Amy Tan's debut novel, first published in 1989, The Joy Luck Club, a widely read and appreciated classic, needs no introduction. Still for the sake of completion, here is a line on what the book is about - four Chinese women (Ms.Woo, Ms.Hsu, Ms. Jong and Ms. St.Clair) who immigrate to the USA post WWII in search of hope, a better tomorrow leaving behind tragedies that scarred their lives in their homeland, China. It's about their daughters, born in the USA, who turn out to be more American than Chinese.
Extensively on mother-daughter relationships fraught with tension and misunderstanding even when built on love and trust, on how one's past is inextricably linked to the present and future too, on the conundrum associated with hyphenated cultures, The Joy Luck Club can boast of -
1) clear structure 2) lucid writing 3) memorable characters (some, if not all).
Four sections, each with four chapters, the book's structure is inspired from the game mahjong played by the four mothers who form The Joy Luck Club in San Francisco. Two sections (the first and last one), from the POV of the mothers (except Suyuan Woo who is dead right at the start of the book and we know her from the POV of her daughter and other characters) focus on their lives - their past in China, life in America unto present day. The other two sections are from the POV of the daughters - their growing up years in America and life crises in their 30s. Every section begins with a parable that beautifully represents the essence of its contents. Though the book feels like a collection of disjoint 16 life vignettes/stories, how some stories here interlock is pretty interesting. As a novel comprising of loosely connected stories, I felt this book allows the reader the liberty to slowly soak it up even when hard pressed for contiguous reading time that a novel usually demands.
The writing is simple, evocative and straightforward. For instance, the author describes Kweilin in China with the line below - "The peaks looked like giant fried fish heads trying to jump out of a vat of oil." and this description perfectly matches with the Google images of Kweilin.
There are lines, paragraphs that I loved and jotted down in my diary but the below are really special -
"The three of us, leaving our differences behind, stepping on the plane together, sitting side by side, lifting off, moving West to reach the East.
Tin Jong, in America, asking Lindo if she will marry him in broken English - "Lindo, can you spouse me?"
In providing a rich insight into Chinese culture - their festivals, beliefs, superstitions and traditions, this book scores extremely well. There is a little history in the background with details of the Japanese invasion of China during WWII.
Of the four mother-daughter pairs, Suyuan Woo, her daughter Jing Mei Woo, Lindo Jong and her daughter Waverly Jong are my favourites.
Despite the above positives, The Joy Luck Club fell flat in sections from the POV of the daughters as failed marriages and divorce was a recurrent subject here. Also, while the ordeals of the mother, what shaped their attitude, hopes and aspirations was pretty clear, the portraiture of the daughters remained fuzzy. Few situations felt logically improbable too.
"American circumstances and Chinese character, how could I know these two things do not mix?"- even as the first gen immigrants want more opportunities, freedom, everything they lacked for their children, their insecurity as they drift away from their culture is an oft-discussed subject in fiction that it has begun to feel as insipid as is real. Jhumpa Lahiri, Kimi Cunningham Grant and Julie Otsuka (to name a few) are authors who have reflected a lot on this subject.
But even as I write this, I wish there is an Indian equivalent of The Joy Luck Club featuring four
Indian women catching up on a game of Ludo, laughing and chatting over food and drink, their stories and that of their American-born daughters.
The Joy Luck Club wasn't a 5* read for me, but I enjoyed it despite its shortcomings; quite like how the mothers and daughters in this book accept each other, fully aware of their weaknesses.
Will I read more by Amy Tan? Yes, I will, for she writes in the preface to this book - "storytelling was my mother's purgative for her misery". I am sure she has several stories passed down to her by her mother to share with us readers.
