The Kitchen God's Wife

by Amy Tan | Literature & Fiction |
ISBN: Global Overview for this book
Registered by mbmeadow of Sacramento, California USA on 5/7/2004
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5 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by mbmeadow from Sacramento, California USA on Friday, May 7, 2004
Although I loved this book, I'm going to give it the chance to be shared by others. I don't think I'll need to read it again.
I've also read The Bonesetter's Daughter, and they both seem to have the same theme -- conflict between an Americanized daughter and her traditional, Chinese mother.
From the jacket:
Winnie and Helen have kept each other's worst secrets for more than 50 years. Now, because she believes she is dying, Helen wants to excuse everything. And Winnie angrily determines that she must be the one to tell her daughter Peral about the past -- including the truth even Helen doesn't know.
Thus begins an unfolding of secrets that takes mother and daughter back to a small island outside China during World War II, and traces the happy and desperate events that led to Winnie's coming to America in 1949.
Unaware that Pearl has her own secret to tell, Winnie reveals the hard-won knowledge she has never passed on to her daughter. She confesses how she mistook love for another with ignorance of herself. She explains why loyalty should never be confused with the blind duty of fear. She talks of the different shapes of hope, and what can happen when hope is relaly no more than the instinct to survive. And she tells her daughter why it is possible, even necessary at times, to live a life of contradictions.
In the telling, Winnie casts off social taboos, old wives' tales, wartime propaganda, American know-how -- as well as her own regrets. And in the end, she shows her daughter -- and herslef -- why it is still possible to change the past, to claim the future, to go beyond the fate of the Kitchen God's Wife.

Journal Entry 2 by mbmeadow from Sacramento, California USA on Tuesday, September 14, 2004
Mailed to fungirl503. Enjoy

Journal Entry 3 by fungirl503 from Gladstone, Oregon USA on Monday, September 20, 2004
got in the mail from mbmeadow thankyou so much

Journal Entry 4 by fungirl503 from Gladstone, Oregon USA on Monday, October 18, 2004
promised to silentmiaouw who is the third runner up for the sweepstakes

Journal Entry 5 by fungirl503 from Gladstone, Oregon USA on Sunday, November 14, 2004
I am a person who looks at the cover of the book and will read a book that the title or picture looks good. I didn't like eithert one this book. silentmiaouw asked for the book , so I started to read it. This book is good it is about a chinese family going through rough times and letting people know their secrets.

Released on Friday, November 12, 2004 at about 10:00:00 AM BX time (GMT-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada) at fellow bookcrosser in postal release, Oregon USA.

RELEASE NOTES:

this book is on the way to silentmiaouw

Journal Entry 7 by over-the-moon from Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland on Thursday, December 16, 2004
Oh wonderful, this looks good enough to eat. Thank you fungirl.

Journal Entry 8 by over-the-moon from Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland on Thursday, December 23, 2004
Just finished reading this. The subject as copied from the cover jacket seems a little off the mark; to me this was more about putting up with and eventually escaping from an abusive marriage than anything else. It is set in the pre-Communist years, during the Japanese invasion of China, and events take place mainly in Shanghai and Kunming. I didn't know much about this period and found the account of life in China fascinating.
The character of Pearl, the daughter, born in the USA, is not well developed; it is Winnie, her mother, the most interesting. I don't know if other readers had this impression, and I feel a bit mean saying this, but I found it difficult to empathise with her, despite the horrific life she endured with her first husband Wen Fu - surely one of the most abusive husbands to be found in literature - a liar, a cheat, a murderer, a rapist, a thief, and a coward. But Winnie was so belligerent, so critical of her friends, so stingy (the Macy shoes incident!!!, the old Christmas wrapping on a wedding gift for ner nephew!) she often exasperated me; especially in her attitude towards Helen. I could hear her voice very distinctly, and thought Amy Tan an excellent writer to be able to put this across so vividly (I have not read any of her other books, apart from The Moon Lady). Thankfully, after pages of tragedy and loss, the story ends on a note of hope.

I searched to see if anyone had this on their wish list and found concertina8 in Austria, so it is setting off there next week, after the Christmas rush.

Journal Entry 9 by over-the-moon from Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland on Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Mailed from Vevey post office today, to concertina8 in Vienna. I also enclosed a small travel guide to China (in German) with a fold-out map, which is useful for tracing the journey of the refugees.

Journal Entry 10 by concertina8 on Monday, January 3, 2005
received this as a RABCK from silentmiouw, plus a china-travel-guide. thanks a bunch!



....sometime later

this was my second amy tan book (after reading "the joy luck club" years ago). i love her writing style. also, i like the mother-daughter-talks she did in both of the books. asia is really far, far away - in distance as well as culture - and i can't really say i ever knew that much about it. i recently developed a strong interest in asian things (beyond tea, that is) and i'm just slowly reading and watching my way into that corner of the world (e.g. more recently "memories of a geisha", of course this did not take place in china. also, a few movies). i don't think i will stop any time soon.

definately not the last amy tan book i will read.

we have a ladies' night in vienna coming up in a couple of weeks. this month's topic is "women's fiction", so this book fits the bill perfectly. i will release it into good hands.

Released 18 yrs ago (5/20/2005 UTC) at oh pot, oh pot! in Wien Bezirk 09 - Alsergrund, Wien Austria

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

RELEASE NOTES:

bei der ladies night

Journal Entry 12 by wingschwesterwing from Wien Bezirk 03 - Landstraße, Wien Austria on Friday, May 20, 2005
Picked up at the Ladies Night at "Oh Pot! Oh Pot!"... as I have not read a single Amy Tan - book...
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Great book! I liked the style, and I liked the way it gave me an insight to 20th century´s China. You start without any knowledge and end up being familiar with some customs, geography and even vocabulary. Wonderful how the book brings you closer to a culture you knew nothing about.

Next one to get this book is dear Hanni, hope you like it.

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