China Men
by Maxine Hong Kingston
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Vintage (New York): 1980. Trade paperback: x, 310 pages. ISBN-10: 0-67972-328-5 Suggested retail price: $12.00 (US) Award: 1981 National Book Award for General Fiction (Hardcover) Tags: Biography; China; Historical Tactical strength: [6/10] |
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Kingston's work is difficult to place as either biography or historical novel. In many places she identifies facts that she has projected from her own life onto that of her ancestors' stories. In either case the text functions as a postmodern commentary on the state of Chinese Americans. Kingston shows how myths were a functional part of the lives of her ancestors, and that the myths served a purpose -- they helped her ancestors adapt or cope with their situations.
It is this function of myth that seems to break down at the end of the text. When she relates the story of her brother in Viet Nam, she is unable to tell what information will be mythically important to future generations. So to compensate, she seems overly verbose, providing too much information that was unnecessary in her other stories. In the stories of her ancestors, Kingston could see the relationship of the myths to her ancestors and to herself. She doesn't have the advantage of a distanced view for the events in recent times.
In spite of this slowing of the narrative at the end, the text is successful in questioning the myths that exits today about the Chinese Americans. It demonstrates how the Chinamen were a major work force in building the American West, and yet they are still viewed as outsiders that were trying to take advantage of the success that was built by people of European descent.
