American Knees (Shawn Wong)
In his second novel, Wong discursively traces the course of true love through the rapids of ethnicity, feminism and Asian stereotypes. Second-generation Chinese-American hero Raymond Ding's cultural and amatory uncertainty goes back to a schoolyard taunt, "Are you Chinese, Japanese, or American knees?" that he has responded to with overcompensation, particularly in love. As a dutiful firstborn son, he marries a Chinese woman (whose hierarchical family runs a restaurant empire); after getting a divorce as well as a position in Minority Affairs at a California college, he carries on a slightly sententious affair with Aurora Crane, a young half-Japanese Midwesterner. Raymond, Aurora and the other characters spend much of their time talking, whether about relationships or other subjects ranging from interracial dating to Hop Sing, the Chinese cook on Bonanza. This allows Wong plenty of trenchant observation and sardonic commentary, but the dialogue tends to advance the plot without adding much momentum or insight into the characters mouthing it. Though the story winds up reuniting its principals through a deterministic plot twist, its power is dissipated by the disembodied telephone debates over hyphenated identity.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"You won't even be Chinese after your wife's attorney gets through with you," Raymond Ding's attorney tells him after Darleen has filed for divorce. Raymond wonders if you can be a lapsed Chinese the way you can be a lapsed Catholic. After all, divorce is a number one failing for a number one son - who hasn't even gotten around to starting a family after seven years of marriage. What can Raymond say in his own defense - "I used to be Chinese, but my wife got custody of my ethnicity"? But extricating himself from wedlock is only the beginning of Raymond's problems. When he meets beautiful half-Japanese Aurora Crane, he learns that it's impossible to negotiate the shoals of modern romance without banging his shins on questions of race, culture, and identity he thought he'd left behind in the schoolyard ("What are you, Chinese, Japanese, or American knees?"). Equally uncomfortable with the expectations that family and society, Asian and non-Asian alike, have heaped upon them, he and Aurora try desperately - and comically - to fall out of love.
Intéressant ce livre. Je ne connaissais pas du tout Shawn Wong et j’ai trouvé son nom en faisant des « recherches » pour mon challenge. En revanche, le titre m’a attirée tout de suite. Evidemment, je ne savais pas à quoi il faisait référence. Il s’agit apparemment d’une chanson de cour de récré (et on connaît la finesse de certaines d’entre elles) « Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees ». Voici ce qu’explique Shawn Wong :
Wong explained in an interview the title "American Knees": "When I was a child, kids used to come up to me and ask, 'What are you: Chinese, Japanese or Americanese?", while some asked if I was "Chinese, Japanese or dirty knees?"
"I never really knew what that meant when I was a kid," Wong says, "but I knew I didn't like it."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Wong
J'ai beaucoup aimé ce livre qui traite des expériences diverses vécues par les Asiatiques aux Etats-Unis au XXème siècle. Je ne savais pas par exemple que the Chinese Exclusion Act empêchait les immigrés chinois de devenir Américains et de faire venir leur famille. Le livre est intéressant de ce point de vue. Le ton du roman est plutôt humoristique, en particulier les dialogues entre Aurora (d’origines irlandaise par son père et japonaise par sa mère) et son amie Brenda (d’origine japonaise). Le moins que l’on puisse dire, c’est qu’elles ne sont pas tendres avec les hommes asiatiques. J’ai beaucoup moins apprécié les scènes de chambre parce qu'elles étaient un peu trop longues et un peu trop verbeuses (y'a vraiment des gens qui parlent comme ça ?). C’est bien de vouloir casser les stéréotypes, mais on avait compris la première fois. Il n'empêche que ce roman est vraiment bon.