BOOK REVIEW: Saving Fish From Drowning, by Amy Tan

Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well, it only took two months, but I finished "Saving Fish From Drowning," the final Amy Tan novel. And one of my favorites.

So why did it take me so long to finish reading this a second time? To the point where I lost ALL WILL to read at all for two months?

Because this is a thick, slogging book of intensity.

"Fish" is not an easy read. Oh, sure on a micro level it is. There's not too many hard ideas and certainly no difficult words or sentences to trod through, but on a macro scale it's brain sucking mind-number.

The approach and basic gist of the story is simple: 12 American tourists, all immensely spoiled and unrepentantly Western go on a Christmas visit to southern China followed by Myanmar. During this trip they create every foreigner faux pas possibly, from peeing on fertility goddesses to getting mixed up with junta. (And a side of every sickness under the sun.) Eventually, they are absconded by a hidden Karen tribe that are convinced the young boy in their group is the second coming of The Younger White Brother, who will save them from the oppressive regime of Myanmar's militaristic government.

Sounds a bit...bizarre? It is. Because the tribe is convinced they are going to be saved by getting a hit reality show on American TV.

"Saving Fish From Drowning" is not the usual Amy Tan fare. And for that, I'm glad. There is a hint of the usual Chinese mother-daughter theme here, but overall it is a long, winding tale of American superiority clashing with Southeast Asian sensibilities. The thing that makes it really unique, both for Tan and modern literature as a whole, is the narration style. You see, the book is narrated by a ghost. Not just any ghost. An omniscient ghost, who can go into anyone's head at any moment. With over 12 characters, that comes in pretty handy.

Our beloved narrator is Bibi Chen, a recently perished art critic who was the original organizer for our Americans' Asian trip. Due to her untimely death (the circumstances of which remain a mystery until the end) the trip is handed off to one of the 12, who is, of course, completely in over his head. Nothing on the trip goes right from the beginning, and in the end, Bibi the ghost (who cannot communicate with the living world at all, only watch and report) is the only one who knows what's going on with either side. It's almost a comedy of errors. I say almost, because the comedy style is very dry and sarcastic (and sometimes downright black and bleak) while the errors could have easily been avoided to the point where you want to roll your eyes.

The biggest fault of this story comes with the narration style. It's very hard to do omniscient well, especially when it's very tempting to go into every single head and report for pages on end about what people are doing. I'm afraid Tan does fall into this trap. This story could've easily been cut down. But I do not feel that the extra length is a detriment to the overall story. Nor do I feel that this story falls into the Western Savior trap with the 12 Americans "saving" the oppressed Karen tribe. Because really, the Americans just make everything worse. Everywhere they go. From my own American point of view, I found this hilarious, especially as someone who has lived in Asia and seen American superiority ruin the most mundane things. And without giving too much away, the Americans don't really "save" the Karen tribe. But that's another thing I love about this story. The ending is not happy, nor it is "hopeful" or "tragic." It's just real. Some characters discover new points of of views in their lives, and others are completely ruined. Tan's dry way of pointing out rational American thinking is on point as usual.

As I mentioned above, this is not an "easy" read, unless you have a lot of time to kill. It's fairly time consuming. But it's a great read, full of hilarious scenarios and scenes full of so much second hand embarrassment you want to crawl beneath your bed covers and pretend you're not American (if you are.) Meanwhile, you will also be treated to amazing imagery, shockingly real dialogue, and, as they say, a whole lotta heart. Amy Tan outdoes herself in this book. But don't come into it expecting another Joy Luck Club. Come into it expecting a large, multi-layered story about the human condition's ability to have too much hope for its own good.

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BOOK REVIEW: "The Bonesetter's Daughter", by Amy Tan

The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"The Bonesetter's Daughter" is the second to last Amy Tan novel I have yet to re-read, and like "Hundred Secret Senses," I realized I couldn't remember a dang thing about this book. "The Joy Luck Club" is all about switching POVs between eight characters, "The Kitchen God's Wife" is basically a super long version of one Joy Luck story (that is of course morbidly depressing half the time), and "Saving Fish From Drowning" is about a ghost following around and narrating about the lulziest tour group to ever hit Myanmar. Turns out that "Hundred Secret Senses" was about an insufferable woman with a badass sister who had an awesome backstory to tell - turns out that "The Bonesetter's Daughter" is about an insufferable woman with a badass mother who had an awesome backstory to tell.

The first thing making Bonesetter Stick out is the fact the daughter's - Ruth - POV is written in third person. Why, when Amy Tan is the queen of rambling first POV? I have no idea. Because the entire middle section narrated by her mother, LuLing, is written in first. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Other than that, it's the usual Amy Tan fare. Ruth is in a miserable relationship on the brink of failure (wow, that's new) and her mother, the immigrant LuLing, drives her bonkers. (That's new too!!) Ruth spends her whole time whining and whining, especially about her mother, and ESPECIALLY about her long-time boyfriend what'shisface. (Oh right, Art. Groan.) Art has two teenaged girls from a previous marriage with the most wtf names ever (Dory and Fia. Yeah. That's real 90s.) who talk like they're six instead of early teens. Basically, Ruth's life is totally moan-worthy and omg all these negative feels. She and Olivia from Hundred Secret Senses should become bffs and complain about how awful it is to be upper middle class in San Francisco.

ANYWAY, the story. You see, Ruth has a mother (really?? In an Amy Tan novel??) named LuLing, who is starting to act a little strange. Turns out she has early-onset dementia, and is of course only going to get worse. So what does LuLing do? Write down her entire life story up until moving to America, just in case she forgets any of the details and can never tell her daughter.

Ruth has the documents translated while her mother is away. Of course, what she discovers about her mother are things she would have never guessed before. Or even imagined. As usual, LuLing's story about growing up the illegitimate daughter of deformed-by-fire "Bonesetter's Daughter" is both heart wrenching (I mean it's 1920s China come on) and intriguing. I struggled to get through Ruth's set-up chapters and then pretty much devoured all of LuLing's backstory in one night. Since I'd forgotten most of it, it was like it was brand new to me...which is always nice.

With all this whining on my part (hi Ruth, you're rubbing off on me) you may be wondering why I gave this book four stars. It's more like 3 and a half, but I decided to round up, because of the score I gave Hundred Secret Senses. These books are almost exactly the same in structure and style, just the details are different. And the biggest difference is that Bonesetter had a waaaay more fulfilling ending than Hundred Secret Senses did. I was actually smiling a little when I closed this book. Unlike the other one which I'm pretty sure I threw across the room.

Is it Tan's best work? No. Not at all. I have the "reader's guide" paperback and in it is a lot of mentions on Tan's part about how hard this book was for her to write. Well, yeah. You're pretty much just copying yourself now. (She said affectionately.) That said, Tan is an amazing writer, so her "slush" tends to be far better grade than most other author's magnum opii. I read this book very quickly, not because I'm a speed reader but because I was legit hooked once LuLing's tale began. If you love the backstory's of Tan's "mothers", then read this book now. You won't be disappointed. If you can't bear to read another Olivia-type character again I'm...I'm sorry. Good luck.

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BOOK REVIEW: "The Hundred Secret Senses" by Amy Tan

The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As I'm reading all of Amy Tan's works again, I realized, upon reading all their summaries, that "The Hundred Secret Senses" was the only book I couldn't remember anything about. (I read all the books around the same time before, so it wasn't like a loooong time ago.) Probably because Senses is not about Amy's classic mother/daughter dynamic, but a sister/sister relationship.

The story is about a 40ish woman named Olivia, who has put up with her elder half-sister Kwan's nosiness and...her incredible ability to talk to spirits. Like a medium. Actually, that's exactly what Kwan is. A very well-meaning medium who can't stay out of anybody's business, and doesn't even care when people call her names and shun her for being weird.

Olivia finds herself with a failing marriage, her 17yo relationship with Simon always meddled with the ghost of his first love. Kwan decides the only way to fix their marriage is to take them all on an excursion to her tiny village in China, where a Olivia discovers that all of Kwan's stories about past lives and ghosts are true...and what they have to do with herself.

The first thing to note about this book is its voice. I'm a firm believer that Tan is one of the only authors who can pull of first person present and not make me want to run for the hills screaming. That said, there are two POVs in this book - one for Olivia, and one for Kwan. Olivia is a snooty, bratty woman (and child) with a fantastic "woe is me and my messed up family" complex that makes you want to slap her more than once. (And so of course I loved Olivia, because she reminds me of the type of person we hate because she says what we all are thinking but don't have the balls to say.) On the other extreme, we have Kwan, who speaks in broken English. They both love going off on tangents that make you forget what they were originally talking about. But if you're not new to Tan's books, this shouldn't bother you at all.

I found myself gobbling this book up and wondering why the hell I never remembered it. I mean, there's no "reveals" because all the "omg what a twists!" are so damn obvious that even M. Night wouldn't touch them, but the actual writing itself keeps you along for the ride. "Why don't I remember this? This could easily become one of my favorite books!" I thought to myself.

Then I got to the ending.

Which is where a star off comes from.

The ending is trite and contrived, and overall a huge disappointment that makes you go, really? I think I rolled my eyes so hard they're still trying to go back into place. And in that process, the ending asked way more questions than it answered. The pure "whatever" I felt at the end reminded me why I never remembered anything about this book later. Still, you'll notice I gave it four stars - because until the end, I really did love this book, from Olivia's epic cynicism to Kwan's witty stories. As long as I pretend the last two chapters didn't happen, I'm good!

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BOOK REVIEW: "The Kitchen God's Wife", by Amy Tan

The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If there's one thing Amy Tan is comfortable with, it's the mother-daughter relationship, particularly between Chinese immigrant mothers and their jaded American-born daughters. "The Kitchen God's Wife" is absolutely no exception. Tan's sophomore novel, "The Kitchen God's Wife" follows on the footstep's of Tan's smash debut "The Joy Luck Club". The easiest way to look at this novel is as essentially the same thing as "The Joy Luck Club", but focusing on one relationship as opposed to four.

The story opens with Pearl, a married-with-two-kids woman approaching middle age and discovering she has MS. Everyone around her knows of her MS except for her mother, Winnie. While Pearl ho-hums over whether or not to tell her mother, Winnie's "best friend", Helen, drops the bomb that she'll tell Winnie if Pearl doesn't. Likewise, Helen threatens Winnie that she'll tell Pearl about Winnie's secrets. Of course, this is all done under a thin guise of Helen pretending to have a brain tumor.

When then happens is that Winnie comes completely clean about her life. The bulk of the story is a framed "story within a story" as Winnie gives her daughter a first hand account of youth and life in pre-Communist China. If you've read "The Joy Luck Club", you can guess about how cheery and delightful it is.

Winnie's horror story of being abandoned by her mother, cast out by her father, married to one of the most evil men to ever grace literature, and one dead baby after another....all while the Japanese are dropping bombs and the Kuomintang take no prisoners...is enough to put anyone with even a hard stomach off. But if there's another thing Tan is great at, it's her voice. The story is told in a very easy conversational style, full of Winnie's random observations, funny digressions, and always laced in the hope that kept her going. Winnie always declares herself as "weak", but anyone reading her story can safely say she's one of the strongest characters to ever survive an Amy Tan plot.

That all said, there are a couple things keeping this book from reaching five glorious stars. First, is the obvious reuse of a story type already seen 4-8 times over in "The Joy Luck Club". The second is a complete lack of empathy for Pearl and where her story is even going. She spends most of her three chapters she gets whining to herself, about her mother, about how she's the queen of passive aggression to everyone around her. Also, as somebody with a mother who has MS, and while I understand this was written over twenty years ago, good Lord. Your life does not revolve around your MS.

My last great gripe is the title and its relevance to the plot and to the characters. All right, that's hyperbole. It does have a place. But it's completely glossed over and relegated to one paragraph towards the beginning of the book. The whole deal with the "Kitchen God" feels like an afterthought on Tan's part. I get the relation of the title to Winnie, the main character, but damn if I didn't care most of the time.

But overall, it's another great piece of fiction and storytelling from one of my favorite authors. And like all her stories, it makes you question your relationship with your family and think "what if" when it comes to wondering if your mother is holding some great secret from you. But as I mentioned before, my mother has MS, like Pearl, and at this point she's probably forgotten any of the great secrets she may have been harboring inside.

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BOOK REVIEW: "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was first exposed to Amy Tan when I was a child and the movie "The Joy Luck Club" made its repeated runs on HBO. I found it fascinating from a cinematic point of view, and loved it so much to the point I asked for the DVD some Christmas. But even though I knew it was based off a book, I never got around to reading it until I needed to write a book report in high school and it was on the list of "acceptable materials". I've since bought my own copy and re-read it every couple of years.

"The Joy Luck Club" is both Amy Tan's debut work and her best. In it are seven narrators depicting the lives of eight people (one of the older women, Suyuan, is deceased at the time of the overarching story and her daughter June tells her story instead.) Four of them, Suyuan, An-Mei, Ying Ying, and Lindo, are immigrants from various parts of China, and the other four, June, Rose, Lena, and Waverly, (respectively) are their American born and raised daughters. Each tells their own story in first person (aside from Suyuan who is deceased) in a total of two chapters each across four parts.

While it's not the longest read, it's a heavy one. The "mothers" (collectively called so in this review) have each been through their own personal hells both in China and America, with varying triumphs mixed in (such as out-witting bad families, enduring abandonment and physical/emotional abuse, losing family members, for vague examples). Throughout their horrors, struggles, and eventual triumphs in a land not kind to the status of women and young girls, the mothers all agree that their daughters will have an easier life in America. But what they discover is that their daughters have become more American than Chinese, and they fear that they won't be able to convey their "hopes and dreams" to the daughters who have different ideas and sensibilities from their own.

Meanwhile, the daughters all tend to agree that their "overbearing" Chinese mothers have each made their lives/childhoods hell in some way shape or form, either from pushing them too hard, to seemingly not understanding what they want, to feeling that they constantly put them down. From the reader's perspective we're able to see things from both sides, but of course, the characters cannot.

Amy Tan paints a beautiful picture of the lives these women live, and the relationships between them. From the rivalry between Lindo and Suyuan that extends to their daughters Waverly and June, from the "ghosts" of Ying Ying and her daughter Lena, and to the leaps of faith between An-Mei and Rose, it's easy and clear to see why Amy Tan is lauded for her depictions of mother-daughter relationships. And as someone who has a loving and strong relationship with her own mother who has had her own hardships in the past, it's near impossible to read any of these relationships without self-reflection.

Of course, there are differences between the book and the movie, but they are mostly negligible. The movie largely cuts out Ying Ying's first chapter during her childhood and jumps right into the dirty business of young adulthood; the movie conveniently leaves out An-Mei's half-dozen other children and what happens with them. But for the most part it's true to the source and can be enjoyed on its own with a great cast backing great characters. (And the clothes are so hilariously 80s.)

I tend to use TJLC as a barometer for people I know - if you've read it and felt absolutely -nothing-, then odds are we are not going to get along. It's an amazing book that's going to be one of my personal classics probably for the rest of my life, and I can only aspire to write as honestly as Amy Tan does.

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Weekly Writing Check-In: Christmas Squee Post~

All  I wanted for Christmas was a Kindle Fire and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

I got both!

First, obligatory YAAAAY about another Fairy Boy game that I will not be able to finish before I leave for Japan again. Playing so much Zelda is good for my imagination because it makes me want to write lots of fantastical stuff. Booyeah.

But nobody cares about my feelings for blonde boys in tights swinging swords and getting collagen lip injections. You care about my feelings for the Kindle Fire.

I've only played with it off and on all day - and by "played with it" I mean adding a last.fm app, syncing up my twitter and email, and buying one book, Amy Tan's novella "Rules for Virgins". But thus far it's super shiny, very bright, and OMFG I will have so much fun. Too bad you have to like, spend money for some stuff on it.

Tonight I'm ordering this fantastic sleeve and an equally fantastic bigger sleeve for it tonight. I have to order them tonight to make sure I get them in before I go back to Japan. As soon as I finish reading the two paperbacks I have with me I'll start delving more into the books on the Kindle. I figure that will be around February-ish. Until then I'll have fun with the wireless capabilities in places where my little laptop is just too much to use.

So, that all said, any good kindle recs? I'm particularly looking for writing-centered books at the moment, including grammar books and self-marketing. The freer the better.

Merry Christmas! It's certainly merry here~