#katherine min

[alexsfictionaddiction]

Review: The Fetishist by Katherine Min

I love a weird book and that's what I was expecting from a cover and a title like this. It actually turned out to be less weird as such and more of a social commentary on race relations, misogyny and grief. However, it was done in a highly unique way, which I really appreciated.

The book follows three characters. Kyoko is a punk singer who is desperate to avenge her mother's death by kidnapping the man who broke her heart. Daniel is a successful violinist and Kyoko's target. Alma is a former cellist with multiple sclerosis and the love of Daniel's life, who is reflecting on whether she has ever really had true love before her life is over. When Kyoko and her boyfriend manage to kidnap Daniel, absolutely nothing goes to plan.

Kyoko is ravaged by grief for her mother and she is desperate to take out the man she believes is responsible for her death. I also felt that Kyoko was also just angry at the way that Asian women like her mother are treated by white men like Daniel. It was a much bigger thing than just her mother and Daniel and that was an overriding message of the book.

As you might imagine, there is plenty of fetishization of Asian women in the book. There are assumptions, generalisations and prejudices all over the place and as they pile up, it enhances the reader's despisal of Daniel and men like him. We become a champion for Kyoko, a woman who is committing crimes, which is a really interesting mindset to read from.

Daniel's ex Alma, a Korean American, is also a victim of fetishization. In her reflections, she despairs at the hopelessness of finding her uniqueness if she apparently looks just like every other woman of her race. I'm not sure I've ever read a book that touches on this before and I'm really glad that I was exposed to Alma's profound albeit melancholy thoughts.

Alma's story offered a really valuable insight into how fetishization affects those who are fetishized. Alma questions whether she has ever really been truly loved or whether she has just been fantasised about, which was a really heartbreaking realisation. I have no doubt that many women of ethnic minorities have gone through the same thought processes and will find some connection there with Alma.

I also learned a lot more about MS through Alma's chapters. Her symptoms seemed to flare up suddenly and their slow development meant that she gradually lost the ability to do what she loved and what she was good at -playing the cello. I'm sure this is how many long-term chronic conditions manifest and her experience with it won't be unique. I understand that Katherine Min herself had breast cancer and that The Fetishist was published posthumously, so although the illnesses are not the same, a lot of the feelings and struggles were potentially similar.

The Fetishist is an exploration of how Asian women are viewed by society and how this affects them. It's also a story of a grief-stricken daughter fighting these ideals in order to avenge her mother and the story of a woman coming to terms with how life has treated her before she leaves it all behind. It is a moving, thought-provoking read but I couldn't help feeling that the ending was all too neat for the themes. It's not like racial or gender prejudice has gone away or like it's easy to quash, so having an ending that doesn't really reflect that was a bit jarring.

[fictionz]

He wanted to say that America was a country where there was only the future. From the day he had arrived, with twenty-five dollars in his pocket, he had been swept forward into tomorrow and the next day, awed by the driving possibilities of life without tradition, without the past. There were no memories for him in America.

“The One Who Goes Farthest Away” by Katherine Min

[thirdintifada]

“It’s a secondhand world we’re born into. What is novel to us is only so because we’re newborn, and what we cannot see, that has come before- what our parents have seen and been and done- are the hand-me-downs we begin to wear as swaddling clothes, even as we ourselves are naked. The flaw runs through us, implicating us in its imperfection even as it separates us, delivers us onto opposite sides of a chasm. It is both terribly beautiful and terribly sad, but it is, finally, the fault in the universe that gives birth to us all.”

[observando]

It’s a secondhand world we’re born into. What is novel to us is only so because we’re newborn, and what we cannot see, that has come before- what our parents have seen and been and done- are the hand-me-downs we begin to wear as swaddling clothes, even as we ourselves are naked. The flaw runs through us, implicating us in its imperfection even as it separates us, delivers us onto opposite sides of a chasm. It is both terribly beautiful and terribly sad, but it is, finally, the fault in the universe that gives birth to us all.

Katherine Min, Secondhand World

[jaegerjaques]

It’s a secondhand world we’re born into. What is novel to us is only so because we’re newborn, and what we cannot see, that has come before- what our parents have seen and been and done- are the hand-me-downs we begin to wear as swaddling clothes, even as we ourselves are naked. The flaw runs through us, implicating us in its imperfection even as it separates us, delivers us onto opposite sides of a chasm. It is both terribly beautiful and terribly sad, but it is, finally, the fault in the universe that gives birth to us all.

Katherine Min, Secondhand World

[acontentmentwithobscurity]

She often could not articulate her thoughts; they seemed like objects glimpsed peripherally, skittish and ungraspable, splinters and fragments that would not add up to much if bundled together; they refused to stand still for examination. For this reason, she was largely silent.

[it-was-probably-nothing]

She often could not articulate her thoughts; they seemed like objects glimpsed peripherally, skittish and ungraspable, splinters and fragments that would not add up to much if bundled together; they refused to stand still for examination. For this reason, she was largely silent.

Katherine Min

[jaegerjaques]

It’s a secondhand world we’re born into. What is novel to us is only so because we’re newborn, and what we cannot see, that has come before- what our parents have seen and been and done- are the hand-me-downs we begin to wear as swaddling clothes, even as we ourselves are naked. The flaw runs through us, implicating us in its imperfection even as it separates us, delivers us onto opposite sides of a chasm. It is both terribly beautiful and terribly sad, but it is, finally, the fault in the universe that gives birth to us all.

Katherine Min, Secondhand World