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Dr.
Lee, the Protagonist of Susan Choi's third novel, A Person
of Interest, works at a second rate university's mathematics
department in which its professors know that they are second
rate and that they will never attain recognition for their
work as professors, especially amongst younger, more brilliant
professors at universities with bigger names.
However,
their department does have one shining star: Dr. Hendley,
a young professor in the department's nascent computer science
section. Loquacious, beloved by his students who gather around
his office in droves, in a solid relationship with an attractive
female professor, and at the top of his field, the sky is
the limit for Hendley. It is for these reasons and more that
Lee dislikes Hendley, and it is for this reason that Lee does
not feel sorrow when Hendley is seriously wounded by a mail
bomb explosion in the office next to Lee's own; rather, Lee
feels almost a sense of joy because deep in his being is a
deep-rooted jealousy for those who possess things that he
does not.
In his
60s, twice divorced (his second wife, a Japanese woman, took
most of his possessions), and nearly estranged from his daughter,
Dr. Lee is, on the outside, a misanthropic, miserly old man
with whom most people avoid coming in contact. However, underneath
this exterior is a lonely man who keeps his door slightly
ajar, hoping that a student will visit him during his office
hours, hoping that his daughter will visit him, and living
in the memory of his time spent with his first wife who is
now deceased. It is this loneliness that makes Dr. Lee jump
at the opportunity to talk to the press, and state how horrible
the perpetrator who sent the bomb is. He soaks in the glory
of it all but soon retreats back into his shell because he
begins to feel guilty about the "joy" he felt when Hendley
was harmed by the bomb, so he does not attend a school gathering
the next day and also he does not attend Hendley's funeral
after the noted professor passes away.
Along
with the guilt, Lee is also heavily weighed upon by a letter
he receives from Lewis Gaither, a man who attended graduate
school at the same time Dr. Lee did and had been his only
friend until Gaither's wife Aileen left him to be with Lee.
Terrified by how the bomb and letter parallel each other,
Lee comes to believe that maybe he was the true target of
the bomb and that an old grudge 30 years buried has come back.
Yet, Lee has bigger problems. Because of his recalcitrance
to see Hendley at the hospital and later attend his funeral,
government investigators come to his home, and soon he becomes
"a person of interest" who might know about the bombing even
if he is not the perpetrator himself. Soon, not trusted by
his neighbors and peers, Lee comes to desire his old solitary
life.
Choi
spends a great deal of time depicting the mental make up of
Lee's character. The reader learns a good portion of Lee's
likes and dislikes and why he has such difficulty forming
relationships with others. The reader also learns of events
such as Aileen's adulterous affair with Lee and his personal
betrayal of Gaither that eventually turns him into a bitter
man. However, because Choi is detailing such a frankly unlikable
character, the book becomes burdensome; one does not really
care why Lee is bitter because he treats everyone around him
poorly. This aspect of the novel improves as Lee's personality
softens towards the middle of the book. With this aspect in
mind, the narratives of other characters such as Aileen are
actually more enjoyable and easier to read than those dealing
with Lee.
However,
the detailed characterization of Lee, while quite tedious
at times, is also the novel's strongest characteristic. There
is indeed a mystery of who sent the bomb, but the true strength
of the book is creating a portrait of one individual, no matter
how unlikable that one character is. The reader comes to truly
understand Lee and, while not being able to agree with him
on all accounts, comes to sympathize a bit with an unlikable
character.
Aspects
of Lee's personality aside, Choi's does a fine job of showing
how society and the collective perceptions of society control
an individual. When Meursault was on trial in Albert Camus's
The Stranger, he was almost already found guilty by
the court because he did not show emotion at the funeral of
his mother. Because Lee did not put on a show of mourning
like others, something he believed to be undignified for himself
as well as the memory of Hendley, his coldness makes him a
suspect, and he is ostracized from the community in which
he has lived for 30 years.
A
Person of Interest is by no means a great novel and in
a number of ways is also not an enjoyable one, but Choi has
created a complex character study detailing the life of a
bitter, isolated man whose life is destroyed because he does
not act as society believes he should. In a time when nonconformists
are not be trusted, especially if they are immigrants, Choi's
novel could have a stronger impact than it normally would
in more peaceful times.
(July
2008)
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