The thing that immediately stands out the most about Charles Yu's Interior Chinatown is that the entire novel is written in the style of a screenplay. The level of dedication fades in and out throughout the novel, sometimes speaking to the reader in large paragraphs, and other times recounting pages of character dialogue for scenes, with names included as headers. This style ends up bleeding into the reality of the writing, and creates a really fascinating reader experience of piecing together what is happening in Willis Wu's world and what is happening within the Black and White show.
Several times throughout the novel are characters or their information made unclear through the screenplay design. Many characters are referred to by their title in the screenplay, and this leads to a disconnect between who is who. The earliest examples of this are Older Brother and Dead Asian Man. Older Brother is explained to be the last person to play the role of Kung Fu Guy, which now heightens confusion with another non-descriptive role. Though Willis refers to this man as Older Brother, they aren't related at all. Following this confusion, we face a different challenge with Dead Asian Man. There isn't anything to wonder about this character with their title: they are an actual Dead Asian Man in Willis' complex. However, after reports of the Dead Asian Man get out, the leads from the Black and White TV show come and investigate the death. This is highly unusual, as these are likely just actors and NOT cops, investigating a very REAL death (Yu 67-76). This now begins a complex argument in the reader's mind to figure out how much of what we're being told is being told truthfully.
Yu's artificial confusion brings out a greater idea of racial homogony in media, and how to avoid it. The story is told mostly from a second-person point of view, but the narrator still manages to be untrustworthy through these aforementioned confusions. These misleadings, true or not, all blur the lines between characters, between real and fiction. Yu makes it very clear that race is held at greater importance than the individual characters novel. Almost every screenplay title associated with an Asian refers to some Asian stereotype without and unique features. The goal is to blend these characters together. They aren't special or important, at least they're not supposed to be. They're supposed to be extras in a cop show about a black and a white cop. But in telling this story as a screenplay, through the eyes of one of those extras, we see the greater picture of racial treatment in film, and likely in general for Asian Americans.
Interior Chinatown is, at its core, a story about viewing racial barriers from the side being barred, all the while dealing with the inevitable unimportance being handed to these characters. Through all of this inequality, Willis Wu is still able to carve out a life and importance, both within the confines of the screenplay and within the minds of the reader, proving that background characters can step into the limelight, from Generic Asian Man to Willis Wu.
This blog post speaks of one of the key elements in the story: character naming. There are very few characters who receive a personal name in the story. Even those with a name, such as Willis’s mother Dorothy, are often referred to as their screenplay name. Dorothy is titled as Old Asian Woman or, in her younger years, Pretty Asian Hostess, among many others. Charles Yu uses titles in his novel to name characters, as one would in a screenplay. The screenplay, as the blog explains, blurs the lines between reality and a TV show. This unique character naming also blurs the distinction between the character titles in the show and the “characters” played by the residents of Chinatown in the real world.
ReplyDeleteThe point Willis, and Yu, makes in the novel is there is no difference between actor titles in a show and the roles in day to day life played by Chinese-Americans. Chinese-Amercians are expected to speak with an accent and play to the stereotypes given to them. Willis titles himself as “Generic Asian Men,” who works in a Chinese restaurant, and even reminds himself to speak with an accent. Willis, however, does not naturally have an accent, being born in America and growing up speaking English. Every title given to the characters in the novel is a perception of what they should be in the real world. Willis, a man who looks Asain, should speak with an accent. The famous Chinese-Americans should be good at Kung Fu (hence why the level of achievement as Willis sees is “Kung Fu Guy”). This connection between perception and reality reveals the racism and stereotypes given to Chinese-Americans. It uncovers a common and accepted practice of the day.
As the blog mentions, while the reader is left to discover which parts of the novel are real and which are merely a screenplay, the ambiguity is key to the novel. Without the screenplay, the author would not be able to portray the roles played by the characters, nor would it be able to portray the impact those roles have on the people living them.