- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Putnam Adult (April 25 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0399134204
- ISBN-13: 978-0399134203
- Product Dimensions: 23.7 x 15.9 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 522 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (356 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #303,569 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable." Forty years later the stories and history continue.
With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Intensely poetic, startlingly imaginative and moving, this remarkable book will speak to many women, mothers and grown daughters, about the persistent tensions and powerful bonds between generations and cultures. The narrative voice moves among seven characters. Jing-mei "June" Woo recounts her first session in a San Francisco mah-jong club founded by her recently dead, spiritually vital, mother. The three remaining club members and their daughters alternate with stories of their lives, tales that are stunning, funny and heartbreaking. The mothers, all born in China, tell about grueling hardship and misery, the tyranny of family pride and the fear of losing face. The daughters try to reconcile their personalities, shaped by American standards, with seemingly irrational maternal expectations. "My mother and I never understood each other; we translated each other's meanings. I talked to her in English, she answered back in Chinese," says one character. A crippling generation gap is the result: the mothers, superstitious, full of dread, always fearing bad luck, raise their daughters with hope that their lives will be better, but they also mourn the loss of a heritage their daughters cannot comprehend. Deceptively simple, yet inherently dramatic, each chapter can stand alone; yet personalities unfold and details build to deepen the impact and meaning of the whole. Thus, when infants abandoned in China in the first chapter turn up as adults in the last, their reunion with the one remaining family member is a poignant reminder of what is possible and what is not. On the order of Maxine Hong Kingston's work, but more accessible, its Oriental orientation an irresistible magnet, Tan's first novel is a major achievement. First serial to Atlantic, Ladies' Home Journal and San Francisco Focus; BOMC and QPBC featured alternates.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
My father has asked me to be the fourth corner at the Joy Luck Club. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
My father has asked me to be the fourth corner at the Joy Luck Club. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A story of Mothers & Daughters,
By Cookson Fan (Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Joy Luck Club (Paperback)
WOW, I picked this up at an airport to pass the time during a flight - and couldn't put it down! Amy Tan is a terrific author who deals with cultural and family relationships in a sensitive and insightful way. I recommend this book to all mothers and daughters!
4.0 out of 5 stars
joy luck club,
By
This review is from: The Joy Luck Club (Paperback)
Loved this book, it came pretty promptly in great condition I love buying bboks off Amazon right in my mailbox in less than a week usually
5.0 out of 5 stars
Right on the money,
This review is from: Joy Luck Club (Mass Market Paperback)
"Americanized" daughters living in California. The difference between their generations and cultures creates conflict between the mother and daughters. Each chapter in the novel is a separate narrative told by one of the eight main characters. This allows the reader to see all the conflicts from both sides and understand why there are conflicts. The title of the novel comes from one of the mothers, Suyaun. She started a club in China during the war to keep the women's minds off the war and preoccupied with something fun. She called it the "Joy Luck Club". All four women would gather together to play Mahjong and tell stories. The story mainly focuses on the character of Jing-mei. Her mother has just died and the three other mothers from "The Joy Luck Club" try to encourage Jing-mei to travel to China and tell her half sisters about their mother whom they never knew and her life. Since Jing-mei does not believe that she will be able to tell her mother's life story to her sisters, the other mothers become concerned. They wonder what their own daughters would be able to say of them and if they would do there lives justice. They then begin telling each other stories in hopes that Jing-mei will go to China. Finally Jing-mei decides to visit her two sisters and takes her father along for support and so that he can visit his relatives in China. The trip to China is filled with anxiety and deep wondering thoughts by Jing-mei. When they arrive in China Jing-mei's father's aunt and cousins greeted them. After staying with them for a day they take a train to find the two girls. Picturing them as young girls, Jing-mei is awe struck when she sees them for the first time and they are grown. All three of them act as if they have always known each other and feel a sense of completeness when they meet. The message in Amy Tan's novel to me is that no matter what the conflicts are that you are faced with in your family they still wish good things upon you even if they do not always show it. Her novel also allows the reader to see the "gaps" that are in there own families and how they can possibly deal with them by seeing both of sides of the conflict. I really enjoyed this novel and would recommend it to anyone looking for a "quick" but in-depth read. Even though it is somewhat long it moves along quickly and keeps the readers attention. It is a wonderful book for anyone with its historical and cultural events and mother/daughter conflicts similar to those today. The Joy Luck Club is an all around good book and made me realize even more just how important family can be and is. If you enjoyed books such as McCrae's "Bark of the Dogwood," then you'll like the intricacies of "Joy."
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
