Rebecca. F. Kuang is a 29 year old woman born in China, came to the USA when she was 4. She grew up in Dallas Texas. She went to Georgetown, Cambridge, Oxford and Yale. Yellowface is her 5th novel.
The novel raises many interesting questions. I went for a walk and listened to the first 4 chapters, and I was bewitched, amazed, thoroughly enjoyed it.
Could be called Whiteface because it's an Asian writer writing from a white person's perspective, about a white woman who takes on the persona of a writer about Asian experience. The irony of that, with this narrative is one of the golden threads of the novel.
Didn't know Juniper Song or June Hayward was white until it was fully disclosed, though I did ask the question. It's a glorious tale of jealousy and envy. It's giving me all kinds of squishy uncomfortable feelings I associate with good writing.
I love the novel, it's amazing. It's a page turner, so well written. I'm 1/3 done now but I absolutely love this movel.
It's brilliant to write with a white narrator, who's stolen the rough draft from an Asian writer whose family was affected by the subject. Making her smart but not quite smart enough not to do what she did, and then riding the best selling novel. She rationalizes it with her hard work and she's really put quite a lot of herself into it.
I like the scene with movie rights. I've seen some criticism of the novel, but I don't feel any of it. By having the specific narrator telling the story, I am morally disgusted by her crime, but I also follow her rationalizations and then I've joined her in wanting to get away with it. I'm 44% through the novel and I'm a ball of tension. It's gone from a sick tale of jealousy, to a guilty and trying to get away with something tale.
I read The Help for a book club, and in a way I did feel uncomfortable when I found out a white woman wrote it. I wouldn't say you can't write about other races than your own.
It's a real meditation on social media. It's a meditation on twitter. I've mostly ignored twitter since Musk did his sieg heil. But I do like Bluesky and Reddit. It is something you do when you have too much time on your hands or a lack of focus. What can seem interesting, isn't really of note. Course in the whole scheme of things when the sun expands and engulfs earth, very little from humans will be relevant, unless we find other planets to inhabit. The novel is good at conveying the ephemeral nature of twitter.
The fantasy about being a writer is deftly taken care of with ordinary concerns as you life evolves. Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.
The story is so good, that I can imagine Juniper Song reading this blog post in her voice. She takes it home to the finish, and there's a taught tight plot that would be a page turner, if I wasn't listening to it. Great book, I love it. Loved thinking about rationalization, identity, writing, publishing, social media. Highly recommend this book.
I fell asleep and missed my book club, so I didn't get to hear others opinion. Super bummer.
Comments
Post a Comment