The Foreign Student: A Novel

Very hard to read if English is not your primary language.

This book tells the tale of Chang (Chuck), a twenty-five year-old Korean man, who relocates to Sewanee, TN as an exchange student in 1955. The narrative of how Chang (called "Chuck" by his his superior, an American working for the USIS in Seoul) gets to Sewanee is one tale. It is interwoven with that of Katherine, whose family comes to Sewanee from New Orleans to summer. The braiding together of these two stories is unlikely and I felt at sea for about the first quarter of the book. The novel then picks up steam, or gets the wind in its sails (choose your metaphor for forward motion) and what unfolds is unpredictable and really interesting. Chuck and Catherine are both loners, outsiders for different reasons, measured in their assessments of themselves, each other, and the small-college townfolk that surround them. When you finally read of their respective journeys (difficult in such different ways but which each predicate, for me, on the movement of their body through space and time--or history), do you pity them? To be sure, they do not pity each other, and the way they dance away from and around the mores of 1956 Sewanee (and some other, unpredictable locales) is interesting to watch. Choi keeps her characters front and center and sees them clearly. Her prose is similarly clear, admirably free of cliche.

This is one of those novels that grabs one's attention from the beginning. I liked Choi's matter-of-fact way of explaining her characters, but I also found I couldn't get overly involved with them. It didn't matter to me which man Katherine ended up with (and it was clear she *was* going to end up with A Man); I was merely curious to find out. The book pulls its reader along almost urgently for about 2/3 of the way. Then, alas, it snags on characters' inner thoughts as Choi tortures language to be as thorough as possible, and, yet, somehow, the characters don't come into any sharper focus. She's got a lot of talent, but perhaps needed an editing hand with some of the later exposition passages in this book. The book's worth reading because her talent is evident, and the subject makes one think.

I typically don't want to read books by KA authors, especially when they write about the Korean war. It's hard to simply enjoy because of authenticity. However, this book haunted me, and I found myself completely spellbound. It was delicately written like poetry, each word leaving you thought provoked. I'm writing this review long after reading it, and I still remember the book, still remember feeling so moved. I highly recommend this book.

Actually there were multiple stories told and cleverly woven together. It took me a while to get into the writing style but once there, I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

Wonderful book. Easy to read. I know the author's father and the book is loosely based on his life.

Beautiful, pristine

Book used for reading ..

Interesting topic, one learns much about Korean society and attitudes forged during wartime, although less about the cultural and social difficulties faced by immigrants in US society. In this her first novel she indicates considerable potential as a writer, despite a few stylistic weaknesses (no literary allusions, no ironic touches, little attention to sentence length and rhythm) and a jerky narrative development. Instead of attempting to get into the heads of different characters, always a problem for narrative development, one wishes she had have composed her story solely through the eyes of her protagonist Chang/Chuck (she alternates between the two names confusingly). But it was her first novel, and more recent efforts have proven her talent as a writer.