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A review by storyorc
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The shifts in and out of screenplay formatting over the course of this novel illustrate performance vs reality so well, it feels like Yu is cheating. Unbelievable mileage from form. It makes me want to read more novels by authors who also write for TV (Yu was a story writer of Westworld) and are used to having at least two dimensions, auditory and visual, through which to convey meaning.
The voice is wry and funny, but only because Yu kindly invites us to laugh instead of cry or rage. Even terrible moments are delivered with understated irony that makes its point deafeningly clear in what is left unsaid. This changes in a pair of detailed speeches at the end which, on first glance, seem to blunt the novel by delivering cinematic summaries of the themes that have so far been set to simmer. But these speeches are in screenplay format; even when Yu's characters get to voice the unfairness they live with, they must do so in the bombastic, feel-good Hollywood style of today's 'woke' blockbusters. Such films are fun, and better than pure stereotype roles of cinema past of course, but the more satisfying conclusion occurs after that scene cuts, back with the intimacy of prose in a family home.
Thoroughly unafraid of the complexity of race relations in the States, the novel also includes a black man and white woman who play the leads in the TV show our protagonist, Willis Wu, works on. Their own on-script and off-script personalities emerge as those two spheres bleed into each other. Both misstep and both express feelings of being trapped beneath their own ceilings. Yu's nuanced interrogation of oppression leaves room for intersectionality.
The only thing that annoyed me while reading (apart from the endless microaggressions) was how Willis chases his 'Kung Fu Guy' glass ceiling over the more sustainable sources of self-worth in his life. However, not only is this endlessly relatable, the warning it serves is core to the book and pertinent to any oppressed group. If Interior Chinatown is saying anything, it's demanding that Americans of non-Asian descent look harder, and that Americans of Asian descent stake their self-worth outside of such a short-sighted system.
Whole essays could, and should, be written on this book. With its innovative form and pertinent social commentary, it better be headed for the curriculum.
The voice is wry and funny, but only because Yu kindly invites us to laugh instead of cry or rage. Even terrible moments are delivered with understated irony that makes its point deafeningly clear in what is left unsaid. This changes in a pair of detailed speeches at the end which, on first glance, seem to blunt the novel by delivering cinematic summaries of the themes that have so far been set to simmer. But these speeches are in screenplay format; even when Yu's characters get to voice the unfairness they live with, they must do so in the bombastic, feel-good Hollywood style of today's 'woke' blockbusters. Such films are fun, and better than pure stereotype roles of cinema past of course, but the more satisfying conclusion occurs after that scene cuts, back with the intimacy of prose in a family home.
Thoroughly unafraid of the complexity of race relations in the States, the novel also includes a black man and white woman who play the leads in the TV show our protagonist, Willis Wu, works on. Their own on-script and off-script personalities emerge as those two spheres bleed into each other. Both misstep and both express feelings of being trapped beneath their own ceilings. Yu's nuanced interrogation of oppression leaves room for intersectionality.
The only thing that annoyed me while reading (apart from the endless microaggressions) was how Willis chases his 'Kung Fu Guy' glass ceiling over the more sustainable sources of self-worth in his life. However, not only is this endlessly relatable, the warning it serves is core to the book and pertinent to any oppressed group. If Interior Chinatown is saying anything, it's demanding that Americans of non-Asian descent look harder, and that Americans of Asian descent stake their self-worth outside of such a short-sighted system.
Whole essays could, and should, be written on this book. With its innovative form and pertinent social commentary, it better be headed for the curriculum.