Acclaimed author Amy Tan transcends the fraught contemporary Chinese-American relationship by delving into a story of betrayal, love, and courtesan houses in the heart of colonial Shanghai.
Spanning three generations, The Valley of Amazement visits mother-daughter relationships across two continents and against two very different cultures. Mostly told in the voice of Violet, an American girl—who, tricked into becoming a virgin courtesan in a second-class establishment and separated from her American mother, Lulu—is put to the test when she discovers that all she had thought about herself was a lie.
Evocatively written, Amy Tan’s The Valley of Amazement reintroduces tropes and themes which have previously launched her into fame—as was the case with her debut blockbuster novel The Joy Luck Club (1987). Firmly centered on Violet’s—and later, her daughter Flora’s—quest to understand her true identity in a world of seduction and trysts, Tan evocatively delves into the psyches of these three women by allowing herself to write in different point of views.
Forced to become a “virgin courtesan” at fourteen, Violet learns how to use the game of seduction just like her mother used to do, when she ran a well known courtesan house in Shanghai.
With the help of Magic Gourd, a Chinese courtesan and old acquaintance of Violet’s, the young girl is taught the intricacies of Chinese traditions and culture within the realm of seduction and courtesan houses. And although Violet masters this art, her young heart still longs for a love that is pure, often to be rudely awakened to the disappointment of her fate.
With a storyline that dismantles the role of the mother as a nurturer and protector, relationships plagued with betrayal and double-standards, female friendships remain constant and are reproduced with each generation, echoing the permanence of family history as Violet is put in the same position as her mother was 14 years later.
Amy Tan seldom gives her characters predictable “happy” endings in the sense that, much like her previous work, Tan provides the reader with a tangible storyline, in which the characters are thrust into a vicious cycle of tragedy. With the help of amazingly researched facts of 20th century China, the title of the novel gradually unfolds itself within the storyline as they represent meaning to these three important women.
A melodrama that brings together cultures from opposing spheres, The Valley of Amazement is a novel that shows once again Tan’s inner conflict in her history, as a child born in America to Chinese immigrants. Staying close to the themes she so well writes about, Tan sheds a new light on the complexities and hardships of being a woman—and a courtesan—in up and coming China.
A book review by Azza El Masri
