Blogging: Today's Joy Luck Club

The book: The Joy Luck Club has been on my list of need to read in my lifetime for only 7 years. Finally, I friend picked it up for me and I started yesterday.

Yes, it's name implied an Asian theme and I  knew from looks on people's faces that had read it that it was "deeply" moving and talked about their struggles- but from there I didn't have any idea.

I pictured Chinatown in CA, some rickshaws, fireworks and bright colors but nothing more from there.

HA!

Whilst hand watering the dry patch out back, I opened the book jacket and read the line that hooked me; "..Amy Tan writes about what is lost- over the years, between generations, among friends, and what is saved."

Then the ball was hit out of the park with a review on the back that had to do with "the mystery of the mother daughther-bond". I was "in".

So I started. The reading was a little harder than Chinese Cinderella, in that I have to think more to mentally digest it and, well, we all know I don't digest and when I can't, the mental digesting of food gets hard, too.

But I learned that the club was basically a group of friends, that despite horrible circumstances in their lives- the Japanese are only going to descend upon them and they have their backs up to the Mountains with a concoction of all different ethnicities, social classes, etc.- they meet to play this game.

It isn't the game but the time together that is the key. The time they have to: "say stories" and what these women can draw from that time together hearing these stories. The methodical rolling of the dice, counting up the numbers, making the food and preparing their home for the game all adds to the ritual of sharing life.

Which made me think this is why I blog. There really is no other reason other than to "say stories" and I enjoy seeing others "stories on here".  And sometimes it can get right down religious!

The book is good- there are the daughter's points of view and the mothers. I found that reading each woman's story, then going to the chapter that is her daughter helped my brain keep the first couple women straight.

Blogging about Madre doesn't happen as often on here as Padre not because there is little to say about her. On the contrary. I just like to poke fun at my Dad- but she like Amy Tan says in her book is in the "bones" and very thread of me.

Every sentence, word and beauty that I have derived from life has emanated, somehow, through and because of, her. It's interesting and I think you'll see that in the book, and your own life how that can happen even if we seemingly are not "close" to our mothers. They are there in the very marrow of our bones!