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Book Review:
The Joy Luck Club
— Evelyn Li 李詩婷
T
he Joy Luck Club, one of the best-selling novels, was written in 1989 by Amy
Tan, an American writer of Chinese descent. The novel focuses on four
Chinese-American immigrant families, and the main characters in this novel
are the mothers and their daughters. The mothers are named Suyuan Woo, An-mei
Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-Ying “Betty” St. Clair, and the daughters' names are JingMei “June” Woo, Rose Hsu Jordan, Waverly Jong and Lena St. Clair. Those mothers
were born in pre–revolutionary China, while those daughters were raised in America.
Each mother and daughter share stories about their lives in the form of vignettes,
except for Jing-mei's mother, who is already dead. They start a club named the “Joy
Luck Club”, in which they play Mahjong. The club is created as a way to improve
friends' spirits during wartime. While playing Mahjong, they will enjoy different kinds
of delicious dishes made by themselves. The club is inherited by the daughters, as a
means to carry on their mothers' expectation. No matter how strong the bond between
mothers and daughters, their relationship is still challenged by different cultural
attitudes, resulting in fights, impatience, misunderstanding, and anger. Against this
background, this novel deals with several controversial issues: cultural
misunderstandings, immigrant identity and controllable destiny.
The most important theme in this novel is the misunderstanding of different
cultures. Misunderstandings still occur even though they try to communicate with
each other patiently. Gradually, the communication gap between them becomes
larger; as a result, more and more misunderstandings occur among them. For
example, Jing-mei finds that the significance of the club's name is not well translated,
and the daughters think their mothers look like fools due to their broken English.
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Apart from the cultural misunderstanding, the second issue in this novel focuses
on the identities of the daughters. The appearances of the daughters are apparently
oriental; however, they do not want to admit to this reality. Instead, they believe they
are Americans since they are growing up in the American culture. Nevertheless, they
know they are in a conflicting situation as they grow up—they are neither Chinese nor
American.
After the issue of identity, I would like to talk about the last issue, the destiny. The
Chinese mothers always obey the fate because they do not want to violate destiny.
They are deeply influenced by fatalism, namely, doing everything according to the
arrangements by God. The daughters, on the contrary, think they have the power and
right to seek whatever they want. For those daughters, it is ridiculous to follow the
destiny all the time if they are capable of changing it.
In conclusion, misunderstandings across different cultures, identities of the
immigrants and destiny are the three major topics of this novel, which appears most
interesting to me. I recommend this book because it reflects these controversial issues
in our lives. Besides, it also invites us to a retrospect on our doings in the past, and
helps us appreciate what we have now and realize how fortunate we are living in this
open society.
(The Joy Luck Club/Amy Tan/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, 120 pp)