Marie Arana

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Book Club: "The Bonesetter's Daughter"
Presented by Marie Arana
Washington Post Book World Editor
Thursday, Nov. 29, 2001; Noon EST

Welcome to the online meeting of The Washington Post Book Club, a monthly program presented by the editors and writers of Washington Post Book World. Book World Editor Marie Arana will be leading the discussion on this month's selection, Amy Tan's "The Bonesetter's Daughter."

Born in Lima, Peru, Arana hails from a long career in books. She currently published "American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood," a memoir about growing up in Peru and the U.S. Before her current post, she was Deputy Editor of Book World for seven years. Previously, she was a vice president and senior editor at Simon & Schuster as well as Harcourt Brace Publishers. Arana earned her BA in Russian literature at Northwestern University, studied Mandarin at Yale University in China, and completed an MA in Linguistics at the British University of Hong Kong. An award-winning book editor, she sits on the board of the National Book Critics Circle, and has served on the board of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

The transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Marie Arana: Welcome to our discussion of Amy Tan’s “The Bonesetter’s Daughter.” I chose this book for many reasons. The most important reason is that it serves as a terrific example of the challenges a fiction writer faces when attempting to tie the present to the past. Tan takes on family history, the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, and the tempo of contemporary America. In my mind, at least, she doesn’t succeed completely. The novel is imperfect, making it all the more interesting for purposes of discussion. Clearly, Tan struggled with the issue of voice. There are different voices at work in this book: The tone of Part One (the first 150 pages), which is set in the present, is actually at great odds with the tone in Part Two, in which the novelist plunges back in time to tell the story of Lu Ling, the protagonist’s--Ruth’s--mother. It is as if we were reading two books from two different heads, and the effect is remarkable, sometimes jarring, but always fascinating. The contrast between the richness of the mother’s story and the thinness of the daughter’s begs the question: Why is it that contemporary America is so hard to write about? I’d like to address this and any other comments you may have about Amy Tan’s beguiling novel.

Maryland: Marie,
Do you consider Amy Tan an Asian American writer? Is the Bonesetter's Daughter a novel about her personal life? I think she creates a proactive voice for Asian women in her novel that breaks stereotypes of the passive quiet wife/mother.

Marie Arana: Thank you, Maryland, for this question. I think it's very clear that Tan writes about her personal life. As I recall, this book was prompted by her conversation with her mother at her mother's deathbed. Her mother confessed what her real name was, and then went on to reveal who *her* mother was. So you see, there is a direct tie to the story of Lu Ling and Precious Auntie.
As far as I can determine, Tan is very open about writing about her own family, particularly her mother.
And yes, the heroines Tan creates are generally strong, although never as strong as Maxine Hong Kingston's Warrior Woman. There is still a very self-critical element there. A shyness in the face of more powerful family members. What she has done so well is open Asian-American families up as interesting, roiling, and complicated families.

Bethesda, Md.: The author wrote an unbelievably complex story tracing human emotions spanning large distances as well as time. She effectively portrayed how LuLing and Ruth came to understand one another. Her characterizations seemed realand the storyline came into sharp focus by the end of the book. However, don't you think that PART TWO was drawn out and might have been shortened and sequenced as PART ONE?

Marie Arana: To me, Part Two, which takes place in China and deals with the past, is far more interesting than the hum drum--excessively preened and overly cute--Part One. I was struck by the depth of the history and the family story. It made Part One pale, and yet, it also added so many aspects to the very contemporary life of Ruth. It's like suddenly seeing the sediments of culture that inform a living, breathing person. What do you think? Did you find the different voices jarring?

Bethesda, Md.: I had a vey hard time following the second part of the book. Lu Ling's story was very confusing. It did not end with the bang Tan's other books have had. I did not feel enlightened when I finished this book.

Marie Arana: Well, here is someone who disagrees! Great. That's what makes a book club discussion! I think that the set up for the second part was problematic. Tan's part one sets you up for a story that is very different one from the one you end up getting in Part Two. I, too, thought that the end was vaguely dissatisfying. Too pat. And yet, somehow, the effort was grand. Operatic.

Rockville, Md.: Although silence is a theme in this work -- and in other of Tan's writing -- isn't the fact that Ruth is telling the story -- it's her story -- proof of victory over silence?

Marie Arana: Good question. The whole thing seems to me to be a work that addresses silence, secrets, shame. The losing of the voice (Ruth's). The muteness of Precious Auntie. The work of ghostwriters. And yet, the heroine prevails. There is certainly a victory there, but it isn't until history speaks, that the truth is known and Ruth is freed. Can you think of other works that do this?

Lenexa, Kans.: Ms. Arana,

Your affection for Kingston, Allende, Tan--I'm sure many others--all share, of course, a biculture and historical imprinting of forebears and their complicated personal relationships that continue to haunt as spirits. Your memoir was also kindred.

It does make for excellent literature. I liked the present-day story (Ruth and Art, LuLing and Mr. Tang) intertwined with the past and how the past ghosts had to be appeased--or at least comprehended--to permit the present to flower.

COMMENTS/QUESTIONS: Did you enjoy the 20th century history that accompanied the narrative? Also, as educated as you are, you don't literally believe in ghosts, do you? Thanks.

Marie Arana: Thank you, Lenexa. Always glad to have you.
Yes, perhaps I am somewhat obsessed with the ways cultures (or the clash of cultures) define us. Certainly Kingston addresses this. I'm not sure about Allende.
Authors who interest me--my favorites are Tolstoy, Flaubert, Nabokov, Ralph Ellison, Hardy, etc. etc.--always seem to address a clash of some kind. Very often they are about our ties to history, race, family. Things we can't change.
Thank you, too, for mentioning my memoir, "American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood," which very definitely attempts to address these things.
Yes, of course, I believe in ghosts. The more education I get, the more I believe in them. What scientist said, The more I learn, the more there is to know, and the greater is God.

Arlington, Va.: Wasn't Amy Tan in town a little while ago? Do you know about the next book that she is working on now?

Marie Arana: Sad story. We had actually invited Amy Tan here to Washington to be one of our Special Event Authors. She had accepted, and it had been scheduled for Nov. 15. Unfortunately, she found herself in New York City on Sept. 11, and witnessed the ghoulish events as they unfolded. She became quite ill as a result, I'm told, and had to cancel. Our hope is that we'll be able to reconstitute her event when she feels better.
Apparently she is undergoing treatment now. I do not know exactly what her condition is, but I do know it was serious enough to keep her in bed.

Arlington, Va.: Hi,

I am so glad you are having this chat. I emjoy all of Amy Tan's writings. What I think her is strength, besides sharing her knowledge of China and her rich (sometimes personal) family history is the timeless story of the struggle of American daughter with immigrant mother, the struggle of children raised with freedoms unknown to their parents to understand what their family went through and why they came to the United States. I am a second generation American myself and I think the intrinsic relationship between mother and daughter is what makes Tan's writings universal and compelling. I think she is successful because not many other writer's are telling this story.

Any comments?

Marie Arana: How right you are. This is it exactly, of course. We can all empathize, even if the immigrant experience in our families are long ago, because to some extent we are all strangers in the eyes of earlier generations. We are all estranged from our parents and ancestors in ways great and small.
Tan's success, I think, is in the relationships she describes between women. Just think of the Lu Ling and Precious Auntie bond. Or the Lu Ling and Gao Ling (sister) bond. Ruth's obligations to her mother--that filial piety, of you will--is classic Asian American. But it is also Jewish American, Latino American. Many kinds of American. She captures this beautifully.

Washington, D.C.: Is this book going to be a movie?

Marie Arana: Good question. It certainly has cinematic qualities.
I never did see the movie that was made of the Joy Luck Club. Did anyone? I tend to be disappointed with movies that are based on books I like. Did anyone read Alice McDermott's That Night? What a great book, and what a disappointing movie.

Chevy Chase, Md.: Two of us have the same question. What IS it about Tan's writing that makes her books page turners -- while her prose is fine it is not stunning but it's sure hard to put her books down -- is it some sort of literary device?

Marie Arana: Her prose is certainly not stunning in the contemporary settings. In China, and in the past, it takes on a luminosity.
There are certain devices in the writing that do pull readers along. Starting a chapter with "These are the things I must not forget," has the effect of making you want to read on. But the most alluring quality of Tan's fiction is her ability to create tension and mystery. You wonder how the daughter will ever learn the truth. And you wonder if the tension will ever be resolved. Sounds simple, but it's devilishly hard to pull off in a book.

Washington, D.C.: What other Amy Tan books would you recommend? And, have you ever met the author?

Marie Arana: No I've never met the author. But I have friends who are, in turn, friends of hers. They say she is a most appealing person.
She has numerous other books: The Joy Luck Club, of course, which many feel is her best book. The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, and two books for kids, which I have not read.
If you haven't read The Joy Luck Club, you should. It's a nice contrast to this book.

Arlington, Va.: I also found Part Two much richer and satisfying than Part One. Amy Tan amkes it come alive and it doesnt read simply like dressed up research material. Normally, one would think that its easier to write about contemporary life than depict the past. Is this also the case with other writers who try to incorporate their roots/cultures in their work?

Marie Arana: Yes, you would think it would be much harder to write about the past, but it's simply not true. You can *create* the past. You can fashion it to be anything you like, and the reader is suspended in the world you create. Writing about the present is much harder. We all know too much. We're all cynics about it. This is what makes Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections such a triumph. He manages to give contemporary characters real depth and meaning. They may not be anyone we recognize from our own lives, but they are rich and nuanced.
Tan's contemporary world seems a little flat to me, especially in comparison with the voice she reserves for the past. She loosens up. And she loosens us up as a result, too.

Lenexa, Kans.: Thanks for your nice response. I particularly enjoyed the California Land's End scene when Ruth, after recalling the Lance episode, writes "Help" in the sand -- as she had done 35 years before walking the same beach. Did the Lance section remind you somewhat of your own Antonio recollection?

Also, the K.C. Star recently carried a quote from Kingston: "Before we can leave our parents, they stuff our heads like the suitcases which they jam-pack with homemade underwear." Seems very relevant to The Bonesetter's Daughter, doesn't it? Thanks again.

Marie Arana: Yes, this was a very effective glance back at the past, no? Funny that you made the link between that scene with Lance and the Antonio in my own memoir. Yes, of course it had some resonance for me.
This poses a very good question indeed: Do you read fiction hoping for resonance with your own life or because they take you a million miles away from your own experience? We could do a whole book club hour on this question alone.

Centreville, Va.: I was particularly interested in the theme of an adult child finally getting to know her mother, just as her mother is losing the memories of the life that made her who she is. Because of the language barrier this daughter had less knowledge than most of us of her mother's life before she (Ruth) was born. I enjoyed the use of two different voices, felt it made the story much richer.
What was the point of Peking Man in the story? I was aware that the fossils had been lost during the Japanese occupation, but surely LuLing's life was tragic enough without this addition.

Marie Arana: Oh boy. The Peking Man seemed an odd choice to me, too. The reference to bones is, of course, a very important aspect of this book. And bones in Chinese culture are a powerful image--you grind bones, rhinoceros horn, organic substances, and take them to ward off sickness, improve your health.
I suppose it was a way to ground the story in some real, not just imagined, history, but I didn't think it was all that necessary to the story. I see the jacket copy made big, important-sounding noises about the Pek.Man connection.

Arlington, Va.: I actually enjoyed Part II far more that the parts that bookended it. I found LuLing's story far more compelling than Ruth's relationship with Art and I thought Tan was trying to do too much.

Marie Arana: Do you think that Part Two could have stood alone as a book unto itself? Imagine yourself the editor of this book. Tell me what you think.

Virginia: There was an author from South American whom background and lifestyle were challenged by an academic which was not PC. Is Amy's background for real?

Marie Arana: Interesting. I don't know who you mean.
Do you mean perhaps Rigoberta Menchu, who was given the Nobel Peace Prize, and then the authenticity of her story (told in "I, Rigoberta Menchu") was brought into doubt? Give me more information.
Amy Tan's background is certainly real. She's Chinese. Second generation. Her parents were born in China. But she's writing fiction, after all. So there's nothing to challenge here, as far as veracity is concerned.

Wheaton, Md.: I'd like to go back to a question and also a comment of yours. I think that they are inter-related. The first, "Why is it that contemporary America is so hard to write about?" The second, a comment, that Part One paled in comparison to Part Two.

I think that part of the issue is that we are younger in history, so we don't have the richness of older cultures. We're also generally shallower.

Marie Arana: Good point.
I also think that the tendency of most contemporary American writers is to delve into the small. They concern themselves with superficial dynamics, rather than spread out to larger canvases with larger dramas.

Bethesda, Md.: I had read an article in the Post when this book was released stating Tan's mother struggled with a mental condition and this book very much was in relation to her childhood.

Marie Arana: Correct.
The Alzheimers connection is very real for this writer. Also, I should mention for The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen, which I just mentioned earlier (National Book Award winner, top of our bestseller list). Franzen's parents were both beset by Alzheimers. In his book, however, the disease becomes Parkinson's.

Wheaton, Md.: Part Two definitely needs the framework of Part One for reference. However, I'm not sure whether Part One might have been done a little more effectively. Most of us believe there's a large discrepancy in quality.

Marie Arana: Yes, Yes! The discrepancy is huge.
Perhaps, some literary historian in the future will say: Look how clever Tan was, she was reflecting in her two narrators' voices the differences in time itself.
I refuse to think of contemporary settings as necessarily flat and uninteresting, though.

Fairfax, Va.: Many of us never uncover our mother's history. In a way it is a gift as we can create one that servers our needs and not be saddled with truth that has no meaning for us now.

Marie Arana: Wow. This is a very Zen attitude.
I say: Great, if you can do that.

Lenexa, Kans.: Re film "Joy Luck Club": I remember my wife quoting to our teenage son: "Only two kinds of children, obedient, or follow own mind. Only one kind who live in this house, obedient kind." It was done with a sense of humor in our case as we'd already lost control.

Anyway, I think she is especially skilled at humorous dialogue of the second-language characters. One can imagine how embarrassing such attempts could be in someone not so skilled. Thanks.

Marie Arana: One of the great pleasures I take from Tan's books is the way she reflects Chinglish. If you've studied Chinese, as I have, it's especially wonderful. She uses English words and Chinese syntax. It's perfect pidgin. Lovely.

Washington, D.C.: How do you think "The Bonesetter's Daughter" compares with Amy Tan's other works? Do you see a progression in her skills as a writer through each successive novel?

Marie Arana: As I said earlier, it's a fascinating exercise in dealing with 1)time, the differences between present and past lives, 2)culture, the deep rifts between Asia and America. Joy Luck Club was easier to pull off, I think. She bit off a huge task with Bonesetter's Daughter. But I admire her courage and spunk. Look at Theodore Dreiser's work: Full of flaws, but oh the portrait is so rich!

Chevy Chase, Md.: Two of us have the same question. What IS it about Tan's writing that makes her books ;page turners -- while her prose is fine it is not stunning but it's sure hard to put her books down -- is it some sort of literary device?

Marie Arana: Am I going mad or did I answer this question earlier? Either Post technology or the Arana brain is breaking down, but I'll just post this quickly now.
Her books are page-turners because they are so full of humanity.

Lenexa, Kans.: What's your thought on cultural difference in readers? I'm Volga-German--like to think square in the German Rationalist tradition--and probably prefer purely existential novels (Eliot's "brass tacks" of "birth, copulation, and death"). There seems enough delight and horror in that without resorting to supernaturalism.

Not that I haven't enjoyed your picks--in fact, I've loved all four. Based on Mr. Dirda's endorsements, I also plan to buy John Clute's guides to fantasy and science fiction to help broaden out.

Marie Arana: Ah, but the German literary (and musical) tradition is full of its ghosts and supernatural forces, too! I say: Chacun a son gout! To each his own.
The mystical fascinates me. The magical, too.
Perhaps I'm just a child at heart.
I see we've come to the end of our hour. Thank you very much for joining me in this discussion. It was a great pleasure for me.
Keep reading!
Our next selection, from my colleague Jabari Asim, is The Watsons Go To Birmingham, by Christopher Paul Curtis. What a polar opposite of Bonesetter's Daughter! Please join him online at noon on December 20.
Happy Holidays!

washingtonpost.com:

That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the discussion.

Next month: Join Book World editor Jabari Asim for a live online discussion on "The Watsons Go To Birmingham," by Christopher Paul Curtis on Dec. 20, 2001 at noon EST.

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