The Jade Peony: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Going new places
Review: An avid reader of Asian and Asian American interest books, I found this short novel to be a pleasant treat. Choy explores issues and personalities that are distinct from the more average and classic types you might find in other books that try only to bring attention to Asian identity. I was especially touched by the stories of a young boxing boy and the vague, poetic discovery of his sexuality and an observer's account of love under the pressure of World War II. This is an easy book to read, but no less accomplished for it. Choy's talent is evident in the fact that he manages to teach without preaching and move without being overly sentimental. A subtle work.

Rating:
Summary: This book grows on me. Rich!
Review: Like a few other pieces of great literature of the 20th century, this book followed the adventurous trend in that century to dish out more than one first-person narrative sections. As a result, the read is so-so (at least for me) in the beginning and rapidly and immensely grew on me towards the end. THIS BOOK IS A TRILLIUM AWARD WINNER; one can say it is almost an equivalent to the Pulitzer in the United States as in Canada. I wondered "how the heck did this book win such a prestigious award?" when I was reading through the first section of the book; however, the second and the third section honestly kept going at the reader. More information more perspective more everything. Each of the three sections is in a first person narrative of three respective sibling (one sister, two brothers) in one Chinese Canadian family in the early 20th century. Racism, poverty, discrimination linger in the novel, but so do compassion, serenity and persistence.

The reason why I said it grew on me is because as the reader gets to the third section, a conversation between the narrator in the third section and the previous narrators become very interesting. The narrator speaks and hears on the surface, but since the reader has previously gone into the minds of the narrators in the first and second section, the reader can strategically read between the lines. One can almost "get smart" on the narrator narrating, be glad and secretly proud that he knows something the narrator doesn't know. "No no thats not what he means!" "No she realy does not like this despite how she has made you believe" are my responses to the narrator's prose sometimes. The contrast betweeen the different narrators' opinions on the family and humanity in general are also very mesmerizing.

I do not want to give the plot away, but this is a very very good read. It is not a must read for everybody I wouldnt say. For those who are interested in Asian America culture should 100% grab this title, however. I loved it.

Rating:
Summary: Rich atmosphere; reads more like short stories than a novel.
Review: This better-tahn-average work of literary fiction is quite enjoyable to read - well-written and richly evocative of the 1940s. The characters are children of Chinese descent growing up in Vancouver's Chinatown, and the first-person sections are written in the voices of three of them, all of whom are having some trouble finding their way in a world where the old certainties of centuries of Chinese life seem not always to apply. I enjoyed the book, but was left wanting something more - the chapters of each section seemed more like short stories, sketches of individual moments in which someone's life changed, rather than a novel. They are excellent stories, and they are interconnected, but rather loosely.