About this title: Ruth Young and Art Kamen live together in San Francisco, and the deterioration of their relationships renders Ruth unable to speak. Her Chinese mother, LuLing, who now has Alzheimer's, is another complicating factor in her life, but the diary she kept as a young woman still exists, and when Ruth reads it she comes to a better understanding of her ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
Date Published: 02/2001
ISBN-13:9780399146435ISBN:0399146431
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 353 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
Date Published: 02/2001
ISBN-13:9780399146435ISBN:0399146431
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 353 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
Date Published: 02/2001
ISBN-13:9780399146435ISBN:0399146431
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 353 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
Date Published: 02/2001
ISBN-13:9780399146435ISBN:0399146431
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 353 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
Date Published: 02/2001
ISBN-13:9780399146435ISBN:0399146431
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 353 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
Date Published: 02/2001
ISBN-13:9780399146435ISBN:0399146431
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 353 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
Date Published: 02/2001
ISBN-13:9780399146435ISBN:0399146431
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 353 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
Date Published: 02/2001
ISBN-13:9780399146435ISBN:0399146431
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 353 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
Date Published: 02/2001
ISBN-13:9780399146435ISBN:0399146431
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 353 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
Date Published: 02/2001
ISBN-13:9780399146435ISBN:0399146431
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 353 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
Date Published: 02/2001
ISBN-13:9780399146435ISBN:0399146431
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 353 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
Date Published: 02/2001
ISBN-13:9780399146435ISBN:0399146431
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 353 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
Date Published: 02/2001
ISBN-13:9780399146435ISBN:0399146431
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 353 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
Date Published: 02/2001
ISBN-13:9780399146435ISBN:0399146431
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 353 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
Date Published: 02/2001
ISBN-13:9780399146435ISBN:0399146431
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 353 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
Date Published: 02/2001
ISBN-13:9780399146435ISBN:0399146431
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 353 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
Date Published: 02/2001
ISBN-13:9780399146435ISBN:0399146431
Description: Good in good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 353 p. Ex-Library expected imperfections. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
Date Published: 02/2001
ISBN-13:9780399146435ISBN:0399146431
Description: Good in good dust jacket. Good, In good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 353 p. Ex-Library expected imperfections. read more
"My first Amy Tam! And it was alright. At times, it felt stereotyped. The man in the narrator's life was distant, as I remember the men in the Joy Luck Club being, his daughters, white teenagers, were rude and disrespectful of Asian culture in general. Everyone came around at the end, in a move I felt was very forced, as though Tan was trying to prove that she doesn't write the same characters over and over. I did like the portrayal of her mother, who seemed like all the Asian mothers I have ever met. Her dementia was presented in a most terrifyingly convincing manner. The story is told in pieces, interspersed between dull bits of the narrator's pathetic life, which she lives apathetically and without initiative of any kind. I think at the end, along with the inexplicable changes in behavior from her man and his kids, we are supposed to believe she's taken control of her life. I think I just talked my rating down from three to two stars..."
My name is LuLing Liu Young. The names of my husbands were Pan Kai Jing and Edwin Young, both of them dead and our secrets gone with them. My daughter is Ruth Luyi Young. She was born in a Water Dragon Year and I in a Fire Dragon Year. So we are the same but for opposite reasons.
And so begins The Bonesetter's Daughter. Mothers and daughters, and Chinese families in America is what Amy Tan does. And again she does it sublimely.
This multi-dimensional, multi-generational story of mothers and daughters, and daughters who grown up to be the mothers of daughters, is beautiful and finely crafted.
We are introduced to the family through Ruth, the daughter. Through the interpretation of pages of Chinese writing her mother gives her, we discover the story of her mother, LuLing. Through her exploration of her mother's home and life, together with Ruth we begin to understand both LuLing and the relationship she has with Ruth.
As LuLing slowly loses her mind to old age, so Ruth slowly discovers why her mother is as she is. And she begins to understand her mother in a way she never has before.
Beyond the narrative, this book is about the complicated relationships between mother and daughter and how they work in both directions. It's about how we as children know so little about our parents' lives before they became our parents. It's about how different the life of a woman in a generation away from ours can be. It's about love and friendship and social rules and how they all can make or break us.
It's also about the secrets we all keep from each other; and how and why we learn to do this; the damage secrets can do and also the value they have.
It's a lovely story, well told and highly acclaimed. The Bonesetter's Daughter was a New York Times best seller.
"All of Amy Tan's books have very similar themes, and even similar plots, but she still manages to put a different spin on each of her novels. This one seems to have more of a supernatural tinge, drawing the reader in from the very beginning. This book didn't have the same historical sweep as The Kitchen Gods Wife, but stood its own all the same, drawing more from Chinese archeological aspects such as oracle bones and the Peking man (or woman). Like all of Tan's books, Bonesetter's Daughter dealt with an American-Chinese daughter (Ruth) struggling to understand and connect with her mother and her own Chinese heritage. The midsection of the book is Ruth's crabby and senile mother's (Luling's) story: growing up as the bastard child of the deformed Bao Bomu in World War II era China. As the story unravels, we come to understand, along with Ruth, the insights into Luling's life in modern-day California that explain her seemingly odd behavior."
"The Bonsetter's Daughter follows Tan's ususal format of exploring the realationships between mothers and daughters in old world China and in modern times. I love how when reading Tan's novels you realize you aren't just here today - you are a product of past generations, their sucesses and their mistakes. Tan really emphasises this point in this particular book. It was quite a comeback after her last book Saving Fish from Drowing which did not live up to her usual standards. Ruth the main charecter is typically flawed, and struggles with the typical arguments with her mother. When she learns of her mother's true past, not only does the relationship she has with her mother change, but also her realtionship with all others in her life chage, her step-daughters, her husband and so on. Tan spins the threads so delicately and so enticing that one can't help wanting to read just one more chapter to find out what happens next. Highly reccomended."
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