was a certain ambiguity to this ending that shows Dickens' skill as a writer, but it seemed like an eternity passed between the opening and closing chapters of this novel.

For those unfamiliar with Dickens, I'd recommend starting with one of his shorter books.  Oliver Twist, for example, or The Christmas Books.  Books like Bleak House are best approached when you've finally come to a conclusion about an author, and when you've finally decided that he or she deserves the title "great."

Related Entries:

"Man's Fate" by Andre Malraux (1934)

"The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)

Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 Novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Presented as a Reader's Theater Script

"The American" by Henry James (1877)

"Tales from Shakespeare" by Charles and Mary Lamb (1807)

"The two chief families in Verona were the rich Capulets and the Montagues.  There had been an old quarrel between these families, which was grown to such a height, and so deadly was the enmity between them, that it extended to the remotest kindred, to the followers and retainers of both sides, insomuch that a servant of the house of Montague could not meet a servant of the house of Capulet."

Charles and Mary Lamb are remembered for their Tales from Shakespeare, though they also adapted several other stories for young readers.  They were institutionalized on and off throughout their lives, and Mary Lamb stabbed their mother to death during one of her many breakdowns.

Tales from Shakespeare includes adaptations of all the Bard's most famous plays, and also a few of the less famous ones like Timon of Athens and Cymbeline.  On the whole it makes for fairly repetitive reading, given the cases of mistaken identity, women disguising themselves as men, siblings separated in infancy, and surprise marriages that proliferate in Shakespeare's plays.  The most famous of his plays still entertain, but the lesser-known entries suffer from a reduction to plot points.  In these lesser-known entries it is Shakespeare's poetry that made them famous, and in the absence of this poetry they become tiresome and predictable.

This book is an easy read, but it's a far cry from the real Shakespeare.  Kids wanting to learn about his plays would do better to seek out movie adaptations, and adults would find Shakespeare's original works to be more profitable reading.

"The Big Thirst" by Charles Fishman (2011)

"But the smell and the color of this tributary are astonishing, arresting.  The water is India-ink black.  The smell is barnyard-organic fermented with chemical-plant acrid - manure and methane.  At the point where the black tributary joins the Yamuna's riverbed, the smell is almost too strong to bear.

"This is one of the 'drains' that collect the wastewater from Delhi's residents, its hospitals, factories, and businesses, and pour it back into the Yamuna, almost a billion gallons a day.  It is, in fact, a black river of raw urban sewage - this one drain puts out 1 million gallons of wastewater every four minutes.  Out in the middle of the restored flow floats the carcass of a dead water buffalo; along the banks you can easily spot every sort of debris - flowers, clothing, take-out containers, a Bacardi rum bottle, a hypodermic needle."

Thus intones the chapter on India's water supply - certainly the most depressing part of this book.  Other chapters explore water shortages in both Las Vegas and Atlanta, Australia's chronic struggles with drought, and frequent side trips into the economics of water.  In the author's capable hands the subject of water scarcity never grows dull, and the book is well-written from start to finish.  In fact, I can't think of a single bad thing to say about this book.  I found it to be a gripping read, and it is one of the most interesting non-fiction books I've read in quite a while.

This is Charles Fishman's second book.  His first book, "The Wal-Mart Effect," is much better known.  I plan on picking it up the next time I visit a bookstore.