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Summary: Too bad so many reviewers think they are actual critics...
Review: It's really too bad so many reviewers think they are actual critics, as if critics ever knew trash from treasure. "The Hundred Secret Senses" is a beautifully written narrative from a provocative writer of our time. Some reviewers should catch up on books: Joy Luck Club was not her first book, but her second. Her first was a great book as well. I wonder who would have read Joy Luck Club if it was not a hit movie...hmm, food for thought. Let's see hum-drum reviewers write a best seller. Ha.
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Summary: A fascinating story that will keep you reading
Review: I loved this book because it made me want to solve the mystery of Kwan's yin eyes and how it affects her half sister Olivia. Olivia's father is Chinese and her mother is American, and her Chinese father has a full-blooded Chinese daughter named Kwan who lives in Changmian, China. Changmian is a city of ill reputation because years earlier there was a massacre of the villagers and Christian missionaries that lived there.
Kwan moves to America to live with Olivia and her family, and Olivia hates her with a passion. Olivia's mother does not pay much attention to Olivia as a child, so Kwan takes over as her mother figure. Olivia plays mean jokes on Kwan because she is embarrassed of her; all of her friends say that Kwan is retarded. Olivia soon learns how to speak Chinese with Kwan, and Kwan reveals to Olivia that she can see people in the world of Yin, which basically means she sees ghosts. Olivia gets Kwan sent to the mental hospital, but Kwan holds no hard feelings towards Olivia. She loves Olivia dearly, and you find out why towards the last hundred pages of the book.
It is a great book full of mystery, and some parts will send chills down your spine. I highly recommend it!
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Summary: Two sisters - one Chinese, one American
Review: Once again exploring the dynamics of family and the clash of Chinese and American culture, Tan introduces two sisters, Olivia, a quintessential Californian and Kwan, who grew up in the mountain village of Chiangmian.Olivia, the half-Chinese narrator, is six years old when her Anglo mother fulfills the promise made to her dying husband to bring his 18-year old daughter to America. Olivia immediately hates the idea of another rival for her scattered mother's affections and is doubly appalled when the sophisticated older sister she has pictured turns out to be short, chubby and unabashedly extroverted. Kwan, fascinated by all things American, asks embarrassing questions in front of Olivia's friends, prompting the younger girl to retaliate with numerous minor cruelties. Worse than usurping her mother's affections, Kwan usurps her maternal role, leaving Olivia's mother free to enjoy shopping trips with her girlfriends and pursue a love affair with the first of Olivia's stepfathers. But worst of all, Kwan has yin eyes - she sees into the world of ghosts and converses easily with people long dead. When Olivia betrays her secret of the yin eyes, Kwan is sent to a mental hospital. Although Kwan never bears a grudge but remains open and unqualifyingly loving toward Olivia, a pattern of guilt and resentment is established. Olivia humors Kwan's ghost talk but keeps her older sister at arm's length, unless she wants something from her. When she falls in love with Simon, a half-Hawaiian Chinese who is haunted by his love for a dead girlfriend, Olivia gets Kwan to pretend to see Elza in the yin world and to deliver Elza's message setting Simon free. But Olivia herself sees Elza and hears her beseeching Simon to wait for her forever. She discounts Kwan's odd knowledge of Elza's life, her real name, her private aspirations, certain she must have told Kwan more than she remembers. But her own horrific vision haunts her married life and she is certain Simon withholds half his love for the dead girl. Eventually the marriage breaks down. Kwan, dismayed, tries to convince Olivia to reconcile with Simon, certain that fate means for them to be together.
Meanwhile, a Chinese tale, Kwan's mythic story of a previous life during a bloody uprising in Chiangmian, interrupts Olivia's narrative of modern discontent. Kwan's story is of missionaries and warriors, imperialists and magic, love and betrayal, and Olivia has been hearing it impatiently all her life. And when Olivia and Simon are convinced by the force of Kwan's desire to accept a magazine assignment that takes all three of them to Chiangmian, the two disparate stories come together in ways that call upon all the hundred secret senses of the human soul. Kwan's accumulated wisdom has taught her that true love cannot thrive until the defensive walls of the soul have been breached, and this takes patience and loyalty. To develop the theme it's necessary for Olivia to be a repressed, suspicious and self-absorbed character but as it's her voice that tells the story, these whiney, petulant qualities get on the reader's nerves. Tan is a consummate story teller and her prose is faultless but her narrator's particularly American preoccupation robs the narrative of the complex resonances of The Kitchen God's Wife or the broad soap-operatic canvas of The Joy Luck Club.
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Summary: Kwan's yin eyes....
Review: THE HUNDRED SECRET SENSES by Amy Tan THE HUNDRED SECRET SENSES by Amy Tan uses a similar pattern which her previous books seem to follow, in which she starts the story in America with characters that are full- or part Chinese, and have a relative or two that tells them stories of the old country. In Tan's most creative book, she introduces the reader to Olivia Laguni, whose father was Chinese and mother was white. Laguni is her stepfather, her father having died when she was only a toddler. Obviously, Laguni at one point adopts her and her brothers, giving them a new name and in essence wiping out her ties to her Chinese family. Then, along comes Kwan. From that point on, Olivia feels tormented by this half sister. By this time, Olivia's father has been gone for years now. But Kwan comes to America from China to become part of their family forever. A much older sister, Kwan brings to Olivia stories of the old country, for Kwan is the product of Olivia's father and his first wife, all of whom were living in China. Although Olivia considers herself Chinese, her ties are with her birth country of America, and she finds it very hard to relate to her older sister who seems to be more mother than sister as Olivia grows into adulthood. Kwan is there to take care of her while her mother is somewhat absent from Olivia's life. And part of Kwan's mothering is telling Olivia stories about a strange world - where she sees and talks to ghosts. Kwan's impact on Olivia is obvious, in ways that Olivia could never admit. But as the reader sees, Olivia's relationship with Kwan grows in strength as they grow older, and especially when they make a trip to China, along with Olivia's estranged husband Simon. After years of listening to Kwan's stories of a previous life in 1800's China, this world comes to life as they explore this land that is Olivia's heritage. THE HUNDRED SECRET SENSES was not my favorite Amy Tan book. There were a lot of elements that made it difficult to fully enjoy this story, including the paranormal facets that were part of Kwan's character. Having said this, I ended the book understanding what Tan's message was in this story and I felt very satisfied. It is not a book I highly recommend to all readers, but I feel that if one is patient enough to get through the stories that Kwan tells about her past life, one will be rewarded at the very end.
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Summary: Hard to top Joy Luck Club
Review: Too bad Tan's first book was so damned good. She's having a hard time rising to that standard again. The Hundred Secret Senses weaves a sensuous spell, examining (as do just about all Tan's books) the ancestral ties of Chinese Americans and how these old threads affect them into the present.
Hundred Secret Senses is a haunting tale of Olivia who was 5 when Kwan, her 18yo half-sister, came to live with the family. Kwan is overwhelming in every way: loving, irritating, relentless, self-sacrificing, really very disturbed and disturbing. Kwan tells long mythical tales at night - or are they family history? Or memories? Kwan is determined to mend Olivia's rift with her husband as a way of soothing ghosts from a previous incarnation.
It's a wonderful book, and most charming and convincing is Kwan's immigrant voice. But it's not Joy Luck, not quite.
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Summary: Great story about acceptance
Review: I enjoyed this story very much. At first Kwan, the older sister from China, embarrasses Olivia, who was born in the U.S. and is half-Chinese. When Kwan says she has "yin eyes" and can see ghosts, Olivia tells her mother and gets Kwan sent to a mental hospital for a time. Kwan never blames Olivia for this or for anything else - she loves her sister unconditionally. Because Kwan continues to be rather odd, it takes Olivia a long time to appreciate her love and attention. She even starts to come around to Kwan's belief in past lives, ones that continue to affect us in our present lives. A story that seems to be a fantasy of Kwan's takes on new meaning (both to Olivia and to the reader). I really enjoyed Olivia's acceptance of the past life story. It reinforces the fact that not everything in life can be explained away by reason and practicality. Our "secret senses" (what Westerners might call intuition) open us to other realities and other realms if we're willing to listen and believe. What a lovely novel.
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Summary: Strikingly Unforgettable
Review: The Hundred Secret Senses is a story that is relatable to anyone family-oriented. Olivia falls in love with two people in two very different ways. She loves Simon romantically, and she loves her sister Kwan unknowingly and reluctantly. This powerful book will stay close to your heart, and it will make you laugh at Kwan's clever remarks, cry at their chaotic trip to China, and it will make you think deeply beyond what you're used to. This moving novel is the kind that will make you feel like you were there with the characters with every thought and with every motion.
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Summary: Beautifully crafted, well-rounded novel
Review: Olivia and Kwan are half-sisters, but they couldn't be more different. Kwan, having come to the US from China at age 18, is blissfully enthusiastic about everything, including her new-found baby sister and her interactions with yin people (otherwise known as ghosts), while Olivia is half-Chinese by blood, but fully American in her attitudes, and not fond of Kwan's eccentricities and over-zealous sisterly attentions. Olivia tells us the story of her one-sided relationship with her sister as well as her own troubled marriage, while Kwan is simultaneously telling a mysterious and absorbing story of her previous life in 19th century Manchu China. There are enough similarities between this book and "The Bonesetter's Daughter" by the same author, that it was impossible for me not to compare the two while reading. However, aside from the handful of similar themes and relationships (an obvious one being that of the westernized younger woman struggling with a suffocating relationship with an older, more traditionally Chinese one), there is a world of difference between them. This book sparks with wit, energy, and the tightness of great writing, while simultaneously providing a flowing, relaxing, and immensely beautiful story to read. This is one of those books that you can love but not crave a sequel, because it sits so well on its own. All the parts of this novel work perfectly together to form a complete whole.
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Summary: a hard book to put down!!!
Review: This was my first read by Amy Tan and has led me to want to read more of her books! Kwan, a Chinese half sister, of Louise's comes to live with the family after their father dies. Kwan has yin eyes and has the ability to see and talk with the dead. There is great storytelling in this novel and Tan is quite gifted at her craft. Chapters are woven beautifully and climax to an unforgettable end. You will be thinking about this book long after you finish reading it.
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Summary: MY FIRST AMY TAN BOOK
Review: My daughter was the one that told me to read this book. I read it while on vacation at the beach. It was a perfect read. I loved Kwan, and I wish I had a sister like her. Olivia her half sister was a pain in the rear. The book had two stories in one, so the anticipation of seeing what happens in both stories was a new experience for me. Such a wonderful look at the culture of Chinese-Americans in San Fransicso. I come from a Asian/Caucasian background, and was laughing at many parts of the novel because Kwan sounded so much like my mother. "Bad Luck-Bad Health this or that" Thank-you Amy Tan for writing such a wonderful story. SPOILER ALERT! I just wish the ending was a little more different....I won't put any more down, but I hope there is a continuation of this novel....Ms. Tan did leave a few loose strings or openings.
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