English

April 27, 2009
Wang's novel—based partially on his own experience—of learning English study during China's Cultural Revolution—is rather botched by a confusing performance by Christopher Lee. Lee's stop-and-start reading, overly careful parsing and somewhat stilted performance of the book's dialogue impedes listeners from immersing themselves in this critically and commercially successful Chinese novel. The pauses, rather than adding to the drama, conspire to suck it out of this story of totalitarian inhumanity, familial squabbling and the glories of learning English. Lee sounds like he is reading from a script he is unfamiliar with, with meaning and momentum taking a backseat to his careful pronunciation. A Viking hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 2).

February 2, 2009
For 12-year-old Love Liu, foreign languages are a way of life: he lives in gossipy Xinjiang in far northwest China, where the sounds of Uyghur, Russian and Chinese mingle. But when Second Prize Wang, a dashing English teacher from Shanghai, arrives at his school, Love Liu wonders what use it would be to learn English. However, he's enamored of the confident and cosmopolitan teacher. Love Liu dives into his studies and soon befriends Second Prize Wang, and their unconventional friendship becomes one of the only constants in Love Liu's world as the Cultural Revolution wears away at the people of Xinjiang. Love Liu's friends are smacked with accusations, his school gets closed down for months at a time and his parents are alternately lauded and condemned. The more quotidian aspects of the novel can be repetitive—Love Liu cycles endlessly through the same handful of teenage tribulations—but the novel's larger portrait of Love Liu and Second Prize Wang's friendship emerges with touching clarity and provides a perfect counterbalance to the corruption and confusion of the Cultural Revolution.

ENGLISH is the fictionalized story of Wang Gang's coming-of-age during the Cultural Revolution in the Xinjiang region of northwest China. Twelve-year old Love-Liu is fascinated by the new English teacher, Second Prize Wang, who comes from Shanghai; wears cologne, a wool jacket and leather shoes; and owns a rare Chinese-English dictionary. Michael Sun Lee creates believable characters using accents and timing. Love-Liu's anger, confusion, and self-absorption are palpable; he's a teenager who can't conform when conforming is all important. Second Prize Wang's unusual--for the times--courtliness and respect are adeptly conveyed. The Cultural Revolution is merely a backdrop ("in those days"), but Lee does evoke the starvation, violence, and fear of the period. A.B. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine