Obviously, this book makes me think of this clip from the Simpsons. I am left wondering why this book gets taught to high school students, at least in a compulsory sense. I think that this book makes a lot of sense for a self-motivated kind of student. Not to say that it’s a particularly complex or difficult book to read, but that it’s themes and issues kind of skip teenage years. For example, everyone in this book seems to be either a child or […]
Tan’s story of courtesan life in China not quite up to The Joy Luck Club
Another examination of complex mother-daughter relationships, this one set against the backdrop of 1912 Shanghai, then moving to the U.S. west coast and back again to China across a span of 40 years. The primary narrator is Violet, a little girl living in Shanghai with her savvy American mother turned madam of a highly specialized courtesan house which caters to Chinese and American businessmen and politicians, and successfully mixes business deals with sex. Violet is proud of her American heritage, until she discovers one day […]