If You Stopped Reading Novels, These Two Novels Will Get You Reading Again
Maybe you are a busy person and don't have time to read any more. You used to like reading novels, but now it's just not possible. Right?
Well, you better make some time! Read these two novels by two authors of Chinese origin and you will re-think your priorities. They are that good.
I will not go into details of the plots and spoil your reading. I am here to point you in the right direction only.
These Two Books
... will make you stay up late at night turning page after page. And you will be very happy that you have read them.
Two Women Tell Exquisite Tales
What a joy is to read these two authors! Your life becomes more interesting after reading them.
Table of Contents
- These Two Books
- Two Women Tell Exquisite Tales
- Han Suyin's A Many Splendoured Thing
- Amy Tan's The Hundred Secret Senses
- Han Suyin: An Asian Hero
- Amy Tan: Telling the World about China
- Visit the Zazzle Store and Buy Squidoo Art and Unique Hand-Painted Greeting Cards!
- Amy Tan: Where does creativity hide?
- Did you find this article helpful for you?
- Please Post Your Comments Here:
- Han Suyin and Amy Tan on Amazon
Han Suyin's A Many Splendoured Thing
I read Han Suyin's A Many Splendoured Thing around 1992 I think. It's just such a liquid, translucent, glowing prose that I just could not stop reading - literally. I was hooked.A Many Splendoured Thing is a love story set in Hong Kong with a backdrop of second world war. The story itself is powerful and autobiographical but what hooks you is her language - pure poetry in prose. Please read this novel and experience life again.
This book was written in 1952 and a movie was made in 1955. It is out of print but I quickly ordered it secondhand through Amazon partners. You should too and start reading it.
Amy Tan's The Hundred Secret Senses
Amy Tan was a recent discovery for me. I read her book The Hundred Secret Senses and can't wait to read her other works. I did not want The Hundred Secret Senses to end, I just wanted to live in it and go on listening to this magic storyteller.It's a very strange story intermingled with modern day life, reincarnation, ghosts, communication with ghosts - but the story weaves its magic and doesn't let you go.
Han Suyin: An Asian Hero
Time magazine's 2006 issue has a cover title: 60 Years of Asian Heroes
, and Han Suyin is featured as a pioneer in Eurasian identity by daring to say: Yes I am an Eurasian, and I am beautiful because I am the fusion of the two finest cultures. Earlier, the China looked down upon its half-Chinese children and it was sometimes dangerous.
This is an excerpt from Time's issue:
The Belgian-Chinese novelist Han Suyin, born Elisabeth Chow in China's Henan province in 1917, was painfully familiar with this kind of race hatred. But far from hindering her, the prejudice she experienced as a child inspired a blend of defiance and pride that she expressed in her 1952 novel A Many-Splendoured Thing: "We must carry ourselves with colossal assurance and say, 'Look at us, the Eurasians! ... The meeting of both cultures, the fusion of all that can become a world civilization.'" It was an epoch-shifting outburst. Prior to reading Han, Eurasians tended to identify, somewhat apologetically, with either our Asian or European sides. But her writings opened up an infinitely richer middle ground that belonged to us alone.
As the article notes, she is full of contradictions but, if you think about it, a full life is always full of contradictions.
, and Han Suyin is featured as a pioneer in Eurasian identity by daring to say: Yes I am an Eurasian, and I am beautiful because I am the fusion of the two finest cultures. Earlier, the China looked down upon its half-Chinese children and it was sometimes dangerous.
This is an excerpt from Time's issue:
The Belgian-Chinese novelist Han Suyin, born Elisabeth Chow in China's Henan province in 1917, was painfully familiar with this kind of race hatred. But far from hindering her, the prejudice she experienced as a child inspired a blend of defiance and pride that she expressed in her 1952 novel A Many-Splendoured Thing: "We must carry ourselves with colossal assurance and say, 'Look at us, the Eurasians! ... The meeting of both cultures, the fusion of all that can become a world civilization.'" It was an epoch-shifting outburst. Prior to reading Han, Eurasians tended to identify, somewhat apologetically, with either our Asian or European sides. But her writings opened up an infinitely richer middle ground that belonged to us alone.
As the article notes, she is full of contradictions but, if you think about it, a full life is always full of contradictions.
Amy Tan: Telling the World about China
Amy Tan has been a very successful writer. How does she do it? What is she trying to tell the world?
In a Salon interview with Amy Tan, she reveals the following:
Speaking of mothers, do you get a hard time from relatives or close friends who think they see themselves in your books? Any accusations of personal secrets being told or confidences betrayed?
I did, at one point. One relative felt that the story of my grandmother should not have been revealed. My grandmother was the woman (in The Kitchen God's Wife) who had been raped, forced to be a concubine, and finally killed herself. My mother, though, got equally angry at the relative and said, "For so many years, I carried this shame on my back, and my mother suffered, because she couldn't say anything to anybody." And she said, "It's not too late; tell the world, tell the world what happened to her." And I take her mandate to be the one that is in my heart, the one that I should follow.
And tell the world she did, in elegant prose, in flowing imagery, in evocative scenes.
I will continue to read all her novels. What a treasure!
In a Salon interview with Amy Tan, she reveals the following:
Speaking of mothers, do you get a hard time from relatives or close friends who think they see themselves in your books? Any accusations of personal secrets being told or confidences betrayed?
I did, at one point. One relative felt that the story of my grandmother should not have been revealed. My grandmother was the woman (in The Kitchen God's Wife) who had been raped, forced to be a concubine, and finally killed herself. My mother, though, got equally angry at the relative and said, "For so many years, I carried this shame on my back, and my mother suffered, because she couldn't say anything to anybody." And she said, "It's not too late; tell the world, tell the world what happened to her." And I take her mandate to be the one that is in my heart, the one that I should follow.
And tell the world she did, in elegant prose, in flowing imagery, in evocative scenes.
I will continue to read all her novels. What a treasure!
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Available now: Postcards, prints, magnets, mugs. And more coming on your way !!!
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Amy Tan: Where does creativity hide?
Amy Tan: Where does creativity hide?
http://www.ted.com Novelist Amy Tan digs deep into the creative process, journeying through her childhood and family history and into the worlds of physics and chance, looking for hints of where her own creativity comes from. It's a wild ride with a surprise ending.
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Han Suyin and Amy Tan on Amazon
Many Splendoured Thing
Amazon Price: (as of 12/05/2008) 
The Hundred Secret Senses
Amazon Price: $10.17 (as of 12/05/2008)
The Joy Luck Club
Amazon Price: $10.68 (as of 12/05/2008)
Saving Fish from Drowning: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
Amazon Price: $10.20 (as of 12/05/2008)
The Bonesetter's Daughter: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
Amazon Price: $10.17 (as of 12/05/2008)
