Lee takes exquisite look at life's uncertainties
CASEY Han has studied her way to what should be a clear path to success.The daughter of Korean immigrants who toil in a laundry graduated from an Ivy League school with a degree in economics. But within days of her graduation from Princeton University, she is homeless, nearly penniless and humiliated by a cheating boyfriend.
The first novel by Min Jin Lee (pictured)<$><\p>— a Korean immigrant who went to Yale University — looks at the precarious time after college graduation when dreams may not be realised, carefully laid plans can collapse and life can take unexpected and often difficult turns. Casey, who has been raised to believe that education will lead to success, learns the cruel lesson that connections often matter as much or more than hard work.
The beauty of Lee’s novel, however, is that it does not focus solely on Casey’s sojourn from naive pride to self-realisation — as compelling as that is.
Her sub-plots and supporting characters are complex and intriguing, and the story is told by an omniscient narrator so that the reader has insight into every character’s thoughts.
This technique works particularly well in a scene showing how cultural and gender differences lead to the date rape of a middle-age Korean woman.
Lee is particularly insightful in her examination of the distinction between sex and love and want and need. Some of the most moving passages look at the transformation in a largely unsympathetic character who makes the socially unacceptable mistake of falling in love with his mistress. He realises that his well-brought up and wealthy wife was “the house on the hill he’d dreamed of buying. But he could never relax in her presence”. Instead, his mistress, who shared his hard-scrabble background, “was like home to him”.
Lee also takes an unshrinking look at money and its place in immigrant and American culture. Casey, who craves expensive and beautiful things even as she is haunted by debt, reflects that her boyfriend, who comes from a wealthy family, does not fear poverty because he has never experienced it.
She both loves and resents a wealthy benefactor, reflecting that the gifts lavished on her created “a binding indenture enforced by gratitude”.
The book’s title comes from an ironic moment in which wealthy Wall Street traders rush a free lunch buffet. Casey, who is interviewing for a job, barely manages to grab an appetiser before the food is cleared.
“The funny thing,” one trader tells her, “is that if you were a millionaire like some of these managing directors shaking down seven figures a year, you’d have known to push your way ahead and fill up your plate. Rich people can’t get enough of free stuff.”
The novel’s one shortcoming is an open ending that some readers may find unsatisfying. More than four years have passed. Casey has decided that Wall Street, investment banking and a master’s degree in business administration are not for her. But she is as uncertain of her future as she was the day she graduated, and her relationship with her divorce-damaged boyfriend remains unresolved.
But at the same time, the lack of closure seems almost fitting — a reminder that in life, as in Lee’s writing, the pleasure is often in the journey, not the finish.
