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| The Joy Luck Club | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 438 reviews)
Sales Rank: 305262
Category: Book
Author: Amy Tan
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Studio: Ballantine Books
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
Label: Ballantine Books
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 3.8 x 1.2
ISBN: 0804106304
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780804106306
ASIN: 0804106304
Publication Date: June 1, 1990
Release Date: April 30, 1990
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
"Brilliant....Each story is a fascinating vignette, and together they they weave the reader through a world where the Moon Lady can grant any wish, where a child, promised in marriage at two and delivered at 12, can, with cunning, free herself; where a rich man's concubine secures her daughter's future by killing herself, and where a woman can live on, knowing she has lost her entire life."
WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD
A stunning literary achievement, THE JOY LUCK CLUB explores the tender and tenacious bond between four daughters and their mothers. The daughters know one side of their mothers, but they don't know about their earlier never-spoken of lives in China. The mothers want love and obedience from their daughters, but they don't know the gifts that the daughters keep to themselves. Heartwarming and bittersweet, this is a novel for mother, daughters, and those that love them.
Amazon.com Review
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 433 more reviews...
Mothers and Daughters November 19, 2008
The Joy Luck Club / 0-8041-0630-4
The Joy Luck Club is, in my opinion, the best of Tan's works. While each of her stories deal with the generational gap between mothers and daughters (compounded with a culture gap and a language gap, as well!), and while each of her novels delve into cultural violence against women, The Joy Luck Club examines these issues most openly, most honestly, and most diversely of all her works.
The range of emotions here is wide and realistic - mothers and daughters are afflicted by a realistic mixture of love and hate, pride and disappointment, admiration and resentment. They want to be a part of this other person, but at the same time, they wish to define themselves as something definitively other and different. They push away even as they long to embrace. This is realism, this is being a mother and being a daughter. They are wise and foolish at the same time.
Much has been written about Tan and the male characters in her writing and I cannot add much here. While I will agree that Tan can go over the top and become excessive in her 'sexually violent villain' tropes, there are certainly men who can and will treat the women in their lives abhorrently. In my opinion, the worst you can say about Tan and her views on men is not that she has so many male villains, but that the "good" men she provides as counter-points seem to be frequently emotionally distant and more passive-aggressive than an actual, healthy human being. I do not believe that Tan is capable of extending the same warmth and understanding to her male characters as she extends to her female characters and this, more than the formulaic nature of her other works, seems to be the biggest flaw in this otherwise fantastic novel.
 Too depressing October 13, 2008
Amy Tan is a wonderful writer and it was the writing that kept me reading through much of the book. I finally had to put the book down because it was just so depressing to read. All the characters were so melancholy. I could take all the sadness if there was some redemption or resolution in the end but there really never was, with any of the characters. I was not looking for a book with happy endings. I completely understand that life is not a fairy tail but come on surly there are some happy Chinese Americans.
 The JOY LUCK CLUB September 23, 2008
Amy Tan's novel has much to offer the reader in search of a Chinese American family story. There is nothing mundane or ordinary about the stories of familial friends whose lives are woven together. Each family years to pass down their history, particularly the mothers to their daughters. And that is what makes this novel so special. The history of each family belongs to the women of the novel and it is their duty to pass down this knowledge to their daughters. But the daughters are not so receptive as the mothers hope them to be.
The daughters do not embrace this knowledge as the mothers hope but instead turn away from their Chinese heritage. The daughters attempt to assimilate but as they do hurt their mothers who hold their cultural traditions dear to their heart.
And what exactly does mean? The daughters are expected to live up to their parents expectations and their cultural traditions. From mother to daughter, each woman has her own special way of understanding and uplifting that which is important in her family such as cultural obligations and duties.
The women of the family pass down what is dear from mother to daughter but the stories are never completely told and just an inkling of understanding is left for the reader. That is what makes their life stories, tragic and loving, so important. It is the mother's duty to tell story and to pass down her history.
The Joy Luck Club May 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Joy Luck Club, written by Amy Tan is a very unique novel that I would recommend anyone to read. Amy Tan uses a clever style of writing throughout this novel. It consists of many mini-stories that are combined into one.
In the beginning of each story, the page has a name above the title. This represents either the mother or daughter involved in the story. On the second page of contents there are two separate lists. One is a list of the four mothers, Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair. Also there is a list of the four daughters, Jing-mei "June" Woo, Rose Hsu Jordan, Waverly Jong, and Lena St. Clair.
Even though at first it is a little tough to understand her style of writing, Amy Tan has a connection between all of the mothers and daughters that are in the individual stories. Amy Tan discusses the Chinese culture and mother/daughter relationships. Every mini-story is connected to each other, in that way.
The author's style of writing drew me into this novel because I was curious to figure out how she would tie everything together.
The Joy Luck Club is a novel that is basically centered on mother/daughter relationships.
All together there are four mothers and four daughters. Each mother wants their daughters to grow up in America and have opportunities, but also retain their Chinese values and customs.
"I am to replace my mother, whose seat at the mah jong table has been empty since she died two months ago." This quote is stated at the very beginning of the novel by the daughter Jing-mei Woo. Even though she isn't very happy about "replacing" her mother, the rest of her family assumes she will carry on the tradition and she feels obligated to do so.
"I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these two things do not mix?" stated Lindo on page 289. Lindo and her daughter, Waverly, have a troubled relationship. Lindo wanted to be liker her own mother as she was growing up, and she is hurt as she sees Waverly doesn't want to be like her mother at all.
In a Chinese society, women were taught that it was an honor to become like their mother. However, in an American society, the goal is to become our own person.
What exactly is the Joy Luck Club? It's a club initially created by four Chinese women, who were recent immigrants to San Francisco that became united to share unspeakable losses and dreams.
The four women, in the city of Kweilin, took shelter from the Japanese raid. They wanted and needed to raise the spirits of one another. "What was worse, we asked among ourselves, to sit and wait for our own deaths, with proper somber faces? Or to choose our own happiness?"
"We feasted, we laughed, we played games, lost and won, we told the best stories. And each week, we could hope to be lucky. That hoe was our only joy. And that's how we came to call our little parties Joy Luck."
Those women were often terrified of what to expect from the raid, but it never showed on their faces.
Amy Tan, the author of the Joy Luck club, that was placed nine months on the New York Times Bestseller List, established a powerful and mesmerizing novel.
 Disappointing and shallow November 1, 2007
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
My first Amy Tan book and probably my last. Joy Luck Club is mostly fluff. This book offers little to the reader.
Writing style is not particularly good.
No interesting insights into Chinese Americans.
Nothing educational about China, the old country.
Not particaularly well researched.
There are lots of better books to read if you are interested in any of the above areas. Ha Jin, a Chinese American is an outstanding writer. You will learn a lot about China and be entertained. "Wild Swans" is an very educational non-fiction that reads like fiction. I recommend skipping this one and going for the better quality books.
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