Rating: 
Summary: Good, but....
Review: ....it's bizarre. Mrs. Kingston's mother has a thing with viewing Americans as ghosts. It's just strange. However, it's a good book despite its' political correctness.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but....
Review: ....it's bizarre. Mrs. Kingston's mother has a thing with viewing Americans as ghosts. It's just strange. However, it's a good book despite its' political correctness.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book...
Review: Excellent book -- a must read for Women's Literature students. I bought it using a coupon from UnderTag.com, so it was almost free for me.
Rating: 
Summary: A book you can fall in love with
Review: I came across this book several years ago and immediately fell under its spell. I liked it so much that I had to re-read it again and again in order to decipher the new layers the book revealed with each occasion. I like the book so much, that I've decided to write a paper on it but unfortunately there are only a few, who offer quality interpretation on this magnificient book that could help me. Thus, if anyone, who has some ideas, would help me out on this would be VERY welcomed...
Rating: 
Summary: Not all that great
Review: I finished reading this book a few days ago, and I am appalled. This book is not inspiring or thoughtful, and some of Kingston-as-a-child's actions were truly appalling. She seems to have had a very strange childhood, but that does not make her story inspirational. However, the first two vignettes, No Name Woman and White Tiger, were pretty good. NNW was a good example of Chinese culture, and White Tiger was very interesting and descriptive. The rest of the book seemed choppy and confused, with Kingston switching narrators and subjects constantly and without warning. I would not recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: A Powerful Personal Narrative
Review: Maxine Hong Kingston's book "The Woman Warrior" is really written on the premise that it is a personal narrative. That the book is a personal narrative is a double edged sword. The narrative style is perspectival which is both it's greatest strength and it's most glaring weakness. The underbelly of the book is that it is articulated as "Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts." The book then takes on a "fantastic" tone. Despite the ghosts representing anything "Other" than Chinese, she relates particularly to the females of her ethnic circle and the personal suffering in their lives, in a male-centered society in China and beyond. Hong Kingston works on the premise of "reconstruction" and sense of myth making. How close are these impressions reflective of authentic Chinese lore? How accurately are her portrayals? Hong Kingston's work is based mostly on memory and imagination which lends itself to personal interpretation. How much of this work is studied? Can it be seen as representative? Hong Kingston style does lend itself to elements that are vivid and alive and the links to the clan are strong. However, based on its personal angle the book cannot be seen to be representative of "the" Chinese American experience. I am sure Hong Kingston would agree. It would be safe to view this, Maxine Hong Kingston's magnum opus, as "talking stories" of development, coming of age, and growth. The Warrior Woman is the subaltern come alive and a triumph which gives voice and a sense of liberation on many levels. Just which levels those are depends on the read, I guess. Miguel Llora
Rating:
Summary: A Powerful Personal Narrative
Review: Maxine Hong Kingston's book "The Woman Warrior" is really written on the premise that it is a personal narrative. That the book is a personal narrative is a double edged sword. The narrative style is perspectival which is both it's greatest strength and it's most glaring weakness. The underbelly of the book is that it is articulated as "Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts." The book then takes on a "fantastic" tone. Despite the ghosts representing anything "Other" than Chinese, she relates particularly to the females of her ethnic circle and the personal suffering in their lives, in a male-centered society in China and beyond. Hong Kingston works on the premise of "reconstruction" and sense of myth making. How close are these impressions reflective of authentic Chinese lore? How accurately are her portrayals? Hong Kingston's work is based mostly on memory and imagination which lends itself to personal interpretation. How much of this work is studied? Can it be seen as representative? Hong Kingston style does lend itself to elements that are vivid and alive and the links to the clan are strong. However, based on its personal angle the book cannot be seen to be representative of "the" Chinese American experience. I am sure Hong Kingston would agree. It would be safe to view this, Maxine Hong Kingston's magnum opus, as "talking stories" of development, coming of age, and growth. The Warrior Woman is the subaltern come alive and a triumph which gives voice and a sense of liberation on many levels. Just which levels those are depends on the read, I guess. Miguel Llora
Rating:
Summary: Growing up Chinese in America
Review: Maxine Hong Kingston, in this book and its companion, China Men, gives us one of the very best depictions of what it means to be a second generation inhabitant of this land when your parents have come from a totally alien culture. And is any culture more alien to us than that of China before the revolution? Woman Warrior works on a lot of levels. First, it is beautifully written wit evocative language and dreamlike scenes that evoke sequentially horror, amusement, wonder and finally recognition, of both ourselves and the "other". I like books that give me information and a sense of understanding of cultures and peoples not my own, that speak to our common humanity. Mrs. Kingston's writings do all those things. Excellent book. wfh
Rating:
Summary: Inspirational
Review: The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston is a powerful piece of autobiography from a female and spiritual point of view. Kingston's family originally came from China and later emigrated to the U.S. The book is seen as influential because it confronts many aspects of women's lives, which are repeated in different cultures and places, especially the male-female relationship and attitudes to that relationship within the community.
In the autobiography The Woman Warrior, Maxine Kingston struggles with her identity, which reflects her points of view toward gender differences. Maxine Kingston wants to show the audience that she is a woman warrior. She described her personality, her mind, and her gender by 'talk stories'. Kingston is a symbol of feminism because she stands up for
her woman beliefs. She demonstrates how she feels about the world's outlook on woman throughout the book.
From the very beginning of her life story Kingston reveals her childhood as a female. She shows the reader her mothers feelings about her Aunt who killed herself in the well
because her pregnancy by adultery. She states how her father would not admit to having a sister because of the humiliation she caused them. This story is very intense and detailed,
which starts the book off with the introduction of how women were portrayed in China.
Maxine's mother tells her this story because she wants her daughter to be the perfect female for their family. "Don't let your father know I told you. He denies her. You wouldn't like to be forgotten as if you had never been born. The villagers are watchful." This is frightening for Kingston because she feels that women are being watched to make sure they are behaving the right way for society dominated by prominently one sex.
Kingston shows us how she overcomes this womanly figure by turning into a warrior. She presented the belief that despite gender differences, as long as one is tenacious and determined, one can suffice in the admiration of others by his or her heroic scenes. She spoke this idea through her story about becoming a warrior and displacing the emperor of China with someone who could 'understand the hunger and the cries of the poor'. Her gender was proven to herself that she could be whoever she wants whether society agrees with her or not.
Kingston's book describes a diverse aspect of the behaviors of immigrants from her home village. Kingston perpetrated one of the most disturbing scenes about a man emotionally and physically abandoning a woman who's dependent on him. Her aunt, Moon Orchard, came all the way from their home village in China to the United States only to find out her husband had married someone who is much younger and prettier and started a brand
new life. After the cruel good-bye by her husband, Moon Orchard's serious depressing state of mind sent her to the Mental Institution where she found salvation.
Maxine Kingston's life tells her readers that people need to be proud of their gender whether male or female and as individuals we do not need to live up to anyone's expectations. We represent ourselves with unique characteristics.
Rating:
Summary: strange, poetic
Review: This is a dreamlike memoir that evokes the state of being a stranger in a strange land. What I especially like is that there is nothing sentimental about the book, but there is humor as well as pathos.
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