The book starts out in contemporary America, and is narrated by Pearl – a second generation Chinese emigrant, who is trying to balance her own 21st century American family life with the needs of her Chinese mother and her mother’s friends. From the third chapter on the narrating is taken over by Winnie, Pearl’s mother, and it transforms into being the story of her life – told against the background of her living in Shanghai in the 1930s and 40s, under the Kuomintang, but with the Communists already making their presence felt, and her experiences with the Japanese invasion of Shanghai . On a personal level it is about Winnie’s relationships, with her own mother, with her first husband Wen Fu, with her friends Hulan, Peanut, Min and Grand Auntie Du, and finally, about her relationship with the Chinese-American translator Jimmy Louie. The first pillar of the book for me was the suffocating nature of the family life portrayed. It starts in the present day, with a mother/daughter relationship that I found cringingly intrusive. In fact the whole family is way too over bearing, and that isn’t even just blood relatives. It also includes various friends who have been sucked into this gooey familial web. The second pillar was the superstition that is rife throughout the whole story. From the eccentricities of Grand Auntie Du’s household alter , to a plethora of omens that drench the lives of these people – inspiring or damning – and always taken seriously. At one stage there is a visit to a fortune teller, but this seems superfluous given that their lives are already heavily dominated by a super-awareness of portents of good and bad fortune.The third and final pillar of the book for me was the ubiquitous male dominance in Chinese society at this time. This was illustrated in the general culture, in the licence given to Winnie’s first husband, and in the heavy governance of her father, both towards her and her mother. Men ruled and marriage was all. But this pillar had woodworm.... The women in the story were rebelling – through friendship and support for one another, through the changing politics of the time, and through the sheer cussedness and determination of the main female protagonists in the story.My least favourite character at the beginning of the book was Helen, or Hulen as she was known in China, but as time went on I could not help but be beguiled by the riches that the author brought to her personality. She was stupid and clumsy, touching, wily, endearing, maddening, loyal, naive, preposterous, turncoat and vulnerable... By the end of the book I found her quite irresistible. Such a huge character. It was a pleasure to follow the ups and downs of her friendship with Winnie, and have my initial dislike so overturned. In fact all the women characters in the book had a lot of presence for me.The book ends with a return to the present day, with Winnie and her daughter Pearl coming to terms with a lot of things in one another’s lives that they had previously kept secret, and we sense a new closeness between them.For the most part though the book is harsh and quite brutal. Winnie did not have an easy life, not only in personal terms, but also in what she went through whilst being bombed, in fleeing the Japanese army, and in the aftermath of the war. Having said that – there is a happy ending – and the glow from that did much to warm the cockles of my cowardly heart.
I have to say, this book probably took me more than 2 months to finish. At first I regretted picking and buying this book when I read the first 200 pages. But when I was told we had 3 more weeks before the marking period ended, I panicked! This was the only book that I read throughout the whole marking period for advisory and I still have about 200 more pages to go. So then I forced myself to read at least 10 minutes per night. Then on Friday night (1/9), I got hooked onto this book. I read at least 40 pages that night. Then on Saturday night, instead of doing my homework, I was reading my book. Then on Sunday, having only 6 hours of sleep, I woke up to finish up my book! After finishing this, I definitely didn't regret getting this book at all! In fact, I love this book and I plan to get more books written by Amy Tan. I definitely learned a lot from “The Kitchen God’s Wife”. It was about a mother, Winnie, who was telling her daughter, Pearl, about her life (which she kept a secret of) in China before she came to America. She went through unfortunate events that all place in the early 1900s which was the time when Japan was trying to take over China and the Communist starting to take over. Her mother left her when she was young then her father made her move to her aunt’s place. Afterwards she got married to a very bad man that abused her and forced her to have sex with him and sadly, the babies that she had with him all died. But later, she runs away with the man she falls in love with and marries to come to America. I definitely cried reading the last half of the book since it was more focused on her in China. In the beginning, the first few chapters were about her daughter and her family in America. Then later, it led to the Winnie having her Pearl sit down and listen to her talk about her wretched life in China and who her real father was. After telling her about life, her daughter decided to tell her mother her secret that she kept from her. I felt really happy with what I have now after reading this book. What Winnie went through in China was misery. Like her mom leaving her when she was young and never had her father’s love and getting married with someone she didn’t know and getting abused afterwards. She had no choice and couldn’t change what she had until she fled. For me, I my parents love and they would force to me make choices that would make my future miserable. That’s why I feel really grateful afterwards. What I learned from this is to take a chance. In the end, Winnie ran away from her husband for the man that she loved. Though she was thrown in jail later, she still made it through and got married to him. She took a chance to make a change.
What do You think about The Kitchen God's Wife (2006)?
Another fantastic work by Tan. Tan has a tremendous gift when it comes to her story-telling and her ability to interweave Chinese culture, language and history is not only genius, but also gives her works of fiction incredible authenticity.TKGW is a story within a story about three Chinese women who emigrated to America, but the real story (and the better story) is what happened to them before they came to America - WWII, the men in their lives and their children not only define the women that they became, but provides great understanding in the development of their friendship and loyalty to each other.A wonderful read that I highly recommend, especially if the reader has read and enjoyed .
—Sera
I decided to re-read this since it had been at least 15 years since I first read it and I remembered it not one whit (that says more about me than it does the novel). Yet there are Cliffs Notes on it now?! Arrgh! A friend of mine who teaches with me also admitted that she got tired of teaching the Joy Luck Club, so she started teaching this one instead because many of the same themes are explored.I'd agree it's every bit as satisfying as the Joy Luck Club, although if I had to choose between the two books to be stranded with on a desert island, I'd pick Amy Tan's first novel. I happen to love the alternating viewpoints in that book (which, I fully realize, confused the heck out of some people). The Kitchen God's Wife has a simple framing device and then it's told mostly from a single point of view, so it's less challenging in that regard. But the mother's story is every bit as heart-wrenching and Tan's pen is every bit as talented here. In fact, Amy Tan has written nothing I didn't like EXCEPT for her last novel, Saving Fish From Drowning, which was a total disaster. Hated. It.
—Joyce
Amy Tan writes about women (complex women!) and I think that’s one of the things I love about her books. The men in her stories are shadows, almost undeveloped, with little presence except when they are cruel and threatening. I found this closed women’s world wonderfully refreshing, especially after reading so many books where men are the main focus. In The Godfather, Mario Puzo jumped into Mama Corleone’s point of view for just one small bit; just long enough to reveal that the wife of the mafia godfather did not concern herself with her husband’s violent world. She didn’t care. After all, men never concerned themselves with women’s problems. They were from two different worlds, and this separate view reminded me of Winnie, the main protagonist in The Kitchen God’s Wife. Winnie is so distant from her cruel husband that she doesn’t even know if Wen Fu is a gangster, and Tan never confirms it either. After all, it’s not important. The main focus is all about women. And the women are vivid too. Winnie and Helen come alive. By the end of the book I felt I knew them… quite well. Both their personalities and voices are so strong. I can still imagine them bickering with each other. And they are friends too -- true friends, who resent and care about each other. They even talk trash, yet they still stick together. I found this push and pull so real. There’s always a bit of one-upmanship with friends, and Tan knows this. You want good things for your friends, but you never want them to be too successful or too happy. It’s like sibling rivalry. LOLAnother great character was Auntie Du, who is an older woman with no husband (he died) and no money. She can’t even write. But she turns out to be this lovely hero, whom I just wanted to hug. In a society that undervalues widows and spinsters, I loved that she saved the day, and she didn’t even ask for credit. What a great character! As with all of Tan’s books, I love her simple but lyrical prose, and I love all the details she adds about China before and after the war. Tan takes you a different world and a different culture, but makes it familiar simply by introducing you to these fascinating and flawed women. The love and pain they feel is universal, and I found myself quite choked up at the end, thinking about the friends and family that are in my own women’s world. Problems I had with this book were the slow parts. Winnie’s daughter Pearl is definitely not as interesting as her mom (although I found her relationship with her mother poignant.) Wen Fu (Winnie’s husband) is almost too cruel, too inhuman. He’s such a monster. I really hated him, which is good for a villain. But like all Tan’s men, he was a shadow, very evil, but a shadow nevertheless. I think Tan revealed way too much of the ending in the beginning when Pearl is telling her story. Having Winnie go back and explain how things led up to where she was in the present, when you already know the outcome, kills a lot of the suspense. But all in all, I enjoyed this a lot. If you’ve never read a Tan book, you’ll be instantly transported to a new world. But if you’ve read her other books, you’ll definitely recognize many of the same themes and character types that she usually writes about. I give The Kitchen’s God’s Wife **** ½. It’s a great book!
—Willow
