42. The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan

It took a long time to finish this book but it's not because its boring but it's read when I have free time and I savour it slowly as the words and imageries are packed to the full and in an exotic way. She is so good at taking the Chinese imageries and using them as metaphors to describe the moms' thoughts and worldview by making the into pictures (vs. articulating them in terms of philosophical concepts). It's brilliant.
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"In a matter of seconds, it seemed, I had gone from being angered by her strength, to being amazed by her innocence, and then frightened by her vulnerability. And now I felt numb, strangely weak, as if someone had unplugged me and the current running through me had stopped." p. 200

Tan also has a brilliant way of weaving in and out between the Chinese and American culture--the mothers and the daughters--showing their differences and interactions, and the inbetween-ness the children navigate through.
"Over the years, I learned to choose from the best opinions. Chinese people had Chinese opinions. American people had American opinions. And in almost every case, the American version was much better.
It was only later that I discovered there was a serious flaw with the American version. There were too many choices, so it was easy to get confused and pick the wrong thing." p.214

There is also the delicate relationship between the mothers and daughters, who grew up with a vast contrast in values, with differing ways of showing love and knowing what is good for them.

The stories of the mothers growing up in China also give some insights into the life back then, with the restrictions, cultural colours, regulations, historical bacgkround, and lifestyle in an old China.
"A lot of bad luck fell on our wedding day, even though the matchmaker had chosen a lucky day, the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, when the moon is perfectly round and bigger than any other time of the year. But the week before the moon arrived, the Japanese came. They invaded Shansi province, as well as the provinces bordering us." p.52

Ultimately, the story shows the love of the mothers to their daughters, and their strength that has been masked by their perceived handicap being in a new country that speaks not their mother language. Tan used the stories of four pairs of mother-daughter with immigrant origins to cook up a feast of crabs and fries for us readers. It is definitely a feast for the eyes and imagination as the readers are plunged into the sometimes strange world of the old Chinese beliefs and the more relatable modern young ABCs.