The Kitchen God's Wife
by Amy Tan
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Book Summary Information
Author: Amy TanEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-09-21
ISBN: 0143038109
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of The Kitchen God's Wife
Book Review: A Story of Pre-Communist China
Summary: 3 Stars
The story begins with a young, Chinese woman who was born and raised in the USA and who thinks of her mom as a fussy, little, charicature of a China-Town shop-keeper. She has no concept of the life (or lives) that her mother lead in her 7+ decades on Earth. A family friend tricks the old woman into telling her daughter her story - a very long story full of romance, violence and turmoil.
Entertainment Value:
The first several chapters read like the Old Testament - detailing who is related to who and how. After that backround is established, it becomes more the story of one main character and details about what her relationships were with those people.
While some may find such gossip fun, I was more interested by the revelations about what life was like in pre-Communist China. It was a time when "modern" things like automobiles and telephones were widely available, but not necessarily affordable to the common person. The female-centric aspect was also very interesting. As a male who has seen much "reverse discrimination", I've never put much stock in western women's complaints about being treated as "slaves" or "chattel". In my experience, they are the ones with all the unfair advantages. This story reinforced that perception of mine; that modern, western women don't have a clue of what such oppression truely is and would benefit greatly from reading this story of what real hardship is.
Characters:
The characters were very strange to me - at first. But by the time I finished the story, I felt like I knew them quite intimately. Like the young woman at the beginning of the story, I see old, foreign, impoverished people in the US and I tend to see only charicatures. I tend to overlook the fact that, with so many decades behind them, and so many travels and travails, they likely have very interesting stories and very good reasons for being who they are.
After-Effects:
While I found the beginning of the story, with all of it's begets and begots to be quite tedious, by the end of the story, I felt like I knew all of those people, and that their stories were important to me. Some books just end - plop! - after the major plot complications are resolved. This one went on for a chapter or two - something like an epilogue, but not quite. It was more of a old-world Chinese-style of delicately finishing up, letting the reader come down from the drama of the story to remember that the world goes on.
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