Namaste!

Hope you are holding up well during these difficult times.

I just finished reading a book that I should have read decades ago, and rightly so, I found it in my daughter’s library- THE JOY LUCK CLUB by AMY TAN, published in 1989.

Four mothers, four daughters and their stories. Stories told by each of them. Every story has a mention of the struggles their respective mothers have gone through. Every story also has a mention of the struggles in their lives because of their respective mothers.

Each mother daughter duo’s story in this book is unique and still connected in many ways. The expectations and the desire to see their daughters lead a better life than theirs is the underlying connection. Each mother tries to mould her daughter based on her life experiences and desires. Unfortunately, each daughter only learns from her own life experiences.

The fact that this book tells stories of four Chinese immigrant families in San Francisco makes the ordeals of the mothers trying to bring up Americanized Chinese daughters makes the task harder.

Mother daughter relationships are complicated.  For a daughter, her mother’s voice constantly rings in her head. . There are decisions she takes to please her mom and there are the ones that she takes to displease her mom. Either ways, it is connected to her mom. Every daughter will have a list of wrongs that her mother has done to her. Every daughter will have anecdotes of how her mother has embarrassed her. Every daughter will have examples of how her mother has tried to stop her from living her life the way she wanted. Every daughter will also have thousands of reasons to know that no one else could love her more than her mother does. She knows no one else could be more concerned about her well being than her mother.

“The significance and impact of this relationship does not stop when the girls grow up. Of all familial relationships, the mother–daughter one is most likely to remain important for both parties, even when major life changes occur”, says Jackie Bischof in her article: What it means to be a “good mom” to your adult daughter

In the book, I especially loved the fact that each daughter discovers her mother’s story of strength and endurance during the course of the own story. It completely shifts their attitudes towards their mothers. Probably the daughters don’t want to hear their mother’s stories when they are young or the mothers don’t want to tell their daughters their stories until they think the daughters have attained a certain age and wisdom. The daughters finally find their strength and a closure to their issues by rediscovering their mothers.

This is a good book for a book club. The different layers and the different characters in the book makes it a good pick for discussions.

Book Blurb:

The Joy Luck Club describes the lives of four Asian women who fled China in the 1940s and their four very Americanized daughters. The novel focuses on Jing-mei “June” Woo, a thirty-six-year-old daughter, who, after her mother’s death, takes her place at the meetings of a social group called the Joy Luck Club. As its members play mah jong and feast on Chinese delicacies, the older women spin stories about the past and lament the barriers that exist between their daughters and themselves. Through their stories, Jing-mei comes to appreciate the richness of her heritage.

I loved reading this book. I am not sure if I want to watch the movie adaptation of this book yet. The movie was released in 1993.

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