The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan

By the time I finished reading this book — as a way to procrastinate reading a different book I was halfway through but unfortunately uninterested in — I realized: Amy Tan is, without question, one of my favorite authors. Her prose is unassuming yet deft, taking you through the stories, into the hearts and minds of the characters, and out to the other side to emotional learning and growth.

At first I was irritated when The Bonesetter’s Daughter switched to telling the mother’s story, but then I became so engrossed that I was irritated to switch back to the daughter’s story! In the end, I was very satisfied by all the points of view, and I felt a more unequivocal happiness than I did upon finishing The Hundred Secret Senses (which is more bittersweet).

Actually my biggest “complaint” is that the main characters’ last name is Young, which I took to be American, but is actually intended to be Chinese. Typically a Chinese would spell that Yung or Yong or even Jung. So that threw me off. But really it’s a very minor thing.

Otherwise I found the story compelling, moving, and original, and the writing impeccable as usual.

Here’s to hoping I can write as well as Amy Tan someday.

Favorite lines and passages:

Years before, she had dreamed of writing stories as a way to escape. She could revise her life and become someone else. She could be somewhere else. In her imagination she could change everything, herself, her mother, her past. But the idea of revising her life also fightened her, as if by imagination alone she were condeming what she did not like about herself or others. Writing what you wished was the most dangerous form of wishful thinking. (31)

“We thought about marriage,” she said. “How can you not when you live together for four years? But you know what? Over time, passion wanes, differences don’t.” (33)

And though she might pooh-pooh her own work just to be modest, it irked her when others did not take her seriously. Even Art did not seem to recognize how difficult her job was. But that was partly her fault. She preferred to make it look easy. She would rather that others discern for themselves what an incredible job she did in spinning gold out of dross. They never did, of course. (43)

She often claimed she did not need to be acknowledged to feel satisfied, but that was not exactly true. (43)

“When you write, she said, you must gather the free-flowing of your heart.” (58)

You can never be an artist if your work comes without effort. That is the problem with modern ink from a bottle. You do not have to think. You simply write what is swimming on the top of your brain. And the top is nothing but pond scum, dead leaves, and mosquito spawn. But when you push an inkstick along an inkstone, you take the first step to cleansing your mind and your heart. You push and you ask yourself, What are my intentions? What is in my heart that matches my mind? (224-225)

Maybe it was the weakness of memory that made me feel less pain. Perhaps it was my life force growing stronger. (273)

“When you grind ink against stone you change its character, from ungiving to giving, from a single hard form to many flowing forms. But once you put the ink to paper, it becomes unforgiving again. You can’t change it back. If you make a mistake, the only remedy is to throw away the whole thing.” Precious Aunti had once said words that were similar. You should think about your character. Know where you are changing, how you will be changed, what cannot be changed back again. (295)

“What does a person need to say? What man, woman, or child does he need to say it to? What do you think was the very first sound to become a word, a meaning?”

…

That night, when Kai Jing was already asleep, I was still thinking about these questions. I imagined two people without words, unable to speak to each other. I imagined the need: The color of the sky that meant “storm.” The smell of fire than meant “Flee.” The sound of a tiger about to pounce. Who would worry about such things?

And then I realized what the first word must have been: ma, the sound of a baby smacking its lips in search of her mother’s breast. For a long time, that was the only word the baby needed. Ma, ma ma. Then the mother decided that was her name and she began to speak, too. She taught the baby to be careful: sky, fire, tiger. A mother is always the beginning. (299)

“There is no curse,” he said. I was listening hard, trying to believe that I would always hear him speak. “And you are brave, you are strong,” he went on. I wanted to protest that I didn’t want to be strong, but I was crying too much to speak. “You cannot change this,” he said. “This is your character.”

He kissed my eyes, one at a time. “This is beauty, and this is beauty, and you are beauty, and love is beauty and we are beauty. We are divine, unchanged by time.” He said this until I promised I believed him, until I agreed it was enough. (302)

They know where happiness lies, not in a cave or a country, but in love and the freedom to give and take what has been there all along. (403)