| What to Read. . ? This is the third of this particular author's works that we've read and loved, and yes, it is a little different than what we've posted lately. Nonetheless, we present it for your reading pleasure, and hope you will enjoy it as much as we have. Read on, dear patron....
The Kitchen God's Wife
by
Amy Tan
The second work in Ms. Tan’s oeuvre is just as lovely as the first. Again, she treats us to an intriguing portrait of the relationship between a mother and daughter, Winnie and Pearl, who just can’t seem to see eye to eye. The secrets each keep weigh on them, and on their friend Helen, who knows everything about them both. Having lost a good mutual friend, Helen executes her will bequeathing to Pearl a shrine of the nasty Kitchen God; and therein lies the theme for the story, for the Kitchen God was an unfaithful husband who died with remorse, only for himself, and not for the wife he left behind. And Helen and Winnie know a little more about this dastardly god than they at first let on.
So, thinking herself dying, Helen hands over the shrine, and begins to make her own demands. She’s had enough of keeping the secrets of both Winnie and Pearl, and insists they confess all, and in the process, infuriates them both. But both are somewhat overwhelmed by those secrets, and so Pearl and Winnie sit down, and put their small battles aside while Winnie lays before her daughter a horrific history, and devastating question about Pearl’s life, of which Pearl had no idea. Secrets which make her own pale in comparison, for what can Winnie, Pearl’s demure, traditional Chinese mother, possibly have in common with the wife of the Kitchen God?
The Kitchen God’s Wife is like a lucid dream, in some ways, the incidences of Winnie’s life as horrid as any nightmare at times, and the introduction of her saving grace like that of a knight in a dream. Amy Tan here presents yet again the lovely interweaving of Chinese mythology and reality for which she became so popular with her first work. I found myself almost devouring the book faster than I could turn the pages, wondering what Winnie had to say next. Just as with The Joy Luck Club, and The Bonesetter’s Daughter, I was somewhat sad to see it end, but quite pleased with the tale it had to tell. I definitely recommend this beautiful work. Do give it a try; I’m sure you’ll fall in love with The Kitchen God’s Wife too.
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