The shining point of this novel is that the description is vivacious, and the language is humorous. we can see she is deep in love. the theme is good that it is better to have a Chinese character, and American customs.
However, I think there is bad points that the view is a little limited. The story is long and boring in one moment, so that readers would easily get abstracted. There lacks depth in this novel. Maybe it is because novel is concerned about women, but too entangled the relationship is, the fewer worthy to be boasted of.
The Joy Luck Club refers to the novel by Amy Tan, published in 1989. It was adapted into the film by Tan and Ronald Bass, directed by Wayne Wang and released in 1993. It was also adapted into stage play by Susan Kim, first produced in China in 1993.[1] In various forms, tales of four women from mainland China and their Asian-American daughters are told in first-person narratives.
There is no real main character in this story all the characters (and their stories) are equally important and equally engaging. While the book was not a page turner, I did care what happen to all the characters. It was very intriguing to know how all the mothers came to America and how their experiences shaped how the raised each of their perspective daughters. For the daughters it was more interesting to watch them try to navigate being Chinese and American. I did not get the feeling in the book that the mothers ever wanted to fit into American culture and that they did not really what their children to either. They wanted them to have Chinese values with American opportunity. While the daughters just wanted to be Chinese.
At times I felt myself siding with the daughters because to me it seemed that the mothers had no understanding of who their daughters were. It appeared that the mothers just wanted them to be obey all their wishing, sacrificing their own. I don't know if Tan did this on purpose but I is kind of confusing. Because some of the mothers hardship seems to come from just obeying and not thinking. And these women (the mothers) than expect their daughters to do the same thing.
What I really like about this book was the style that it was written in sometimes it was like reading a fairy tale (almost "Like Water for Chocolate") but more realistic. The imaginary was beautiful and caught my imagination quickly. I kept having this thought that I would love to see this as a foreign film where the whole thing has to be translated. I know that there is a movie, I even saw it years ago. But I don't remember the movie being as vivid as the book.
Another positive with this book is that with the daughters Tan was able to portray the idea of what it is like to grow up as a second generation immigrant. In this case not quite American but not quite Chinese. The daughters have to struggle with what their mother are trying to teach them about being Chinese, which often comes out like riddles, and what they think the should know about being American. The mothers and daughters struggle with this battle between being Chinese and being American. Almost like they can't do both.
One of the negatives I had was that the mothers sometimes came for as stereotypes. I think this is sometimes a problem when people of color try to write books that not only speak to their experience and culture but will also appeal to a wider audience.
第1本 喜福會(huì)
書名:The Joy Luck Club
作者:Amy Tan, U.S.A
篇幅:288頁,94982個(gè)單詞
難度:沒辦法用首萬詞來測試,但覺得讀起來并無太大難度。
用時(shí):七天左右
詞典:手機(jī)上的金山詞霸
“I remember this, and more.” said Amy Tan.
I read this, and gained more. I said.
The beginning of the story shocked me when An Mei’s mother wanted to brought the swan to America but only left a feather in hand when she left the port. Every act by the mother reminded me of my mother and grandmother.
I remembered that as an adolescent I longed for independence, satisfied with every chance of rebellion, during which I trapped into deadlock with my mother. I wanted to try every crooked road to break my mother’s prophecy about failure, and then I failed. Mother came by to guide me towards the exit of every dead alley. Yet I still thought she was manipulative, and she still felt worried about my every move.
Growing up made me more sensitive but less expressive. Growing old made my mother much more anxious than before. Ironically, driving along different direction, we were actually toward the same goal. My mother wanted me to be better, be happy and be safe. I knew that from the very beginning. Yet only do I know how much I love her when she is depressed after our every argument.
My grandmother, like the mothers in the Joy Luck Club, was quite superstitious. It looked like my grandmother and I were just two people from exactly different world. She would tell me how brilliant my brother is (thought he is extremely childish and mischievous) but still treated me like her treasure; she would spent thousands of Yuan to get me a simple jade which was said to protect me from all the bad luck. I felt weird towards her thoughts and behaviors, but I knew, it was the act of love.
This is the way it is with family, with mother and grandmother. No matter how tense the relationship appears to be, no matter how incomprehensible the deeds seems to be, the feeling lie inside our bone. We are connected, deep into flesh, carved into bones and bloods. I can feel her sorrow, feel her sacrifice, and feel her love.
Joy and luck, life tells me much more than the story itself.
母與女的關(guān)系,要怎樣才能講得清楚?
至少the joy luck club里面對此有一個(gè)幾乎接近全面的描述,它聰明地把作者的觀點(diǎn)隱藏在敘事中,從母親的角度,從女兒的角度,不偏不倚,讀者無法明確說出作者是在試圖表達(dá)什么觀點(diǎn),但是作者大部分的想法,情緒,卻藉此傳遞.
英文原著的書,描述的卻是中國文化中特有的母女之間的關(guān)系,或者說,是中國女人特有的處事方式.我們幾乎一眼就能分別出一個(gè)女人是來自中國,日本還是韓國,但用詞語來歸納中國女性特有的氣質(zhì)卻很難很難,只有在活生生的故事中,在細(xì)枝末節(jié)的生活中,間或捕捉到那無法言喻的感覺.
而中國的母女之間的關(guān)系,原來從這本書的那個(gè)時(shí)代,到現(xiàn)在,也沒什么什么改變,像”一個(gè)階梯,一級沿著一級,卻始終向著同一個(gè)方向”
我不太清楚父親與兒子是不是也存在著一種較量,但是很明顯的,母親與女兒之間,有一種女人之間的明爭暗斗。與《欲海情魔》中母女的關(guān)系不同,在中國的家庭中,暗斗遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)多于明爭,從而更加微妙.在正統(tǒng)的中國文化氛圍中,女兒絕對不會(huì)徹底拋棄母親,像六人行中表現(xiàn)的那樣常常直白地笑話甚至詛咒母親的事情絕對不會(huì)發(fā)生.中國的家庭中永遠(yuǎn)只有女兒服從母親,雖然在這表面的服從中, 對抗從未停止過.
這些女子,她們在1949年前來到美國,嫁了人,之前都有過不同的故事。有的在逃難中失去了雙胞胎女兒,有的離開了富有的家庭,有的掙脫了婆家的禁錮。她們?nèi)缫桓禊Z的羽毛,漂洋過海,暫時(shí)告別了故土以及即將到來的巨大變革,開始了新的人生。脫胎換骨、劫后重生、鳳凰涅槃竟是那么難,難到自己的女兒——土生土長的美國人都無法擺脫那種文化的輻射。離婚的女兒對母親說:“I learned to be tragic from you.”即將再婚的女兒對母親的一個(gè)否定的眼神都無法容忍;而精美則將背負(fù)著逝去母親的期待去中國與她同母異父的兩個(gè)姐姐相見。
I remember the day when I picked up the first piece of this jigsaw and examined it with my long-lost curiosity. “…for a long time now the woman had wanted to give her daughter the single swan feather and tell her, ‘ this feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions.’ …” I was imagining what a loving feather it must be when I got a call from my mother.
“Really you should go to see a doctor.”
“Trust me, mom. It takes time. You know it’s not like an injection.” I answered, in the same unassailable tone.
“But… you are not a real practitioner after all. How can you test the home-make prescriptions on your own body?”
“No, that’s not the case.” I said lightheartedly, as always, trying to intensify my firmness and to lessen her worry. “I’m feeling better. I add more Bie Jia(鱉甲,一種中藥材,清虛熱)in today’s prescription and I shall be fine soon. …You know what? the amount of Qing Hao(青蒿,鱉甲的輔藥)should not be too much when combined with biejia! I didn’t know that before! No wonder the tea failed to wash down my Nei Re(內(nèi)熱)…”
“All right all right.” My mother finally gave in, “Down drink your tea and see whether it works... But remember to keep an eye on the coating on your tongue(舌苔)and adapt your prescription !”Sure.
I drank down the tea later and I was fine the next day—not thanked God, but thanked to the magic Chinese herbs.
I begin with this mini drama, not to demonstrate what I’ve read out of The Joy Luck Club about mother-daughter relationship. Clearly as many readers see it, the mother-daughter bond is the most distinguished theme of this fiction. I can feel that from the overwhelming majority of sentences throughout the book. Some others focus on the conflict between Chinese culture and American culture. And yes, I can see their reflections from the very beginning of the story.
I shall be glad that I’m having a very good relationship with my mother. So I don’t feel as much strongly about Amy Tan’s delicate feelings. And the fact that I’ve never experienced culture shocks abroad saves me from feeling the frustration.
What fascinate me most are the scattering pieces of Chinese philosophy in The Joy Luck Club. Some are tales Chinese mothers used to tell their kids; some are teachings Chinese mothers inculcate in their kids as important life lessons. When pieced together, I suppose, they will surely make a work of stunning beauty.
I’m blessed to read this story at this point of my life, when I feel so strongly I am losing some important connections, being a foreign language major and a Chinese at the same time.
During the past two years, I have made English learning my priority. It’s not the kind of painful, struggling process you are likely to imagine, but a fascinating journey to a new world. In a sense I’m learning English for the sake of a promising future. In a larger sense, the opportunity of mastering a foreign language and getting familiar with a foreign culture is what I will be grateful to for the rest of my life, because it grants me the same good opportunity to learn to see things differently. So I have been feeling frustrated since the beginning of this semester, thinking that I’ll soon have much less access to the English language.
Somehow I got badly sick. I followed my doctors’ instruction and took several biopsies. Nothing happened except that my cough became severe every time when the weather changed. I decided to see a Chinese medicine practitioner. After the mysterious Wang-wen-wen-qie” process(望聞問切), he said, “well, no big deal. You are just having Han Qi(寒氣)inside your body.” You know what happened afterwards. Again it was the Chinese herbal teas that finally relieved me from the pain. Something shameful began to dawn on me, that this glorious culture receives my attention only when I am in need. Truth be told, I had had a good acquaintance with the traditional Chinese medicine in my family all these years. Yet I never had the sense that I should learn more.
Months ago I set up a blog to write English diary. Since then I seldom write a diary in English or in Chinese. The reason was awkwardly plain: my writing course teacher once said keeping a diary is a good way to improve English writing. I perfectly understood what he thought there was no need to say—write less in Chinese if you want to improve English writing. When I didn’t figure out how to write down what happened in English, I quit the whole diary thing. That day when I was handing my sick leave to our department head, I realized for the first time how ugly my Chinese handwriting had become. I once wrote an adorable hand.
It didn’t seem right, didn’t seem right. I am an English major at the moment, yet I’ve been a Chinese all along.
I became lost.
That was when I read into The Joy Luck Club. I felt I could understand perfectly what each sentence each tale was trying to convey. At first I was holding a pencil to make marks anywhere. Later, I sort of, could not tell which sentence was not a sentence of my own. I became Amy Tan reading her own diary.
And that was when all came back to me. The sense of identity. The sense of belonging. The belief in my beloved land and her remarkable philosophy.
Chinese immigrants in foreign lands are not the unique group of people who are going through a loss of their identity, their root. Foreign language learners who make foreign language the largest part of their routine life, when they begin to show great interest in the American Civil War without ever starting to learn something about the civil war in China in the 1940s, when they begin to quit writing something rather than writing it in Chinese, they are actually piecing up the fragments of foreign culture to make a visa to the “wonderland”. Owing to their unyielding effort, they succeed. They can now speak perfect American English, British English, French, German, Italian, whatever. They are now proud of their rich knowledge of foreign culture. They, too, are immigrants. But they are different from immigrants like Amy Tan. These immigrants were born to speak and write authentic Chinese. They were brought up being told what an awesome culture they had. They have just, consciously or unconsciously, chosen to leave it behind.
I pick up every piece of The Joy Luck Club jigsaw, appreciating every detail on it. When I finally piece them up, it must be a breathtaking masterpiece, just like the one I’ll no longer leave behind, as a Chinese foreign language learner.
Recommendations
1.detailed information about Amy Tan on Academy of Achievement:
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/tan0pro-1
2.BBC World Book Club—Amy Tan discusses The Joy Luck Club with readers around the world(video):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/ondemand/worldservice/meta/dps/2008/02/080204_amy_tan_one?bgc=003399&lang=en-ws&nbram=1&nbwm=1&bbram=1&ms3=6&ms_javascript=true&bbcws=1&size=au&bbwm=1