Review: The Joy Luck Club (by Amy Tan)

My Rating:  5 stars

Catch up review #3

I read The Joy Luck Club for the first time many many years ago, when I was a teenager in high school.  At the time, despite my shared background with the characters in the interconnected stories (the "Americanized" daughter of Chinese immigrant parents), I was too young to fully understand the significance of the book from a cultural perspective.  Re-reading this book now, as an adult, is a completely different experience for me, in large part due to the insights that I've gained from the 4 decades I've spent (and continue to spend) navigating my cultural identity. 

Consisting of 16 interconnected stories narrated alternately by 4 pairs of Chinese mothers and their Chinese-American daughters, Amy Tan's debut novel is a powerful exploration of the struggle between the mothers and daughters to relate to and understand each other amongst the cultural and generational disparities that define their relationships.  As I mentioned earlier, reading The Joy Luck Club this time around felt very different from when I did so in my youth — in addition to picking up on nuances with language that I didn't notice previously, most significant was the resonance I felt in the experiences of the various characters. Not only did I recognize aspects of myself in each of the daughters, I also recognized the struggles  in each of their relationships with their mothers — relationships fraught with misunderstandings, communication issues, unspoken hurt and pain, defiant silences, etc., yet ultimately rooted in love and the unbreakable bonds of family.  Each story had a familiar experience or feeling that I recognized and related to.  In the story "Without Wood," for example, I understood exactly where Rose was coming from when she kept hesitating time and time again to tell her mother An-Mei about her impending divorce because she was trying to avoid the criticism, judgment, and unwanted advice that was sure to follow her revelation (avoiding criticism from our mothers is pretty much a way of life for many Chinese daughters). The story "Two Kinds" brought tears to my eyes because I understood acutely the sense of failure that comes with not living up to my mother's hope and expectations (not to mention the argument about obedience and the expectations of a Chinese daughter that Jing-Mei has with her mother Suyuan echoes ones I've had in the past with my mom).  In the story "Rules of the Game," I commiserated with Waverly when her attempt to rebuke and defy her mother leads to her getting the silent treatment (which is something I've experienced countless times growing up). These were just a few examples among many.

But it wasn't just the daughters' experiences that I related to — the stories told from the mothers' perspectives were also profound in the way they provided clarity to some of the cultural circumstances that informed the mothers' lives, which in turn, affected their behaviors toward their daughters.  In these stories, I was able to recognize some of my own mother's experiences as well as things she's told me in the past that, at the time, I may not have understood the significance — these stories then, had the effect of helping me reflect and make better sense of things. 

Aside from being able to resonate with the characters' experiences and feelings on a personal level, I also appreciated coming across so many cultural references in the book that I grew up hearing about — a few examples: the Moon Lady story, the tale of Old Mr. Chou (I was also told the tale when I was a kid), the superstition about rice husbands (this was a huge one in my family), the historical details about China from some of the mothers' stories, etc.

With all that said though, the biggest thing that sets this book apart from so many others about the Chinese-American experience is the writing.  Tan writes in a way that, on the surface, appears simple and straightforward, but when you look deeper, there is a masterful complexity to it that, quite frankly, blows my mind.  In my previous review of Tan's novel The Kitchen God's Wife, I touched on how brilliantly she uses the mechanics of language to create nuance and meaning — this is certainly the case here as well.  At the same time, Tan's writing is also thoughtful, meticulous, and sincere — all qualities that, to me, are absolutely necessary when it comes to books (and stories) about cultural experiences.

I'm usually not a huge re-reader, especially nowadays when I have so many books I haven't yet read that I actually want to read.  But some books are worth taking the time to re-read —The Joy Luck Club is definitely one of them.  

Review: The Writing Life (by Annie Dillard)

My Rating:  3 stars

One of my goals this year is to continue my quest to read as many books about the craft of writing as I can.  This month, I decided to pick up Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Dillard's famed book of essays on the craft, The Writing Life, which I had heard many good things about. 

Indeed, when I started the book, it was actually very engaging and I found myself highlighting many insights that resonated with me. Unfortunately though, as the book progressed, it started to become less and less accessible to me.  Dillard's prose is elegant and lyrical and yes, her metaphorical descriptions of things are beautifully rendered — but there was too much of it, in my opinion, to the point that it felt overwhelming, and after awhile, it became harder and harder to pay attention.  My mind started to wander and I ended up having to re-read things several times — putting the book down and picking it back up a few days later did help, but not by much.  Luckily, the book was very short (a tad over 100 pages), so I was able to push through and finish it (though it took me nearly a week to do so, which bothered me a bit).

Overall, I think this book just wasn't for me, especially at this moment in my life.  While I appreciated the insights it provided (I did write down a few things that were helpful and that I definitely want to remember), it came across a little too highbrow and abstract for me in some places — which is why I decided to go with a median rating of 3 stars.  Perhaps if I were to revisit this book at a later time, when my journey as a writer is more mature, I will have a better appreciation for it.

Review: The Remains of the Day (by Kazuo Ishiguro)

My Rating: 4.5 stars rounded up to 5 stars

I struggle to write this review because honestly, I'm at a loss for words at the moment.  So perhaps let me backtrack and talk first about why I chose to read this book in the first place.  One of my Goodreads challenges this year is the A to Z Author Challenge where I need to read a book by an author whose (last) name starts with each letter of the alphabet.  The last letter I needed in order to complete this challenge was the letter "I" and after changing my choice a few times, I decided to read a work by an author I had heard plenty about but up to this point hadn’t had the opportunity to experience for myself yet.  Of course, that author is none other than our newly crowned Nobel Laureate, Kazuo Ishiguro.  I’ve known about his masterpiece The Remains of the Day since the 90s and I’m pretty sure I even saw the movie way back when too, but I had never read the book, primarily because it had never been assigned as required reading in any of the literature classes I had taken back then (those were the days where rarely anyone read classics for leisure and so most exposure to classics was through school/classroom setting).  It has been nearly two decades since I’ve been out of the "school" environment and now I can finally say that I’ve read this book – most importantly though, I didn’t just read the book, I actually enjoyed it too!

I’m actually not sure what else I can say about this book that others haven’t already said.  Beautiful, wonderful, brilliant, subtle, multi-layered, philosophical, thought-provoking...these are just some of the words I’ve heard used to describe this book and I absolutely agree with all of them!  Ishiguro is a masterful writer and the way he was able to render the narrative so beautifully, yet subtly, with everything that was not said being equally as important as what was said – very few authors have the ability to utilize language in such a way as to make a story so philosophical and subdued in nature still be so enthralling.  This book definitely left me with much food for thought, so much so in fact that I’m still kind of speechless, hence the rambling nature of this review, as I really don’t know where to start in terms of putting down my thoughts, so I think I will keep it brief and instead just encourage everyone to read this book.  I also think this is a book that needs to be read more than once -- slowly, thoughtfully -- in order to truly understand and appreciate its brilliance.  For me, this was an excellent read with which to end the year (and also complete my challenge) but no doubt I will be coming back to this book again some time in the near future and hopefully at that time, the words won’t escape me again and I will be better able to express the myriad of thoughts going through my mind after finishing this wonderful masterpiece!