June 30, 2002

If chick flicks are women’s films, then definitely The bonesetter’s daughter by Amy Tan is a novel clearly for women. Spanning three generations of women, one Chinese, one cross cultural and one American, the story revolves around the youngest who is desperately trying to find her roots. This is Ruth Young, a professional ghostwriter who is unfortunately unable to exorcise her own ghosts. Involved in a previously steady relationship, which seems to be falling apart, Ruth is forced to confront her own issues while she disentangles her mother’s past.

We traverse her path to self-revelation as if it were our own and at times more enthusiastically than herself. This is the gift of storytelling by Tan. By the end of the book you might end up finding yourself listening with enthusiasm about your own ancestors and recognizing in yourself, traits passed down from generations.

This book is all that and a whole lot more. It begins with Ruth discovering two manuscripts at her mothers. One is enticingly called Things that I know are true and the other, Things I must not forget. These contain the secrets of her life in China. So ghostwriter Ruth begins her journey of unravelling the secrets of her mother’s identity. Ruth is the student, who, in learning about her mother’s past, is eventually able to unscramble her own confused relationships.

Large chunks of the novel take place in China, in the far off mountainous region where Peking man was unearthed in the 1920’s. Here, Ruth’s mother Luling is born in an ink makers family and is brought up under the care of Precious Aunty. The shadow of Precious Aunty haunts the entire book. She was a beautiful and headstrong woman who tried to commit suicide by drinking boiling ink after her father and new husband are both killed. She survives but is severely scarred, apart from being mute. When yet another fateful event is about to hit her, she reveals the family secret to Luling and finally ends her life.

Bits of history are thrown in as we live through Luling’s childhood in rural China and the harsh trials of the Second World War suffered by her before arriving in San Francisco. The harsh conditions of Luling’s childhood and her growing years in a convent are related in detail. Conversely, there is not much ado about Ruth’s childhood; we are introduced to her when she is already in her forties. Are her recurrent bouts of speechlessness a legacy of the muteness of Precious Aunty? A ghostwriter by profession, in her personal life she is imprisoned in a stagnating relationship. Does she need to find her voice as a woman and a writer in her own right?

“She had chosen to live, Why? As she now kept walking, she felt comforted by the water, its constancy, and its predictability. Each time it withdrew, it carried with it whatever had marked the shore... the sand looked like a gigantic writing surface. The slate was clean, inviting, open to possibilities...... She scratched on the sand ‘help’. And she watched as the waves carried her plea to another world.”

This is Ruth’s cry for self-determination. As a child Ruth would translate on a mud box what the dead Precious Aunty had to message to Luling. As a ghostwriter she seems to know how to play a similar game. But faced with reality she is unable to confront her own demons. None of the typical answers she made up seem to apply.

While the whole book culminates in the growing up of Ruth, it certainly is not all it contains. There are very real touching issues dealing with the cycle of life as Ruth becomes mother to her own mother who is afflicted with Alzheimer’s. What Luling is unable to tell Ruth, she unravels in her manuscripts. She discovers a strong, wit-full mother and an even more dynamic grandmother that she never knew.

But this is not all. We learn about the bonesetter’s tradition as Precious Aunty is the daughter of one accomplished in the art of healing with bones dug from dangerous and unapproachable caves. Much of the plot revolves around an oracle bone with a divine message given to Luling by Precious Aunty. If this bone is not returned to its original place, the family would be indefinitely cursed.

The ancient ink making tradition in China is also dealt with extensively as Luling belongs to an ink maker’s family from her father’s side and is herself an accomplished calligraphist. All this together with the rich historical detail of China after the end of the emperors makes for an interesting and informative narrative. It quite compensates for the initial slow pace of the book when it deals rather extensively with Luling’s battle with Alzheimer’s.

As with her other books The kitchen God’s wife and The joy luck club, Tan delves into the intricate, yet powerful relationship between mothers and daughters. She addresses the complexities of the cultural gap between oriental mothers and their American born daughters. These eastern mothers are not demure and subservient. Quite the opposite. This in fact is the story of a strong willed woman and a comparatively docile daughter who comes into her own during the course of the narrative. This psychological drama with the usual backdrop of history which seems to be the trademark of modern writing makes for a thoroughly interesting read.

The bonesetter’s daughter
By Amy Tan
Flamingo, an imprint of HarperCollins Publisher. Available with Liberty Books (Pvt) Ltd, 3 Rafiq Plaza, M.R. Kayani Road, Saddar, Karachi. Tel: 021-5683026
Email: libooks@cyber.net.pk
ISBN 0-00-712444-9
339pp. Rs480

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