Native Speaker 2

Overall I enjoyed Native Speaker; it was a good book to read. There were many important themes in this book such as Mitt dieing, race, marriage and relationships (Henry and Lelias). All of those things could be talked about in great depth but I’m going to focus on something else. What I found very interesting was the whole idea of language in this book. It really made me think. I think that Language was a very important topic and applies to what’s been going on in the world and still is today. In this book it was mainly about Korean children learning the English language but it applies to all nationalities. There is much to be said about language. First of all language is more than just a bunch of letters and words. It tells about people’s history and where they came from, it’s a culture. So when different nationalities come to
America they are faced with a major problem. It’s basically impossible to come to
America without learning the English language but at the same time they want to preserve their own culture and their own language, but how do they do so? Is it even possible? Usually families move to
America with little children who are going to start to learn English in school and become friends with a bunch of other American children. They soon are going to be associated with the English language and American ways and traditions. Soon they will probably barely remember how to speak their native language and become just like every other American kid. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I mean if you’re going to live in
America you probably should know how to speak English but are culture’s being lost? Also you see that a lot of kids can speak it better than their parents, and their parents are still set in their own traditions based on their own culture while their children are almost completely Americanized, that too could cause some problems. The solution seems to be keep it balanced, keep some of your own ways and some American. Talk English when necessary and your own language other times. It may sound like an easy fix. But it’s a lot harder said than done and this is definitely a situation many are faced with.    

Native Speaker

The start of Native Speaker, I thought was pretty slow even though it eventually speeds up. Also it’s not the easiest book to read and seems to tell things in a round about sort of way. What also makes it confusing is the fact that the narrator, Henry Park, is telling the story as a bunch of flashbacks so the reader has to try and put them all together. Also since the narrator is a Korean-American, the langauage that the author, Chang-rae Lee, uses is also hard to understand at times. Once again, the reoccuring theme of our novels, racism, pops up again in this book. This time having to do with being an immigrant in America and being a korean-american.  The fact of how hard it can be for people to learn english and the barrier there can be if you don’t know english and live in america is present in this book. This book shows that learning english might even be especially hard for koreans. The idea is present in this book of what it would be like to be basically stuck between two cultures, how do you balance between the two, or do you? Another thing that I found kind of disturbing about this book is the fact that Henry Park’s son, Mitt, dies. I don’t know why such an awful thing had to happen to a little boy.Lelia is another character, she is Henry’s wife. They have a very interesting relationship which definately went through some rough times when their son,Mitt died. We also learn that Henry is an industrial spy for some weird firm and Lelia is a english tutor. Lelia and Henry’s relationship is definately a interesting one like I said. At somepoints it seems great, other times they are lying to eachother, they temporarily split, etc. Native Speaker is definately an interesting book.

Sula 1 and 2

I think that this book, Sula, is pretty interesting. I have enjoyed it. The topic of racism and the distinction of whites vs. blacks is also present in this novel like other books we have read this semester such as, The Sound and The Fury and The Invisible Man. Also the book seems like it is a lot about the “good” and the “bad”. Nel and Sula are best friends, and Nel seems to be the good one and Sula the bad. The first thing that happens which is very shocking is when Sula is swinging Chicken Little and he slips and falls into the river and drowns. That was accidental but I can’t believe that nothing is done about it and they just act like nothing happened. From there Nel became the good wife and mom while Sula goes against the norms. After Nel’s wedding Sula leaves for ten years. While she is gone she has a lot of interracial relationships (w/ white men) who are married nonetheless. After she returns back to Bottom she tops it all off by having an affair with her bestfriend Nel’s husband. That definately doesn’t make Sula look too good. Sula and Nel stop being friends for a while after that but they kind of make up before Sula dies. There was definately a lot of interesting things that went on in this book and I believe the main topics were race, roles of women, and good and bad, right and wrong.

Overall I think Sula was a pretty good book, it reminded me a lot of the other books that we have read this semester if you concentrate on the themes of the book. I think that the end of Sula kind of leaves you hanging though. Because with Sula’s death it leaves Nel and her relationship unresolved. They obviously had a lot of things that happened between them that needed to be talked about, beginning with watching the death of Chicken Little and ending with Sula having an affair with Nel’s husband and everything in between. All of those things were left unmentioned between the two best friends and neither of them got any closure before Sula’s death. The topic of death in this book is really interesting, seeing as though nothing seems to really be done when Chicken Little dies and then when Sula dies the community is actually happy. I found that really weird, Sula did do some awful things but people aren’t usually happy when someone dies. Also with Sula around she was blamed for all the bad things that happened, she was definitely the focus and kind of the community’s scapegoat. Now with her gone who are they going to blame things on? The Community I think is going to have to start taking responsibility for their own actions, including Nel. Sula did do an awful thing to Nel but Nel blamed Sula unfairly for much more than that, Eva helps Nel realize this. Nel always blamed Sula 100% for Chicken Little’s death even though she was also there. So at the end of the book Nel goes to Sula’s grave and cries out her name, did she forgive her? Is she saying sorry? Or maybe a both while mourning at the same time, I guess it’s up to the reader to decide what they think.