SOURCE: "Fulbright Monkey in China," in The Los Angeles Times Book Review, October 11, 1987, p. 8.

In the following review, Yu compares the trickster in Vizenor's Griever with the Mind Monkey in Chinese literature.

In religion and folklore of Africa and of North and South America, the trickster is a familiar figure often distinguished by his cunning, skill, penchant for adventure and mischief, sexual energy, and frequently exaggerated body parts. True to his name, this mythic figure, which unites in his (or her) person traits of the divine, the human, and the animal, would exploit deceit and trickery to overcome all obstacles or opponents. In the struggle for survival, the trickster is both iconoclast and tribal/cultural hero; he destroys in order to transform and re-create.

As conceived by its author, the trickster of this tale [Griever: An American Monkey King in China] is first and foremost a person of...