103 of 107 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Another cross-cultural multi-generational gem from Amy Tan, February 21, 2001
The Bonesetter's Daughter is a wonderful example of Amy Tan's considerable skill as a master storyteller. Here she exposes to us, layer by layer, the deeply complex relationship between Ruth Young, a ghostwriter of self-help books, and her mother, LuLing.
Realizing she is having problems with her memory long before Ruth suspects it, Luling painstakingly writes the facts of her life as best she remembers it, so that her story doesn't die with her failing memory.
The start and finish of this novel, which chronicles Ruth's struggle in coming to terms with her mother througout her life and Ruth's stumbling upon LuLing's memoirs, frame the middle section of the book, which consist of the memoirs themselves.
I found the novel absolutely fascinating, and read through it in a single sitting.
Two mother-daughter stories are presented here, as the relationship between LuLing and her mother are also central to the telling of this wonderful story. Amy Tan does a superb job of presenting these separate yet connected narratives into a masterpiece of a book, blending character, dialogue, and narrative seemlessly (and seemingly effortlessly) together.
Readers of the author's previous novels will find similarity between The Bonesetter's Daughter and her previous novels. Some readers, as I, will find everything comfortably familiar. On the other hand, it is only fair to criticize the formulaic sameness of her work. The repeated exploration of the relationship between a Chinese-born mother and her american born daughter is a bit off-putting; as is the parallel telling of two generation's narrative. Also, I don't find that her male characters are realistically drawn, and the relationship struggles between the daughter and her significant other (at least in Ms. Tan's last two books) seem rather superficial.
These (admittedly) rather minor complaints are the only thing that keeps me from giving the book five stars.
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54 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Don't be so easily discouraged..., March 12, 2001
By A Customer
I purchased this book when it was first released (I'd become a fan of Amy Tan's books having read the other three before), and then just out of curiosity decided to check the reviews of it here at amazon to catch a glimpse of what I was getting into. I'm sad to say that many of the reviews readers gave "The Bonesetter's Daughter", of it being a "rehashing of the same story" and such made me prejudiced towards it, and I put down the book for a few weeks. Pure boredom this past weekend made me finally resolve to give it a try anyway, and I could barely stop to put it down. Sure, it can be argued that the bulk of Ms. Tan's books focus on the mother-daughter relationship dynamic and of past wrongs done to them by men of their pasts...but I think that part of the reason why she's sucessfully been able to transform these themes into their own unique story every time, is because they deal with a part of history in which several different cultures can find kinship. The fact is that Amy Tan is a master of capturing true human emotion in her characters' lives, that touches the reader in a very poigniant way. And this one is no exception. "The Bonesetter's Daughter" has now become my favorite of Amy Tan's novels, and I just moments ago finished it and passed it along to my own mother telling her that she "MUST read this book right away!" I'd like to extend the same recommendation to everyone else who is considering taking up "The Bonesetter's Daughter" as well. Luyi--*all that you wish*
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A sensitive, emotion-driven tale by an excellent writer., March 28, 2001
In "The Bonesetter's Daughter," set in San Francisco and in North China, Amy Tan tells the story of Ruth Young and her mother, LuLing, in a story that reflects much of her own background. In the story, Ruth is a successful "book doctor," a ghostwriter who translates other people's thoughts into a coherent book--a skill at which she is adept. She is the "as told to" name below the author's, although the real creative effort is her own.
Like Amy Tan herself, Ruth is in her forties, and the similarities do not stop there. While the book is not strictly autobiographical, there are a great many parallels between the author and Ruth. For example: both of their mothers were stricken with Altzheimers disease, and both had stormy relationships with their Chinese mothers, both of whom were suicidal.
Ruth's mother, LuLing, came from China in the late 'forties, as did Amy Tan's mother. The story is told in three parts: first is Ruth's ten-year relationship with Art and his two daughters--teenagers in the story--with whom she lives; a relationship that is in trouble for reasons that Ruth cannot determine or resolve. Art seems to be a self-centered individual who takes advantage of Ruth's tendency to always place her own interests secondary.
The second part of the story is LuLing's own story in China, which, fearing memory loss, she is writing, in Chinese calligraphy and which she eventually presents to her daughter. Ruth, because of their difficult relationship lets the manuscript gather dust for seven years, untranslated. LuLing's life story is a tale of tragedy and suffering, lost love and a tempestuous relationship with her own mother, Precious Auntie, which later--after her mother's death--haunts her.
Finally, in the third section the focus is on Ruth and what she does with her new knowledge. The crux of the novel, however, is the second part: the story of LuLing in China, her turbulent relationship with her mother, and the war-torn environment of China in the 'forties.
The story is about relationships, and the search by both LuLing and Ruth for their family's Chinese background, which is enveloped in mystery involving, among other things, the discovery, which actually took place in 1929-1937, of the bones of Homo-erectus, also known as Peking man, which were found in a cave at Zhoukoudian, near Peiping (now known as Beijing).
Amy Tan has drawn on her own experiences to create her characters. In fact, in an interview with Nita Lelyveld, she says that her own mother was her muse. She could hear her mother's voice saying the things that LuLing said, and that she "did her best never to listen to her mother." In a parallel to Ruth's relationship with LuLing, and in turn, LuLing's with her mother, she says "my mother drove me crazy,"
This is a sensitive, emotion-driven story about mothers and daughters, told by an excellent writer who has lived the things she writes about. Amy Tan is a woman writing about women. A wonderful story. It held my interest to the end.
Joseph Pierre
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