The Hundred Secret Senses

♦♦♦♦ By Amy Tan.

Okay, okay! Forget what I said about getting White Oleander from the library on a rainy afternoon. You simply must read The Hundred Secret Senses!!! This book totally rocks!

Plot teaser: Chinese-American Olivia is, as a child, suddenly gifted (or cursed) with a half-sister twelve years her senior -- Kwan, straight from China, who communicates with the spirit world of Yin. Or does she? As an adult, Olivia is haunted by Kwan's stories about her past life as she struggles to cope with a failing marriage and ghosts of her own. But she finds that she can't reject Kwan's spirits as figments, and it is this growing realization that is her only hope to healing her wounds.

Things I loved about this book:

* I'm a fan of art that blurs the lines between reality and fantasy, and Tan does this beautifully here. She keeps the reader speculative, doubtful, hopeful each moment -- is there really a World of Yin, and is reincarnation real, and can people talk to ghosts? And ultimately, we ask, does it matter? (I'll warn you, though: you will want desperately to believe in Kwan, which I count as another of Tan's successes.) There are some truly magical moments.

* The characters are great, each distinctive and meticulously developed. Kwan is probably the best of these, and Tan writes her Chinese-tinted American speech wonderfully. I could picture and hear her perfectly ever time.

* The storytelling is powerful, persuasive, compelling, yadda yadda, without crossing the line into melodrama or sensationalism. That's my biggest beef with writers such as John Irving -- storytellers who can really speak to the masses (as opposed to "literary" snobs) but can't resist throwing in some incest, murder, or sexual disfuntion. (Aside: I liked The Cider House Rules and might have liked A Prayer for Owen Meany had the main character not spoken in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.) Tan's story is exciting without ringing sordid or false.

There were some little things that I wasn't crazy about, but I'm not going to mention them because I don't want anything to dissuade you from reading this book, damn it!

Posted by Lisa on June 2, 2003 08:25 PM