I enjoyed reading the Native Speaker by Chang Rae Lee. One thing I did not like about the book so far is the character Lelia. The story she loves to tell is when they first met. Personally, I do not understand what is so exciting about the story. The conversation they have is mainly about stereotyping, and pointing out the differences between in ethnicity between the two. They both criticize each other’s speech. Henry says that hers is too perfect and Lelia says that he is too careful when speaking English. I think Lelia is trying to go around the bush to say that his English will never compare to hers. One example is when she makes him pronounce her name. As a speech therapist, she probably knows that anyone who says her name will pay more attention to saying the word. I think she is trying to state that Henry’s is a native speaker without deliberately saying it, even though I think Henry knows this. I think he knows that because when Lelia says he was saying her name so carefully he replied, “So are you” (Lee 12). Henry says, “The lengthy Anglican goddess, who’d measure me ceaselessly while I slept, continually appraises our vast differences, count up the ways” (15 Lee). Right from the start Lelia has put Henry in the position where as she is superior to him in language, she is this “goddess.” Henry stated that “Maybe she thought certain clues would arise from the primordial pool to make sense of our eventual difficulties” (13 Lee). I think the clues are obvious. She criticized Henry’s English speaking abilities, and in the list, she did the same. Maybe she felt like she was back doing her job being with Henry. She was so used to criticizing language she should have married someone who did not have language difficulties. Maybe the reason she goes away so much to escape the language barrier she and Henry have. It is ironic how she calls herself “An average white girl…” (10 Lee). An average white girl back then did not marry someone native. She continues that sentence to say, “An Average white girl has no mystery anymore, if she ever did. Literally nothing to her name” (10 Lee). It seemed as though she was searching for something, and maybe she though she would find it marrying Henry. Maybe at the time she thought that Henry had that “mystery” she longed for. Before Henry told her, Lelia could not guess what his name meant ethnically, maybe she like this mysteriousness about him. It seems that so far, she is this mysterious woman, she goes on mysterious trips, to mysterious locations, she is very unpredictable and maybe she wants her life to be like that.
In a way, I thought it was kind of fate as to how they met. The two had no intentions of meeting each other yet ended up talking the whole night about a subject that they each had different views on; like they say, opposites really do attract. I don’t think that Lelia intentially was trying to call Henry out. She was the one that didn’t see it as such a big deal. Henry, as the narrarator, brings this point out early on in the story to show his self-conscious side in regards to both his culture and speech issues. I think we’ll see a different side to both characters as we read more into the book.