Storytelling

A discussion on an online food board on the topic of food related novels led to the mention of a recently published book called The Family Chao about a family of Chinese-American immigrants who've run a Chinese-American restaurant in a small town in the Midwest for decades. This prompted me to search for reviews for the book, many which laud the work for the author channeling Dostoevsky in this depiction of the family. However, one of the first reviews I read started thusly:

"Whenever I come across a story about the Chinese American immigrant experience, I must read it. I'm forever trying to find that connection with others like myself, with people and characters who can somehow put into words a confounding experience, one I am still trying to figure out, even after so many years."

and the reviewer goes on to express disappointment with how this particular novel fails miserably in this regard. I posted a comment on this review, suggesting that the target audience wasn't Asian Americans, while the work did carry on in the The Joy Luck Club tradition of depicting Asian men as hopelessly dysfunctional and Asian women sympathetic victims of that dysfunction. I'm not sure I've ever met an Asian American male who hasn't disliked The Joy Luck Club for that. 

When I began working in the business world, it was ingrained into me that every document I ever produced was permanent, and I had to be aware of who my target audience was when I composed anything I wrote, even if it was a two word email. I submit that with the advent of social media, this idea should be ingrained into every user of social media. But I digress.

Moving forward, I need to remain intentional about this blog in terms of content and intended audience. The reality is that authors need to check themselves and identify agendas which may influence the work. In some cases, the author is matter of fact about it. A good example of this would be the late Henning Mankell, author of the very popular detective series featuring Swedish detective Kurt Wallander. Ostensibly, Mankell was writing detective thrillers but in reality Henkell, an ardent Communist, was writing about what he described as the Swedish Anxiety, which was a result of the liberalization of Sweden, and his murders were tied to the failure of welfare, relaxed immigration policies, etc  while Wallander continually questioned the state of Swedish society which always seemed to be falling apart. Henkell's last book in the series, written shortly before the author's death is in many ways a giant "f--k you" to the readers living in countries with democratic governments. I find it highly ironic that any liberal fan who may still view Sweden as some sort of cultural utopia to emulate missed the point Mankell was trying to make with his books.