LIT 132w: Jen / Typical American

LIT 132: Comparative American Literatures
Summer 2001

Gish Jen, Typical American (1991)
One of the most exciting new American writers, Jen is the American-born daughter of Chinese immigrants from Shanghai. A pre-med English major at Harvard (B.A. 1977), she also attended Stanford Business School and the Iowa Writers' Workshop (the latter only a few years after Cisneros had been there.) She is an accomplished short story writer as well as a novelist; one of her stories was recently selected by John Updike for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories of the Century (she's one of the youngest writers in the collection). Typical American is her first book. Jen's other books include:
• Mona in the Promised Land (1996)
• Who's Irish? (1999) - short stories

Pre-reading questions:

This is our third installment in the "Promised Land" unit of this course. What new twists does Typical American add to what we might call the 'immigrant' tale? What old roads does it revisit?
One might draw a number of parallels to both My Antonia and particularly The Great Gatsby. As you read, make note of the different ways the plots, or images, or characters converge. Does Jen's novel pointedly recapitulate either of these previous texts? Or revise them? How? Why? (You might particularly compare the endings of the three books.)
"It's an American story," we are told on the first page of the book. How so? What does this novel seem to say about the meaning -- or making -- of American identity? For that matter, what does the novel say about the meaning -- or making -- of ethnic identity?
In a related vein, what exactly does "typical American" mean in this book? Does its meaning stay the same over the course of the novel, or does it change? How?
Take some time to think about the narration of this book. In both Cather's and Fitzgerald's novels, we had very prominent first-person narrators -- narrators who were not only the tellers of the tale but figures within it. Here we have a third-person narrator. Or do we? At times does it seem as though we are listening to a story (or stories) told by the characters themselves? Look at pp. 54-55, for example.
Think, too, about the construction of the story. Why five parts? Why these parts? Where do the story's divisions occur, and why?
House, home, household -- these are prominent architectural and even interpersonal motifs in the novel. What do homes, or houses, or households mean to the various characters? How do houses help to organize characters' feelings? Or to stifle them?
Faith, self-actualization, 'imagineering' -- does the novel take these activities seriously, or does it mock them? What is (to quote the title of a book given to Ralph) 'the power of positive thinking' in this novel? Another version of this question: where does power lie in this book? In the self? In others? In action? In stillness?
On p. 108, Grover Ding tells Ralph that the secret to life is "Keep moving." Is it, according to this novel?
What is the role of humor in this text? Of the characters? Of the author herself?

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