KOREAN AMERICAN FICTION::
FOX GIRL by NORA OKJA KELLER
EAST MEETS WEST:The Making of an Oriental Yankee by YOUNGHILL KANG
and...BOY GENIUS by YONGSOO PARK

The first Korean-American novel was Kang's East Meets West published in 1937 by Scribner's (via Kang's friendship with Thomas Wolfe). Kaya Press has recently republished it with blurbs from Wolfe, Elaine Kim, and Chang-rae Lee to argue the obvious fact that it's a classic. Written vaguely in a similar style and length as Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again, it also has similar dated problems/charms: a latinate lyricalness coupled with bloated extended metaphors. It is historically significant as a documentation of one of the last Koreans to emigrate in the 20s before the US's gates closed. Giving a nicely biased and personal picture of NYC chinatown and harlem, it pictures early northeastern american anti-asian racism rather quaintly through Kang's lens. The book's strong thematic gambit is the detailing of two archetypes of expat experience: a worldly aristocrat of deep eastern and western learning who languishes rather tragically and absurdly in the bohemian life and an equally worldly ladies' man pragmatist. Of interest to the interested...

Potentially more important is the current trajectory of Korean-American fiction, which is dealing with the (now somewhat old) problem reflected in all the hyphenated identity literature: what to do beyond the assimilation question? The two new titles that fell on my radar were FOX GIRL and BOYGENIUS -- the gendered nouns in their titles about the only relationship tween the two... FOX GIRL by Keller is a sour disappointment, breaking no new ground. I'll leave it at that...

BoyGenius however, is a winner. Part of Brooklyn based Akashic Books' Urban Surreal series, it's an example of a) the continued gutsiness and necessity of small presses and b) what really should be a cross-over hit.

In this hilarious and perfectly paced Candide update, Boy Genius tumbles the journey from KBS television-star-child-prodigy to east coast street urchin to west coast new economy suit to avenging ghost. Yet the story never succumbs to its (lesser) cartoon possibility, but functions, despite its fantastic plot, within the wound of reality. And it is a wound, a constantly renewed scarification that Boy Genius first discovers, then weeps for, and finally raises a finger to.

A fierce satire which maintains its humanity, Boy Genius is also a unique event in Korean-American fiction. It recasts the confessional prose of assimilation-conflict driven narratives -- via the imagination -- into a scathing accusation of geopolitical corruption as well as a description of the defiance immigrants currently wage in (as they always have) of bricholaging a consistent sense of self. A new landmark in the landscape of Korean-American literature.


LINKS:
Buy BOY GENIUS from the publisher
BOY GENIUS makes Small Press Distribution's Best Selling Fiction list!

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Dear diary, i know my voice is a little strained a little tense a little brittle. Moving -- for all my experience with it -- just keeps getting harder. The moms is alright and i'm actually glad to be back in gotham.

...Caught Spiderman with cornelius, O! and also saw LES DESTINEES by assayas: what a guy! And married to Maggie Cheung! ...so have had a little R&R but my pacing's all off and i apologize dear for not being the usual self. will fix the routine, up the chamomile and get all snuggly with my bad self any day now, i keep saying.
baby steps.

Or as the venerable chogyam trungpa sez: "Then one has to channel it differently, without the eagerness and without the fascination, but going step by step -- as it says in the Scriptures: at an elephant's pace. You have to walk very slowly, unemotionally. But walk with dignity, step by step, like an elephant walking in the jungle."

so.
To the elephant mind.

Love,
-e

FORREST GANDER'S TORN AWAKE

Alright, been awhile, i'll spare you the details and traumas, get right to the chase:

New found friend Cornelius, in addition to being an expert on typewriter key "action", is also a poetry junkie and has hipped this square cat, ahem, to some new tunemakers.

To whit: Forrest Gander has a previous book out called Science & Steepleflower which i haven't read but which garnered some attention. Writing about poetry, i'll admit, is like writing about art -- little confidence save the fact i'm unapologetic about what i like. That said, Torn Awake is notable to me for some brilliant poems about fatherhood. Not the only impacting thing about the book, but the ones that I was most fond of. I'll let the following speak of Gander's worth and perhaps my own sentiment (but see how parental fear and mutual knowledge of risk's necessity output to):

=====================
VOICED STOPS

Summer's sweet theatrum! The boy lunges through
The kitchen without comment, slams the door. An
Elaborate evening drama, I lug his forlorn weight
From floor to bed. Beatific lips and gap-

Toothed. Who stayed late to mope and swim, then
Breach chimneys of lake like a hooked gar
Pressing his wet totality against me. Iridescent
Laughter and depraved. Chromatic his constant state. At

Ten, childhood took off like a scorched dog. Turned
His head to see my hand wave from a window, and I too saw
The hand untouching, distant from. What fathering-
Fear slaked the impulse to embrace him? Duration:
An indefinite continuation of life. I whirled out wings. Going
Toward. And Lord Child claimed now, climbing loose.

--------------------------------------------

Her whimper pitched high, the greyhound dream-
Races on kitchen tile. He scraped back a chair
And hunches against morning's cool:
Nates to heels, knees to chin, t-shirt

Stretched over the foreshortened
Bulge of him. Bowl-of-Chex mouthfuls
Mostly open. A newspaper turns: voluptuous
Acousitcs of home as bird hits

Window, walls tremble. The concussion
(Crushed breast) blots the pane (broken
Neck) with an impact mark: a solid
Host-white print the breadth

Of a child's fist from which
The ghost-trace of wingbones upcurve.
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-------------->[compare that to Zukofsky's rendition of fatherhood in his Little]

Gander's faculty page at Brown U.

The Academy of American Poet's Gander page