Classics Corner Birthday Book: The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan; Emotional Moving Novel About Chinese-American Mothers and Daughters
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
Birthday February 19, 1952
PopSugar Reading Challenge: A book that takes place in a country that starts with "C" (China)
Spoilers: I don't know anything about Mah Jong and I don't have any children, but I do know what it means to be a daughter and to not always understand my mother and vice versa. So I completely understand and sympathize with the plight of the characters in Amy Tan's classic, The Joy Luck Club.
The book is a series of interconnected short stories of four mothers: Suyan Woo, An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-Ying St. Clair who emigrated from China and their daughters Jing Mei "June" Woo, Rose Hsu Jordan, Waverly Jong, and Lena St. Clair who are more American than their mothers. The book is a truly emotional and moving work that while focuses on many of the issues that are faced by Chinese and Chinese-American women, any recent emigre as well as any parent and adult age child can find the conflicts relatable. We have all had situations where we felt that the previous or the next generation doesn't understand us. Then when we look deeper, we learn that we had a lot more in common than we were previously aware.
The four mothers are part of a group that meets weekly to play mah jong and talk about their lives. The book begins after Suyan's death and the other three mothers convince Jing Mei to take her place as the fourth in their mah jong games. Like the game itself, the book is divided into four parts of four stories each making 16 stories total.
The first eight tells of the mothers' and daughters' childhoods. The next eight covers the problems that they receive upon entering adulthood and within their marriages and families.
One of the central themes that carries throughout the book is who the mothers left behind in China. This is particularly strongest in Suyan and Jing Mei's story. After an argument when Jing Mei is still a child, Suyan accidentally blurts out that she had been married previously in China and had fled leaving behind two daughters, neither of which were Jing Mei. Realizing that she has two half-sisters that she never knew changes Jing Mei's relationship with her mother. Jing Mei feels their presence even though they aren't there physically. She feels that her mother preferred the daughters that she missed, so the daughter that is in front of her fails in comparison.
When Jing Mei grows, Suyan pushes her to become successful piano prodigy. After a substandard performance, Jing Mei gives up the piano for good. She spends much of her life believing that her mother doesn't approve of her job, friends, and life. It is not until well into adulthood after Suyan gives her a jade pendent that she learns that she had her mother's approval all along. Late after Suyan's death, the other three Joy Luck mothers contribute money so Jing Mei can travel to China to meet her half-sisters.
Another daughter who feels pressured by her mother into success is Waverly Jong. In fact, Suyan and Lindo turned bragging about their daughters almost into a contact sport. They build up so much competition between the two daughters, that Waverly and Jing Mei become rivals. Lindo's boasts about Waverly are about her genius at chess. Waverly excells at competition to the point that her mother's boasting gets embarrassing. Waverly gets so irritated by her mother talking up her success that she gives up chess. However, she hasn't lost trying to live up to her mother's expectations as a later story testifies when she introduces her white American boyfriend to Lindo. While Lindo seems to be non-committal especially when he commits various embarrassing faux pas at the dinner table, she later tells Waverly that she likes him.
Through Lindo's point of view, we discover that her way with words proved helpful in her past. She has a humorous courtship with her husband in which their respective Cantonese and Mandarin dialects make each other difficult to understand, but Lindo manages to get their conversations steered towards the words "matrimony" and "I do."
More dramatically was an incident in Lindo's youth in which she was forced into marriage with a prepubescent boy and was abused by his cruel mother who kept forcing the young couple to produce grandsons. Lindo manages to find her way out of the situation by pretending that their ancestors are displeased with the marriage and for her husband to accept marriage to a pregnant servant girl instead. Her in-laws get the grandson they coveted, the servant girl moves up a few notches, and Lindo gets free and manages to make her way to America.
While Lindo is a more dominant presence to the point that Waverly considers her mother unbearable, Ying-Ying and Lena St. Clair are more passive and that passivity has shaped their lives in very negative ways. Their stories are among the most heartbreaking. As a child, Ying-Ying got lost from her family during a Moon Lady ceremony. She naively asks the Moon Lady (really a male actor in a costume) to find them. This little scene foreshadows the sadness that Ying-Ying and Lena encounter throughout their lives, often being manipulated and abused by the men in their lives. Ying-Ying survives a torturous first marriage with a womanizer who abandons and results in her aborting her first child. She later marries a white man who is incredibly condescending and mocking towards her. Unfortunately, she also gives birth to an anencephalic child and becomes haunted by his death. She is consumed with depression, nightmares, and hallucinations. This makes her a cypher to Lena.
Lena takes her mother's passivity to heart during her marriage to Harold. Harold is also her supervisor at work and he financially as well as verbally abuses her. Seeing her daughter suffer the same way that she did under the thumb of a dictatorial husband, Ying-Ying convinces Lena to stand up for herself.
The different stories all carry their share of triumph after heartbreak. Among the saddest but ultimately rewarding stories are those of An-Mei and Rose Hsu Jordan. An-Mei's youth was shaped by her mother who became the fourth wife of a wealthy merchant. At first, An-Mei was raised by her grandmother, but after her grandmother's death, she finally moved in with her mother. An-Mei and her mother are abused by the merchant's second wife. The Second Wife plays various manipulative games to assert her dominance in the household such as attempting to win An-Mei over by giving her glass bracelet that she says is really pearl. She yells, screams, threatens suicide to get her way, and keeps An-Mei's half-brother as an emotional hostage by claiming to be his mother. An-Mei's mother finds no escape except through her own suicide. Though, An-Mei is clever enough to warn that her mother's spirit will haunt the cruel Second Wife, silencing the older woman's abuse for good.
An-Mei's family is hit by tragedy again when her youngest son, Bing accidentally drowns during a family trip to the beach. Rose is stricken with guilt for the rest of her life because she was supposed to watch Bing. She is haunted by Bing's death and continues to be held at an emotional distance. That emotional distance continues into her marriage to Ted Jordan. Rose was abused by Ted, a guy who after his bigoted mother insulted Rose put the blame on Rose, asking why she didn't stand up for herself. He also has every intention of getting remarried after his divorce and insults Rose by saying that she will never find anyone else. Rose doesn't want to surrender to her version of the Second Wife, so she challenges him in court for the right to keep their house and commands to be treated with respect.
The Joy Luck Club is filled with beautiful and emotional stories where the mothers and daughters believe that they don't understand each other, but realize that they understand a lot more than they thought. They are similar women with loves and hurts that carried between the generations. As soon as they recognize their similarities, they no longer see themselves under the family terms of mothers and daughters. They see complex women who have been hurt and are trying to find ways to move beyond that hurt. They recognize themselves into their journies that the mothers started and the daughters completed.
The Joy Luck Club is a book that has a lot of tears, a lot of heart, and ultimately a lot of joy.
