The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan

"What my books are about is relationships and family. I've had women come up to me and say they've felt the same way about their mothers, and they weren't immigrants."

- Amy Tan

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan has been nine months on The New York Times bestseller list. The book was first published in 1989 by Ivy Books.  The book has received incredible popular and critical success.  The novel highlights the lives of four Chinese American immigrant families in San Francisco, California who started a club known as "the Joy Luck Club," playing the popular Chinese game of mahjong.

Tan’s purpose for writing the book is evident in most of her works that is to bring out the cultural clash between the mothers and daughters. It is clearly portrayed also the way in which mothers and daughters are separated by time and place where one can hardly understand, comprehend or see the other. However, Tan gives more weightage to women characters in the novel, but this definitely does not restrict the readership of the book.

The main characters of the book include Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong and Ying-ying St. Clair and their daughters Jing-mei Woo, Rose Hsu Jordan, Waverly Jong and Lena St. Clair. The book is set in two phases, one, lives of women in a time where China during and before the Second World War was facing hardships; two, the lives of these women in America. The four time frames span the 1920s–1930s, the 1940s–1950s, the1960s, and the 1980s, respectively. The book consists of the childhood stories of women in China and their lives after migration in America; similarly, the book is also the story of their daughters depicting their childhood and adulthood life.

The narrative strategy of the book is structured like a mahjong game, with four parts divided into four sections in to create sixteen chapters. The four mothers and four daughters share stories about their lives in the form of vignettes, where each part is preceded by a parable relating to the game. The four sections parallel the four directions, which have symbolic value for the Chinese. It is not coincidental that in the games, Suyuan's corner was east, for “The East is where everything begins". The Joy Luck Club was founded in China, and China (the East) is where the mothers begin their journey and where the daughters' identities also begin. It is where the novel ends, with Jing-mei finding her full identity. The novel successfully combines numerous kinds of writing as Tan employs biography, the autobiography, the memoir, history, mythology, the folk tale, and the talk story into her writing.

The tense of the novel shifts from past to present as each character reflects on her past and relates it to her present life. The major themes and motifs of this book is relationship between mother-daughter, communication between mother and daughter, power of storytelling, immigrant identity, control over one’s destiny, sexism, racism, sacrificial love, loss, redemption The book is filled with old Chinese myths and grappling stories.

The Joy Luck Club was a critical and a popular success. Over 2,000,000 copies were sold, Tan received $1.23 million for the paperback rights, and it has been translated into several languages--including Chinese. The book has been adapted into film directed by Wayne Wang as well play by Susan Kim, which premiered at Pan Asian Repertory Theatre in New York.

Amy Tan born in February, 1952 is an American writer. Tan has written several other bestselling novels, including The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter's Daughter and Saving Fish from Drowning. She also wrote a collection of non-fiction essays entitled The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings. Tan has successfully written two children's books: The Moon Lady (1992) and Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat (1994), which was turned into an animated series which aired on PBS. Books seems to be her only escape as she says, "I think books were my salvation, they saved me from being miserable."

The Bluest Eye- Toni Morrison

“I wrote Sula and The Bluest Eye because they are the books I had wanted to read. No one had written them yet, so I wrote them.”

-Toni Morrison

                                                       

Toni Morrison’ s ‘The Bluest Eye’ is a novel written in 1970. The book paints a vivid picture of its eleven year old black protagonist, Pecola Breedlove who pines for Blue Eyes all through the novel. Her story is narrated by a child and adult narrator, Claudia MacTeer. The book is published by Vintage, 1999.

Through her various women characters, Morrison renders triple oppression faced by women in black community, through race, class and gender. In my opinion, Morrison targets both the white and the black communities of America. The book traces the lives of several women belonging to Breedlove, MacTeer and Fisher families. For the first time the horrors faced by black men are brought into limelight by a black women writer. The book swings between the past and present; it passes through the time of World War II where America fights the world against racism but fails to do so in her own country; into the present where Civil Rights Movement was in act. The major part of novel takes place in Lorrain, Ohio.

The language is used in a lyrical sense, adapting true African tradition of writing. She stays true to the language used by characters that is colloquial, slang and abusive. The sadness and the blues of the characters are narrated very-well in this elegy. The complex nature of its narrative technique can befuddle its readers. The major narrator being Claudia MacTeer who narrates the story of young Pecola; Pauline Breedlove, Cholly Breedlove and Pecola who is given two voices of the self which is also a fragmented self. The authorial voice can also be heard in adult Claudia’s narration.

The extensive use of symbols, myths, themes and metaphors make this a phenomenal work of Morrison. The rich and detailed characterization of each of the characters makes them a rounded figure and lets them come alive. The book may be an elegy that does not make its readers sympathize with one character or victimize any one in particular, on the contrary, it awakens its readers, makes them question and makes them look beyond the horizons of the set norms. The book focuses on the racist ideologies set in America that has created a veil where the black community vicariously lives like the white community.

The issue of black women is represented as the victims of the white beauty standards of society, the commonality of this issue has popularized and valorized the standards of beauty.  The core subject matter of the book is racism, classism, sexism, sexuality, incest and rape have been dealt with severity and complexity at the same time. The intricate nature of the language and multifaceted narrative style has made the books’ readership limited.

The book ends in a tragic scenario of Pecola becoming mad after being raped by her father twice also beaten up by her own mother and not believing her. The rebellious nature of Claudia in her childhood against the desire of white beauty finally leads to assimilation towards the end of the novel. The part that was heart rendering for me was the conversation of Pecola with her own self. The book provides the readers with fragments of several lives and Morrison combines all of their blues in “The Bluest Eye”.

Toni Morrison is a renowned African-American writer. She won the Nobel Prize in 1993 for the The Bluest Eye and in 1987 the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved. Her various other works include “Sula”, “Jazz”, “Songs of Solomon” and others. Morrison has also indulged into writing Children’s literature, plays, non-fiction as well. Her novels deal with oppressed black women, Morrison does not identify her works as feminist.

Book Review Of The Catcher in the Rye- J. D. Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye is an American classic, cult favourite novel written by J. D. Salinger. It was first published in 1951. The book is about a sixteen year old boy narrating his four day adventures in New York City.

Through his protagonist, Salinger seems to critique post-war American society that is sodden with hypocrisy and ‘phony’ attitudes of the people. The novel also brings about the trauma and the horrors of post- World War situations, where relationships seem to have toppled over the materialistic world. The book is targeted for adults and the youth. However the book was banned for its explicit vulgar and abusive language.

The book is set in 1949 New York City where the protagonist Holden Caulfield, a seventeen year old youth looks back at his sixteen year old self and narrates his adventures. He leaves his school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. Here he meets several people in train, café, meets his old girl-friend, his professor and most importantly his sister Phoebe who acts as a catalyst in the novel both the times he meets her.

The novel begins with Holden’s declaration as ‘terrific liar’ and his journey that leads him to the asylum. The novel is a bildungsroman, a coming-of-age novel. What makes the novel a cult favourite is its true depiction of language of a sixteen year old and making his voice an authentic voice. The book has moved and touched several of its readers. The book is recommended to be read by both the adults as well as youth, to have a glance over a materialistic west society which is now a world-wide scenario. It also depicts how a strained relation with parents hinders child’s progress and affects him emotionally.

The book provides an accurate image of society and holds true to its setting. The author utilized stream-of-consciousness technique that is used by most of modern writers to portray Holden’s psychological sate of being. He uses imagery and themes to enhance the aesthetic quality of the novel. The novel also includes various tropes to intensify and relate author’s  message. The book can be very relative in today’s world where children in their adolescence are trapped in the cycle of life.  

The challenges faced by the novel begins with Holden's frequent use of vulgar language,  sexual references, undermining of family values and moral codes, Holden's being a poor role model, a rebellion, and promotes drinking, smoking, lying, and promiscuity.

The book ends with Holden in an asylum recounting his events in New York City, where he says “Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.”

Salinger grew up in New York City and wrote short stories. His breakthrough came in 1948 with the publication in The New Yorker of 'A Perfect Day for Bananafish'. ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ was his first and only novel, published in 1951. It remains one of the most translated, taught and reprinted texts, and has sold some 65 million copies. His other works include short stories and novellas: ‘Franny and Zooey’; ‘For Esme with Love and Squalor’; and ‘Raise High the Roof Beam’, ‘Carpenters/ Seymour – an Introduction’.