Stories of mothers and daughters – The Joy Luck Club
The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
Oh how I love this book of mothers and daughter's lives and relationships and what we think we know and the chasms of what we don't.
I was first introduced to it in Canada 20 years ago. I reread it recently on kindle and just had to have the book in my hands again. I took a deep sigh of something or other when it arrived today.
There was a movie in 1993 but we won't talk about it ... yes, it was that bad but the good news I just learned there's a new one - fingers crossed this will be wonderful.
Amy Tan's Writing in part touches me so deeply ... it speaks of a history I can personally relate to and is reminiscent of where so many women are when we begin our work together ... before they begin to remember who they are and rediscover their own secret wishes
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The Moon Lady ...
"For all those years I kept my mouth closed so selfish desire would not fall out. And because I remained quiet for so long now my daughter does not hear me ...
All those years I kept my true nature hidden, running along like a small shadow so nobody could catch me. And because I moved so secretly now my daughter does not see me ...
And I won't tell her this: We are lost she and I, unseen and not seeing unheard and not hearing, unknown by others.
I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water.
Yet today I can remember a time when I ran and shouted, when I could not stand still. It is my earliest recollection; telling the Moon Lady my secret wish. And because I forgot what I wished for, that memory remained hidden from me all these many years"
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/19/amy-tan-joy-luck-club-guardian-book-club