Aloft: A Book Review
Dear Chang-rae Lee:
I read _A Gesture Life_ on a recommendation and found it generally moving. I then read _Native Speaker_ and found it personally moving. I just finished reading _Aloft_ and found it only occasionally moving. Some of those occasions were profoundly moving but on a whole, I was surprised this was work from the same author as AGL and NS. This was a book that seemed to try really hard to be something other than what it was. This book seemed to be an imposter of sorts.
What I like about these 3 novels is your delicate toying with time. Memories weave their way into the present which then suddenly becomes the past and before you know it, we’re sitting where we were realizing we never actually left. The other 2 novels were so illuminating for me especially as, then when I read them, I was a relatively young, Asian American divining resonance for cultural identity.
ALOFT is an anagram of FLOAT. These two stations hold critical significance for Jerry Battle in how he approaches life. The former permits a certain elusiveness and possibility while the other is governed by the mercy, grace and vestiges of gravity.
Jerry Battle’s life is interesting and I enjoyed learning about it however, it seems disingenuous that you would write an entire novel from a white male’s aging perspective. Not because you’re an Asian American male but because it seems as if you’ve employed various devices here that are generally applied toward elucidating the Asian American’s story, in fact you’ve used these devices in your other novels. You declare that Jerry can command action from others with a look or a word and yet his choices are compliant and flimsy. You’ve explored the identity struggle for Asian American males and this is a common struggle in literature and film. AGL and NS resonate this theme so to apply it to this retired landscaper of European descent seems unfair to readers who are familiar with your work. I suppose if you are trying to undo stereotypes of middle aged white men, then it could be more plausible but as a fan of your other work, this was a glaring challenge.
I tried diligently to understand Jerry’s POV and why you cared so much as an artist to explore it. I think the one major take away idea that I won’t soon forget is Jerry’s stated tendency to be “suspicious of the special” and I have to wonder if this is commentary on the nature of society’s current hyper-focus on cultural distinction, and perhaps of your own alignment with the growing opposing movement: “…we’re at the general point in our lives when almost all the heaviest lifting has been done, and you can finally begin to measure yourself by the usual units of accomplishment but by the plain stupid luck of your draw in a macrocosm rigged with absolutely nothing particular about you in mind” (276).
Jerry’s expressions based in cultural theory pointing to the complex workings of power and privilege were strange and awkward. Using Theresa’s background in higher ed made for a very poor, albeit convenient, device to explain Jerry’s ability to think in terms of such intellectual density. I applaud the idea but the execution was inadequate. It seemed there was a need to appeal to your colleagues and yet the repeated use of Theresa’s rants just loosened the mechanism all together. Theoretical framing and conceptualization of various events were a distraction and I felt bad for Jerry because it’s not his fault you needed his character to feign a certain intellectualism. Paying attention to the “Real” grew old quickly. It seemed like one of those tricks actors use before they perform a show that has a really long run…see where you can stick this word or expression just for the sake of making the event more interesting for the players, or in this case the writer. I grew accustomed to the constant back referencing, in an often self-effacing tone, but I didn’t for a moment find it believable. Despite not being believable, I did still appreciate the story telling.
You also apply the kinship living model to the Battle family and that seemed really odd. A living situation involving multiple generations is a hallmark of Asian cultures and to see it applied, even if haphazardly, to the Battles seemed unnatural and implausible. I realize this may have been an endeavor to illuminate ways in which this group was not only diverse but compatible in spite of that diversity but still it seemed a far too convenient resolution.
Every artist is entitled to choosing one’s content but when you have a big ol’ photo of you on the back cover of this white man’s story, it reads a little unusual. And it would if it were a white artist writing about an old Asian dude too - maybe not to everyone, but to some of your Asian American fans, it might. I don’t expect you to choose content that is distinctly Asian related but I do find this perspective unsettling in light of having loved and learned from your other novels. Using cultural identity as a platform to propel a story has been a particularly effective writing strategy for you. I do feel, however, that _Aloft_ simply misses the mark in some critical ways. I felt that you overcompensated quite a bit as a result of writing outside your familiar parameters. I also felt that the recognizable voice threading AGL and NS crept in too often to tell Jerry’s story. The many appeals toward some sort of explication were a bit overwhelming and Jerry seemed pathetic throughout the telling of his tale, no matter how much bravado and humility he tried to express.
While you never name it, I have to say that your handling of Daisy’s bipolar disorder and eventual suicide was very well done. After reading passages to my husband, he wondered aloud, how you must know it so well to write of it without cliché. Daisy’s bouts with rage, self-medication, unusual flurry of high energy and final moments are poignant and spot on. How *do* you know so well? “I simply wanted the continuous promise of lift, this hope that I could in my own way challenge gravity’s pull…” (201). Perhaps in a way in which his once beloved and ill-fated Daisy couldn’t?
The idea of teetering seemed to be a theme with which I resonated. From Daisy’s own medical ordeal to that of her daughter’s, from Jerry’s flying to Jack’s hope-laced risk taking, to the Transitions wing at Ivy Acres, there is a myriad of examples where characters hover between choices and/or stations in/of life. I do think you manage to tap into a significant measure of how we qualify our quality of life by addressing these occasions of teetering. It’s in that imbalance where life intensifies and perhaps can be said - truly matters. Jerry doesn’t merely teeter though; he hovers over these places, physically and figuratively: “…there’s a nano-fine and mostly philosophical distinction between falling and flying. Or fearing and fighting…” (324). I do think the ending was rushed and that Jerry needed to be more present in his role affecting Theresa’s fate. Donnie, the plane, served as both tomb and womb with Jerry at its helm. The gravity of such a role in steering such an entity seemed grossly overlooked.
Starting the novel in the air and ending it below ground level was thought provoking. Undoing seemed to be a theme I resonated with and reopening the pool and finding his way to its bottom represented a courageousness I didn’t realize I had been waiting for Jerry to demonstrate. Imagining him standing at the bottom of the pool, I realized the other shoe had finally dropped. The suspension, that delicate sense of hovering that laced the novel collapsed and as Jerry faced his own gravity, we too had opportunity to sink with him.
More Quotes I Liked:
Because when you’re up here and aloft and all you’re really trying to do is figure a word for the exact color of the sky, or count the whitecaps risen in a certain square of sea, or make sense of the infinite distance between yourself and the person driving his car on the lonely dead-straight road below, you don’t want to engage in the familiar lingering intimations, allusions, narratives, all that compacted striated terra-firma considerations, but instead simply stir with this special velocity that is in itself worth the whole of any voyage, this alternating tug and weightlessness of your constant departure (312).
“Life stays thick and busy, on the ground” (330).
Thanks for the read -
ENK
I read _A Gesture Life_ on a recommendation and found it generally moving. I then read _Native Speaker_ and found it personally moving. I just finished reading _Aloft_ and found it only occasionally moving. Some of those occasions were profoundly moving but on a whole, I was surprised this was work from the same author as AGL and NS. This was a book that seemed to try really hard to be something other than what it was. This book seemed to be an imposter of sorts.
What I like about these 3 novels is your delicate toying with time. Memories weave their way into the present which then suddenly becomes the past and before you know it, we’re sitting where we were realizing we never actually left. The other 2 novels were so illuminating for me especially as, then when I read them, I was a relatively young, Asian American divining resonance for cultural identity.
ALOFT is an anagram of FLOAT. These two stations hold critical significance for Jerry Battle in how he approaches life. The former permits a certain elusiveness and possibility while the other is governed by the mercy, grace and vestiges of gravity.
Jerry Battle’s life is interesting and I enjoyed learning about it however, it seems disingenuous that you would write an entire novel from a white male’s aging perspective. Not because you’re an Asian American male but because it seems as if you’ve employed various devices here that are generally applied toward elucidating the Asian American’s story, in fact you’ve used these devices in your other novels. You declare that Jerry can command action from others with a look or a word and yet his choices are compliant and flimsy. You’ve explored the identity struggle for Asian American males and this is a common struggle in literature and film. AGL and NS resonate this theme so to apply it to this retired landscaper of European descent seems unfair to readers who are familiar with your work. I suppose if you are trying to undo stereotypes of middle aged white men, then it could be more plausible but as a fan of your other work, this was a glaring challenge.
I tried diligently to understand Jerry’s POV and why you cared so much as an artist to explore it. I think the one major take away idea that I won’t soon forget is Jerry’s stated tendency to be “suspicious of the special” and I have to wonder if this is commentary on the nature of society’s current hyper-focus on cultural distinction, and perhaps of your own alignment with the growing opposing movement: “…we’re at the general point in our lives when almost all the heaviest lifting has been done, and you can finally begin to measure yourself by the usual units of accomplishment but by the plain stupid luck of your draw in a macrocosm rigged with absolutely nothing particular about you in mind” (276).
Jerry’s expressions based in cultural theory pointing to the complex workings of power and privilege were strange and awkward. Using Theresa’s background in higher ed made for a very poor, albeit convenient, device to explain Jerry’s ability to think in terms of such intellectual density. I applaud the idea but the execution was inadequate. It seemed there was a need to appeal to your colleagues and yet the repeated use of Theresa’s rants just loosened the mechanism all together. Theoretical framing and conceptualization of various events were a distraction and I felt bad for Jerry because it’s not his fault you needed his character to feign a certain intellectualism. Paying attention to the “Real” grew old quickly. It seemed like one of those tricks actors use before they perform a show that has a really long run…see where you can stick this word or expression just for the sake of making the event more interesting for the players, or in this case the writer. I grew accustomed to the constant back referencing, in an often self-effacing tone, but I didn’t for a moment find it believable. Despite not being believable, I did still appreciate the story telling.
You also apply the kinship living model to the Battle family and that seemed really odd. A living situation involving multiple generations is a hallmark of Asian cultures and to see it applied, even if haphazardly, to the Battles seemed unnatural and implausible. I realize this may have been an endeavor to illuminate ways in which this group was not only diverse but compatible in spite of that diversity but still it seemed a far too convenient resolution.
Every artist is entitled to choosing one’s content but when you have a big ol’ photo of you on the back cover of this white man’s story, it reads a little unusual. And it would if it were a white artist writing about an old Asian dude too - maybe not to everyone, but to some of your Asian American fans, it might. I don’t expect you to choose content that is distinctly Asian related but I do find this perspective unsettling in light of having loved and learned from your other novels. Using cultural identity as a platform to propel a story has been a particularly effective writing strategy for you. I do feel, however, that _Aloft_ simply misses the mark in some critical ways. I felt that you overcompensated quite a bit as a result of writing outside your familiar parameters. I also felt that the recognizable voice threading AGL and NS crept in too often to tell Jerry’s story. The many appeals toward some sort of explication were a bit overwhelming and Jerry seemed pathetic throughout the telling of his tale, no matter how much bravado and humility he tried to express.
While you never name it, I have to say that your handling of Daisy’s bipolar disorder and eventual suicide was very well done. After reading passages to my husband, he wondered aloud, how you must know it so well to write of it without cliché. Daisy’s bouts with rage, self-medication, unusual flurry of high energy and final moments are poignant and spot on. How *do* you know so well? “I simply wanted the continuous promise of lift, this hope that I could in my own way challenge gravity’s pull…” (201). Perhaps in a way in which his once beloved and ill-fated Daisy couldn’t?
The idea of teetering seemed to be a theme with which I resonated. From Daisy’s own medical ordeal to that of her daughter’s, from Jerry’s flying to Jack’s hope-laced risk taking, to the Transitions wing at Ivy Acres, there is a myriad of examples where characters hover between choices and/or stations in/of life. I do think you manage to tap into a significant measure of how we qualify our quality of life by addressing these occasions of teetering. It’s in that imbalance where life intensifies and perhaps can be said - truly matters. Jerry doesn’t merely teeter though; he hovers over these places, physically and figuratively: “…there’s a nano-fine and mostly philosophical distinction between falling and flying. Or fearing and fighting…” (324). I do think the ending was rushed and that Jerry needed to be more present in his role affecting Theresa’s fate. Donnie, the plane, served as both tomb and womb with Jerry at its helm. The gravity of such a role in steering such an entity seemed grossly overlooked.
Starting the novel in the air and ending it below ground level was thought provoking. Undoing seemed to be a theme I resonated with and reopening the pool and finding his way to its bottom represented a courageousness I didn’t realize I had been waiting for Jerry to demonstrate. Imagining him standing at the bottom of the pool, I realized the other shoe had finally dropped. The suspension, that delicate sense of hovering that laced the novel collapsed and as Jerry faced his own gravity, we too had opportunity to sink with him.
More Quotes I Liked:
Because when you’re up here and aloft and all you’re really trying to do is figure a word for the exact color of the sky, or count the whitecaps risen in a certain square of sea, or make sense of the infinite distance between yourself and the person driving his car on the lonely dead-straight road below, you don’t want to engage in the familiar lingering intimations, allusions, narratives, all that compacted striated terra-firma considerations, but instead simply stir with this special velocity that is in itself worth the whole of any voyage, this alternating tug and weightlessness of your constant departure (312).
“Life stays thick and busy, on the ground” (330).
Thanks for the read -
ENK