Ever since The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan has not
let us down. Her rich writing, her complicated characters, and her
insight into the Chinese/American conundrum have given us a lot of good
reading. Add The Valley of Amazement to her pile. This
stunning book covers forty years and two continents. We see the collapse of
China’s last imperial dynasty and we learn about old Shanghai. It’s Shanghai
1812 and Violet Minturn is a “privileged daughter of the American madam running
the most exclusive courtesan house. But the Ching dynasty is overturned and
Violet is separated from her mother in a cruel act of chicanery.” (cover
blurb) It takes forty years for her to find her mother again and also
reunite with a daughter she lost.
Violet and her mother Lucia choose disasterous courses in
life, but then manage to pull it together. There are some good loves, sad
deaths, wealth and poverty, and journeys of discovery. The key is the
connection between mothers and daughters. At times convoluted, humor, desire,
drama , and deception pull together the huge narrative. There were times when I
wished Lucia’s story was more intermixed between Violet’s tale. I think that
would have given us more insight into both women’s saga. But it all ties up in
the end satisfactorily, and the writing is stupendous.
p. 588 “On sleepless nights, when I could not bear my life,
I thought of that ship and imagined I was aboard. I had been saved…….. But the
ship never left, and I would have to disembark, and begin my life again each
morning.”
The Valley of Amazement is a book, a painting,
and a life journey.
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