Interior Chinatown
Ratings169
Average rating3.8
This book was thoughtful and original, and I can see why it has received so much attention, but it wasn't for me. I generally don't enjoy “art about art,” so the Hollywood satire and the screenplay stylization were wasted on me.
I enjoyed the richly developed background and its reflection of the experience of Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans, and would have read more of this. But storytelling got in the way for me, and then the last 1/3 of the book took a left turn into a long expository speech that called up feint memories of Atlas Shrugged (with my apologies to Charles Wu for making that hurtful comparison) and bulldozed all the quiet, subtle commentary that came before.
I didn’t mind this book, but I didn’t quite care for it either. The formatting of the story started to get confusing and annoying as I went along. There were good parts and a few that made me chuckle but then main points the author is making are stated but not worked on.
I felt there could have been a little more to this book. By leaning more towards satire or by expanding on the social themes brought up this book could have been more focused.
The author tends to repeat issues too much in the book and the courtroom scene just put me off. Still, it’s not a bad read and not very long.
One of the easiest 5-star ratings I've bestowed in more than a decade of GR reviews. Surrealistic metafictional screenplay about the Chinese-American experience and racial stereotyping in general, told with anger, sadness, and humor. I devoured the whole thing in a few hours but it will linger in my mind for much longer. One of the few prestigious literary prize winners (National Book Award, 2020) that IMHO is both accessible and worthy of the honor.
N.B. I understand that there is now an Interior Chinatown TV series streaming on Hulu. I have not seen it, and I'm not sure I want to watch anything that could potentially blemish a perfect reading experience.
This is probably the simplest yet most unique book I've read this year. There's no plot—just vibes—but the emotional depth is something you can really sink into. A lot of the experiences feel like they're pulled from the author's own life or his family's, but they hit on something universal about the immigrant experience. It's such a warm, straightforward book, full of love, sadness, and small, beautiful joys. I also love how he sticks to the screenplay style all the way through, even in the acknowledgments. I'm really curious to see how they'll bring this to life as a TV show.
By the time he's done, you might understand why a seventy-seven-year-old guy from a tiny island in the Taiwan Strait who's been in a foreign country two-thirds of his life can nail a song, note perfect, about wanting to go home.
Interior Chinatown constantly teeters between heartwrenching and hilarious. It uses a unique format to parse out what it means to be pigeonholed, to dream only within the confines of the discrimination you face. How it feels to be ignored until or unless you are the victim of a hate crime.
The screenplay approach reminds me (though just a little bit) of the pieced together feel of an epistolary novel. It is a little more surreal and abstract, but is deeply real and intensely felt. It is an absolute trip, an entertaining whirlwind masterpiece. It is a new favorite of mine. I felt like I was reading at 2x speed, I could not get it into my brain fast enough.
I have not quite read anything like it, but it did call to mind [b:Fierce Femmes|32279708|Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars|Kai Cheng Thom|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1480517872l/32279708.SY75.jpg|52903547] and Scott Pilgrim at different points.
I didn't expect the screenplay layout going into this book, but it kind of fits with the message the author is putting across. The main character and other people in INT. CHINATOWN are just playing roles typecast by society which they have then stuck by, not realising that they can be more than that.
Despite almost 200 years since setting foot on America, Asians are still segregated by that phrase - ‘Asian'. It's interesting to consider the truth that when you are asked to describe an American, it is a generalised white person.
A book that everyone should read, despite it's odd format. Understandably, it won't be for everyone but it hit home with me due to my own background and race.
“Who gets to be an American? What does an American look like?”
No flaws detected.
The writing style of this book (being written like a script) might not be for everyone, but the substance is amazing. You can always listing to it as an audiobook.
Yu's exploration of race and class and what it means to be an American is unique, heartfelt and funny. I zipped through this book, but didn't miss several passages tucked away throughout of beautiful writing and deep meaning about family and love and striving and what it means to be alive. Loved it.
Really inventive concept! It was sometimes hard to get my bearings on exactly /what/ was going on, but I think that gave the book more flexibility to play and highlight its message. It got a little preachy near the end but in general I liked it, especially as an Asian woman with complicated feelings about my role in the fight for racial justice. Made me think about ageism a lot too
To jak na razie najlepsza książka, jaką przeczytałam w tym roku. Wspaniała, niebanalna opowieść o losach emigrantów w USA. Naprawdę gorąco polecam.
“To be yellow in America. A special guest star, forever the guest.”
4/5. This book is probably best read as only semi-fiction. There really isn't much of a plot, and what plot there is really just functioning as an expansive metaphor for the place that Asian-Americans have in American society today. When taken in this light, this book does have a lot of really sharp and provocative insights into the Asian-American experience, the glass ceilings and the box that society continually puts them in.
“You're here, supposedly, in a new land full of opportunity, but somehow have gotten trapped in a pretend version of the old country.”
Black and White
“Chinatown and indeed being Chinese is and always has been, from the very beginning, a construction, a performance of features, gestures, culture, and exoticism. ... Figuring out the show, finding our place in it, which was the background, as scenery, as nonspeaking players. Figuring out what you're allowed to say. Above all, trying to never, ever offend.”
“The two words: Asian Guy. ... Two words that define you, flatten you, trap you and keep you here. Who you are. All you are. Your most salient feature, overshadowing any other feature about you, making irrelevant any other characteristic. Both necessary and sufficient for a complete definition of your identity: Asian. Guy.”
”... while your community's experience in the Uniteed States has included racism on the personal and the institutional levels... you somehow feel that your oppression, because it does not include the original American sin—of slavery—that it will never add up to something equivalent... Your oppression is second-class.”
“Why doesn't this face register as American? Is it because we make the story too complicated? ... If we haven't cracked the code of what it's like to be inside this face, then how can we explain it to anyone else?”
Very quick read. Written in such an original and enjoyable way. I would recommend the comic The Good Asian to anyone who likes this book.
The book comes out of the gate roaring. Innovative, fun and interesting, but then... more of the same for the entire book to the point of quickly becoming repetitive and boring. It picks up again at the end but that wasn't enough to cancel the feeling that this is a short story excessively stretched to a full book.
Book-club read [UoG]:
I liked this but didn't love it. Perhaps it's just a little bit too clever for its own good (or maybe I'm just slightly stupid). At its core it's a man trying to see who he is and where he fits in the world. Wu, the protagonist, is attempting to progress through the hierarchy of Chinese-American stereotypes.
I found the teleplay format interesting but it prevented me from fully immersing myself in the book. Perhaps the characters themselves were too insubstantial to encourage empathy. Excepting the background stories of Wu's parents, when Yu wants he can paint perfect images with his words.
I recognise that being White I am naive and privileged, the American laws which suppressed Asians and particularly Chinese citizens until quite recently horrified me (I'm also not American, much of their law would probably horrify me if I knew about it). Having read this book I think I will look differently at the ways characters are portrayed on screen, how often (or perhaps seldom) they just get to ‘be'.
Very interesting writing style. Made reading very entertaining. Also had great insights.
Man this book was so good. I loved the format, I loved the weirdness, I loved the character treatments and the journey of self-discovery that Willis went on, and how although it was fantastical it was rooted in a very honest and harsh reality. A plus.
I'm glad I stuck with this book. At first, I didn't understand that the TV show construct wasn't real and couldn't quite get into the story. Once I understood that “Interior Chinatown” is an allegory, I was able to get into its groove. We get a glimpse into Willis Wu and his family members' everyday feeling of being walled off and not treated as American, of feeling lumped into the titular monolithic Asian-ness.
This book is really inventive and has me interested in reading one of the author's influences, “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life” by Erving Goffman.
I wish Goodreads allowed half stars because this is really 3.5 stars, not 3.
I really enjoyed this. It feels like a very personal take on what it means to be an Asian American, yet it is an extremely stylized telling as it's often written in the form of a screenplay AND in second person, which I'm not sure I've ever seen outside of short stories. And it GOES PLACES the further you get into it (which isn't too long, the audiobook was just over four hours). I still need to process my thoughts and do some reading / podcast listening to understand this better.
The widest gulf in the world is the distance between getting by and not quite getting by.
Creative, bold, funny.
“He is guilty, Your Honor and ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Guilty of wanting to become a part of something that never wanted him.”
This was a really good book, and my first addition to my 2021 favorites shelf. It's less a story and more a narrative framing device used as social commentary about the Chinese American experience. The book follows Willis Wu, “Generic Asian Man”, as he describes growing up and wanting so bad to become what he thinks is cool – Kung Fu Guy from TV and movies. He grows up, fights hard to become what he thinks the ideal Chinese American should be, then discovers that he didn't want that after all.
What I described is only the framework of the book. The real meat and potatoes comes in the form of social commentary about what it means growing up Asian American, both on a personal level and at a societal level. How the roles one plays as an Asian American on television doesn't seem to end when you leave the set, that you always feel like you're performing for your fellow Americans, because they have a set idea of what an Asian American should be and how they should act.
I really liked the point of view this book exposed me to. I found myself thinking a lot about what was said even when not actively reading it. While the storytelling isn't necessarily straightforward, I think the message is.
Weird, i decided to give a bunch of the books in the 2020 Best of Goodreads a go. This one was in the Fantasy Category. I cannot fathom why on earth it was there, but who cares, it was a little gem of a book. Short but long enough so the structure works to effect but does not become tiresome. The messaging is on point and given in a light enough satirical voice to not be lecturing.