The Hundred Secret Senses

Rating:
Summary: The most touching
Review: Tan, I find your story very touching and I love it very much. It has changed my perspective about love, for it is not to the living only. The book revolves around Olivia whose life changed after the arrival of her half sister, Kwan, the difference of Kwan is that she can sees Ghost. Then every night she would encounter her events of her past life with Miss banner, General Cape, YiBan Johnson and many more trills and perils. When they grew up, Olivia finally agreed to go with Kwan to China to do a photography journal with her soon-to-divorce husband, there the learn many secrets, for then only they learn the long lost forgotten secrets, the hundred secret senses.

Rating:
Summary: A VERY WORTH READING AND MEANINGFUL BOOK!!
Review: TEN THUMBS UP!! Amy Tan is able to explore in the world of yin and also gives us the "real" kind of family love. This novel is even better than the Joy Luck Club, I personally thinks that this novel should also be made into a movie. "Secret Senses" touches you in the heart. Via Olivia's life, she struggles to be convinced about yin's existence, but no matter how hard she tries to neglect or disregard the truth she eventually is forced to give in. It's fate that has put her and Kwan together as sisters, it's fate that Kwan is in her life influencing her about the yin in every way.

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Summary: First time Tan Reader
Review: Having never read a novel by Amy Tan before I was not sure what to expect when I sat down with this one. However I soon found myself emersed in the world of two sisters who I would grow to love. Tan combines a sometimes strained sister relationship with elements of magical realism as the key ingrediant to its healing. This novel has extreamly well developed characters and a complicated plot that at time may confuse the reader. This is one of the pluses though, for the complications make for a more involved story line that brings the reader to an intimate view of all the characters lives there by helping the reader to better understand the characters motives behind their actions. So if the reader persists and is up to a possible reread they will find an amazing story that will move them to a closer relationship with any siblings they may have, and maybe a greater understanding of their other personal relationships as well.

Rating:
Summary: Love and Sisterhood in The Hundred Secret Senses
Review: Tan has done a wonderful job of portraying the complexity of love and sisterhood. Kwan acts out the feelings that every sister experiences, while Olivia is the typical sister. Their relationship seems strained and doomed from the beginning and the changes that take place through the course of the novel are amazing.

Kwan's unconditional love for Olivia is amazing. She shows how it is not as hard as we would think to love unconditionally. Kwan's love for Olivia and her persistence in showing this love I think constitute the changes that take place throughout the novel.

Tan has done a wonderful job with this novel and it is a must read for everyone who has a sister that just isn't appreciated as much as she should be! :)

Rating:
Summary: The Hundred Secret Senses , good book, excellent follow-up.
Review: Amy Tan does a wonderful job in this novel. a different twist than The Joy Luck Club, but still a great read. It took me about a day to finish so for those of you who are fast readers, this is not one to take on a long trip when you need to read to pass time. perfect for a rainy afternoon. Can be a tear-jerker though. Contains a great chinese story, mixed with the characters american lives. Get this book.

Rating:
Summary: fantastic!
Review: It was my favorite book in a long time. I couldn't put it down and when I did I picked it up again. There was only one part I didn't understand, but if you read it through a couple of times, you understand it. Amy Tan is definitely a keeper!

Rating:
Summary: The Hundred Secret Senses is magical realism
Review: This book can be seen on the one hand as a reworking of Tan's familiar Chinese in America dislocation story where reconciliation happens between mothers and daughters through sharing of stories and memories.

HoweverÒThe Hundred Secret SensesÓ is not exactly another mother-daughter theme, but a shifti to the sisterhood motif. It deals with cultural dislocation between China and America in the wonderfully-drawn character of Kwan and her past life during the fascinating and brutal time of the TÕai PÕing rebellion in the 1850Õs in China. One of the strengths of this book is the description of southern China and the emergence of the Heavenly King, who, with his God worshippers and foreign mercenaries, warred for more than a decade against the entire Manchu Dynasty.

In ÒThe Hundred Secret Senses,Ó Amy Tan tries her hand at magical realism, a type of story where two world views meet, the pragmatic, and the mystical. I was reminded of ÒMutant Message from Down Under,Ó ÒThe Celestine ProphecyÓ and the Don Juan series of books written by Carlos Casteneda. In each of these stories, there is a teacher who by patience and long and hard work passes on knowledge of a separate reality, a world which is not knit together by consensus reality.

Consensus reality is when you are walking on a steep mountain ledge and lose your footing, what will happen? You will fall because everyone believes that will happen. In the separate reality, you will not necessarily fall. Just as in the separate reality of Kwan, Libby-ah is a reincarnation of Miss Nelly Banner and Simon was Liban. Our left-brained logic doesnÕt work.

Each magical realism story has a student who embarks upon a journey. The teacher appears and by means of a series of experiences brings the disbelieving and recalcitrant student to an acceptance of the mystical, the shamanic or the dream world. It is thus a spiritual journey in which the student comes to accept another reality beyond the reaches on the linear mind. In the Don Juan series, the teacher is Yaqui shaman, Juan Matus who, through at first psychodelics, and later acts of courage in the face of fear, teaches Carlos how to become a man of knowledge and how "to see."(Compare to Yin eyes of Kwan,) Paradoxically, Don Juan makes Carlos practice ÒseeingÓ by unfocusing his eyes on long walks. In ÒMutant Message from Down Under,Ó the teacher is the aboriginal tribe that the woman goes wandering off with and in ÒCelestine ProphecyÓ the teacher is actually a series of writings which various people set out to find and codify.

The Amy Tan story is great. I loved Kwan in all her quirkiness and she taught me that although the Chinese culture seems to be hieratic, it is based in great respect of others and loyalty, unto death, which is something I feel our culture knows little. I think when Amy Tan is using the clipped Chinese-American dialect she is superb. It is when she slips into the almost valley-girl Californese of Liby-ah and the mysterious voice that flowingly describes the dream world of the 1850Õs that Tan loses control of the story and I found myself wondering who was talking. Or I felt the dialog quite boring.

I also felt that not one man in her story came alive, except the one from the 1850Õs who couldnÕt quit cursing, Lao Lu. Not her father, nor Simon, nor Liban, not even the cruel and despicable Captain Cape has a character worth remembering.

Rating:
Summary: A higher level of writing
Review: I am very fond of JOY LUCK CLUB. I have to think of it as a first class display of wonderful writing. And I really enjoyed KITCHEN GOD'S WIFE which is an excellent example of telling a story. However with THE HUNDRED SECRET SENSES, Amy Tan is aiming at a higher target and is taking a more honest look at herself, at people, at life and at the spiritual nature of humankind than previously. That she sometimes struggles to achieve her aims (and for sure this book is not as smoothly written as JOY LUCK CLUB) and that there are a few areas that could be strengthened, does not give me enough reason to lower my rating of this novel -- for she does what few writers ever do and reaches out for the truth of existence. She has gone from an excellent writer to a special writer, and in doing so enters into a very select group of American writers. In reading THE HUNDERED SECRET SENSES, I wondered if Amy Tan had read any of Philip K Dick's later novels, for I know of no other American author that was so willing to honestly grapple with existential material with such aggressiveness and sensitivity. Forty years from now we may look at this novel as a turning point in Amy Tan's career. She has shown now that she has both the technique as well as the vision to be one of the most important novelists of our time. The Hundred Secret Senses rises above the limits of both THE BAY AREA culture and AMERICAN culture into the realm of serious observation and representation.

Rating:
Summary: THE BEST!!!!!!!
Review: The book is great. I think a lot of people can't get the real meaning of the book unless they understand the culture difference. That's why people might find the book boring. But for me, I think the book is one of the greatest books ever written. The movie is great, too. I usually think the once you read the book, you wouldn't like the movie very much, but in this case, movie is just as great as the book. I watched the movie 5 times!!! The only little fault I found with the movie is that the translation is not so good. Lucky for me that I speak Chinese as well, so I think I did enjoy the movie more than a lot of people.

Rating:
Summary: Tan's heart-touching story of sisters is a powerful reminder
Review: For an ethnic class, I chose Amy Tan's The Hundred Secret Senses. I was enchanted with the two tales that intermingled together: the past coinciding with the present. This can also become confusing at times when past and present, reality and tale are woven tightly together. Most memoralbe are the two sisters:Olivia and Kwan. Visualizing, through Tan's words, their developing relationship is a wonderful experience. Also the process of acculturation that each sister goes through, one in America and one on a trip back to China, is an interesting comparison that Tan makes. This is a novel that reminds us to discover our heritage and know our background. This is a novel that displays the impact that siblings have on one another.