Lauren Welter L354 Professor Marvin Sept 9th, 2019 Book Review #2: The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston Maxine Hong Kingsten’s The Woman Warrior weaves fact with fiction, reality with ghost stories, and is ultimately a brutally honest depiction of women’s rights and violence against women set in the backdrop of a childhood in America post-immigration. The text circles back to the central idea of “ghosts”, a name Kingsten uses for the white Americans she grows up around as a ChineseAmerican, and though this would lead you to believe the work will be a fanciful tale of Chinese folklore, the novel stubbornly refuses to allow itself to be shuffled into a single category. This is no cookie-cutter work of fiction or non-fiction. Kingsten doesn’t create a new genre in her work but instead transcends the need for genre and creates a novel wholly original in its formatting, and I ate up every piece of it. The details of the fiction-based bits were fast-paced and exciting, having you cheer for the woman warrior and shouting for her victory. In the more down-to-earth bits, the retelling of her mother’s story along with her own spoke with a relatable voice that readers could sympathize with. The strained relationship of mother and “biggest” daughter is clearly relayed to the audience, and even if you weren’t nodding along at the relationship’s familiarity, Kingsten is clear enough in her diction and anecdotes to convey her message every time. While there may be parts of the novel that can be confusing, such as traditional Chinese folklore or phrases, these obvious cultural examples just add to her overall tone and authenticity in the story. This novel cannot be called an autobiography as it follows the stories of many women, some real and some fiction, all while tying to the author’s sense of identity and demonstrating to the audience the struggle of growing up in a childhood full of stories. Kingsten depicts trying to shift through and find which ones best represent who she is and who she wishes to be, and this is a theme every member of the audience can relate to. Ultimately, I would say that this is a work of fiction that would most definitely be included in a survey of American Literature Since 1914. The novel was published in 1976, with some-what outdated word choice and turns of phrase, though that works to introduce different writing styles and uses of older lingo to a class. The novel focuses heavily on the difference between the China-born parents and the Chinese-American children they conceive mainly in how the Chinese-American children are not “Chinese-Enough” at home and then simultaneously not “American-Enough” at school. This theme of falling somewhere in the cracks between two different cultures is one that is universal to this day and would lead to great class discussion in an American Literature class. The themes of empowering women beyond their oppression as well as the highlight of the honest and ugly violence that women, specifically Chinese women, faced at this time can be related in today’s society as we look to move forward with the Women’s Rights Movement. All in all, The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingsten was unlike any novel I’ve read before, bringing a intriguing take on how to write novels and how to genre-bend without completely throwing out the genre-handbook. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has sought out their own identity amongst puddles of different ones. I would direct this novel to women who wish to be seen and represented in literature and ultimately seek to feel empowered as Kingsten rallies for her audience to be one-hundred-percent and unapologetically themselves.
