I can’t believe how behind I am with the Classics Club Challenge. Not only haven’t I wrote about a few books that I have read from my list, there are so many books I haven’t read yet and there is less than a year left for me to do so. I suppose the only thing left to do is get on with it!
I read The Joy Luck Club almost three years ago which probably means this review isn’t going to be as detailed as I would have liked. However, I do remember that I really enjoyed this novel. I love learning about different cultures and seeing things from a completely different perspective. Although I don’t come from the most culturally diverse part of the USA, something I always liked about my country was that people from all over the world had come to make a new life there. Families had brought different 
traditions, beliefs and languages with them. Of course, for some this had happened much more recently than others.
My best friend growing up was first generation American. Her parents came from two different eastern European countries and I loved going over their house and hearing them speak in Polish together as a common language. I also loved spending time with a family who lived next door to us for a time because the parents were from Colombia and it was so cool when I actually understood a word here or there. Later, one of my sisters married a man who was born in America to Italian parents.
On the other hand, I have some great great grandparents who came to America on both sides of my family but other ancestors of mine made the move much longer ago than that. After living abroad, I’ve realised how silly it sounds to say that I am English, Irish and Danish when really what I am is American. I still haven’t even been to Denmark! Also, as I grew older, I realised that there was a lot more to the ‘melting pot’ of the USA than the pretty accepting picture to which my younger self had proudly and innocently envisioned I belonged. Anyway, let’s get back to the point.
Although I had and still have direct contact with people who are first generation American, it’s impossible for me to really know how it was for them growing up with parents from a different country and thus being a mixture of at least two cultures. Some parents only wanted their children to fit in and sometimes that meant they thought they should speak only English which I always thought was a shame. I’m sure at times the children also found it difficult to have parents who seemed to think differently to their friends’ parents.
The Joy Luck Club gives us a glimpse into the minds of four Chinese mothers and their
first generation American daughters. You see the misunderstanding that can develop between the two different generations. Also, you come to realise, if you hadn’t already, that the love that is present between a parent and their child is the same no matter the cultural background or how it is shown.
“I am ashamed she is ashamed. Because she is my daughter and I am proud of her, and I am her mother but she is not proud of me.”
The daughters had no idea what their mothers had been through before starting their new lives in America. I loved reading all the different stories and coming to understand that older generation, at least a little bit. Some of the things they went through were absolutely heart-breaking and unimaginable to me. You get both frustrated with their daughters’ lack of understanding but also sympathise with them for often feeling only the pressure to be something great and not being understood by their mothers either.
“And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English. They see that joy and luck do not mean the same to their daughters, that to these closed American-born minds “joy luck” is not a word, it does not exist. They see daughters who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation.”
This book opened my eyes in new ways and made me feel so deeply for all the different characters. I know I will read it again one day.
Musings of a Little Lizard 