On reading this novel I was constantly reminded of the lyrics from Pink Floyd's 'Learning to Fly' - marvellous words that perfectly capture the magic of flying, aloft from the troubles and cares of life on earth below. And so it is for Jerry Battle, middle aged, middle class, European man of south Italian descent, second generation small business owner with plenty of troubles and cares on his shoulders to keep him awake at night. And yet, until these small simmering problems reach a crisis point, which of course in the made up world of the novel they do, dear old Jerry really has no commitment whatsoever to sorting his problems out. So what are the things going wrong? Firstly and probably the most significant is the tragic death of his Korean/American wife Daisy when his children were young. I would say he never really dealt with his grief properly - his wife was probably manic depressive, and was not an easy person to live with. He remains strangely ambivalent about this monumental tragedy which left him a widower and sole parent to a son and daughter. The second major issue, is that Rita, his long time partner/step mother to his children, whom he met after his wife's death, beautiful, loving and probably the most well-adjusted person in the whole story, has just left him. It doesn't take much to figure out why. Thirdly his dear old father, living in a retirement home, truly hates where he lives, and actually strikes me as being far too with it to be there in the first place. Maybe that is what they do in suburban communities in America - pack all the old people off to retirement homes! Fourthly, the family business that his son Jack now manages, is about to hit the wall. Jerry can see it happening, but is unable to really do anything about it. Lastly his lovely daughter Theresa, strange mixed up sort of young woman, is engaged to the perfect son-in-law Paul, and has dropped the twin bombshell of pregnancy and cancer.Plenty of issues in life to deal with? No wonder he spends as much time as possible in the air. The novel gently unfolds with Jerry battling (ha ha) primarily with himself to sort these people in his life out, and of course in the process find his own self. There is plenty of picking away at the facade that each person has put up to get to the core and so begin the process of rebuilding relationships. It is all very tenderly and, and in some instances hilariously done. The tennis match between Jerry and his old school mate Richard over the lovely Rita, is just brilliantly captured. And so so funny. As is another episode at a family birthday party hosted by Jack and his conspicuous consumption wife Eunice. There are beautifully depicted conversations between Jerry and Theresa - the anguish of a father trying to do right by his troubled daughter, but struggling with expressing it, and the daughter still fighting behind the barriers she has erected over the years. I imagine so typical of many parent/child relationships. The author is of Korean descent and I have also read his previous novel 'A Gesture Life'. One of its themes was the alienation those of other cultures experience in modern day America. I was actually expecting more of this in 'Aloft', particularly in light of Daisy's mental health, her death, and her children's experiences, as 1/4 Korean, along with the Italian from their father, in growing up. It is interesting that Theresa's husband to be is Korean/American himself. But there was very little of this. This really could be any family in any middle class community setting. The author's writing is worthy of a review in itself. For me, the book is way too long. Too much pontificating, procrastinating, and philosophising. And his sentences!!! Long, long, long. One sentence has approximately 130 words, three sets of phrases in brackets, and only five commas. And there are many others like it. These long monologues detracted from the story and I did find them annoying! However as a study of a family evolving, being challenged and coming out the other side, it is really well done and quite moving.
This is the second Lee book I've read where I had grave doubts, at the beginning, that I was going to enjoy the novel, but ended up completely captivated by the end. This was a remarkable tour of a character's mind, a character who describes himself on page 246 thus:I haven't been much of producer or founder, nothing at all like Pop, or millions of other guys in and between our generations, rather just caretaking what I've been left and/or give, and consuming my fair share of the bright and new, and shirking almost all civic duties save paying the property taxes and sorting the recycling, basically steering clear of trouble, the mode of which undoubtedly places me right in the vast dawdling heart of our unturbulent plurality but does my little good now.The character - Jerry - is clearly a pain in the ass to live with, and hard to get meaningful communication out of, but we're on in the inside of his head, and he's smart, and kind, with good ethics that he sometimes screws up, but understand how and when when he does so. I love that he's read all his daughter's books, and those of his son-in-law, and while he complains fondly about his daughter railing on his post-Freudian this or his colonialist that and his inability to consider the critical ramifications of the socio-economic something else, it's beautiful to see that he's not only been listening to her, but internalizing everything she says. I loved this peek inside someone else's mind, inside the workings of a family held together by love that it's not really proper to speak of, and that the characters often appear to know intellectually rather than feel, but it holds together all the same.
Do You like book Aloft (2015)?
Another gem from Chang-Rae Lee. I really enjoy his writing, more importantly he actually has something to say. How many books have you read and after 300 or 400 pages nothing was said? I knew it.This book is about those of us (you know who you are) going about life in a sort of cruise control, not that one need be comfortable to do so, but those who find a zone allowing them to carry onward through the fog and stick with it. Viewing events around from the aspect of how it affects themselves, not seeing how setting the cruise control may have effected those events. Not necessarily keeping everyone and everything at arms length, but more maintaining a 'cushion' around themselves. I know, at times, I've been accused of just that (often), even been given examples...again and again (grin). Our narrator, Jerry, is that guy. In my opinion Jerry just never found anything to fuel the fire we all have, at least early in our lives. When he does find that exciting thing, later in life, he actually uses it as a tool to maintain his personal cushion. His world doesn't disassemble around him, though it definitely changes and we have a clear view to his perspective to it all. Fortunately, the fog begins to clear for Jerry.
—Ed Rogers
I bought Aloft for two reasons: first of all, it was on the bargain book table at Booksmith. But, more importantly, it is by Chang-Rae Lee. A few years ago, I read another book of his for my contemporary novel class, Native Speaker. For me, Native Speaker was one of those books that seemed like it was written just for me. It's easily one of my favorite books of all time. I didn't enjoy Aloft as much, but like Native Speaker, it tackles the themes of race and family and how those both factor in to identity. Also like Native Speaker, it is very well-written.I think the reason that I like Lee's books so much is that they are about life situations that are entirely different from my own and yet are completely relatable. Native Speaker, in particular, focuses on race and assimilation, but it is framed in such a way that it's not just about how being Korean American affects the main character, but how we are all shaped by our families and our language and our geographic roots. I also appreciate that the characters, despite some extraordinary traits (the protagonist of Native Speaker, for example, is a spy), are pretty normal. They are no better or worse than the rest of us. They have strengths, sure, but they aren't saints. Similarly, they have weaknesses, but they aren't rapists or murderers. The characters are just like people that any one of us might know.In particular, both Native Speaker and Aloft strike a personal chord with me because I know that so much of who I am is because of my family, for better or for worse. In fact, I'm probably a lot like Theresa in Aloft. As a teenager, she deliberately distances herself from her family and tries to be the opposite of what her father is (hey, don't we all to some extent?). And yet, because of that she is probably even more defined by her family than her brother, Jack, even if the definition is the opposite, if that makes sense. She comes around in the end, though, and is ultimately the "glue" that brings her family closer together than ever. Okay, so I'm not so conceited as to think I'll be the glue that brings my family together, but I have come to appreciate my family a lot in my twenties.So, I really enjoyed Aloft, but nothing like the way I did Native Speaker. I also think the latter might appeal to a broader audience, so I highly recommend it and only recommend Aloft for people who have agreed with some of my other book reviews on this blog.
—Becca
Jerry Battle, a man who has largely escaped being too involved in his own life, is now facing retirement - but life goes on. His estranged (and engaged to someone else) lover is slipping away, his son is running the family business into the ground, and his daughter is making reckless and drastic life decisions in the midst of her engagement.Reads very much like Richard Ford or like Richard Russo, but I struggled w/ the sentence structure. Too many asides separated by a sea of commas that you had to swim through to get to the meat of the sentence.However, there are moments of brilliant insight - Lee delves into the American pysche - why do we spend, why do we work, what does success look like, what is love? What matters? Jack, after almost wasting his entire life being only partially there, escaping whenever the going got rough, not taking responsibility for the way his own life and the life of his family was going, finally starts to solidify - to reappear. He's an intensely human character finely and intimately drawn.
—Holly
