The Joy Luck Club
The Joy Luck Club ~ Amy Tan / Film Version
Fearless Leader Engie recently hosted her Cool Bloggers Book Club, and the chosen book was Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. Because I am sometimes this way, I went all in. I read the physical copy before bed at night. I listened to the audio version via my Libby app. I watched the movie once I had finished the book.
I love this all immersive experience. I did the same thing with My Brilliant Friend and the rest of that engrossing series. Read. Listen. Watch. Love.
For The Joy Luck Club, I would say that my preference was for the film, then the book, then the audio. The narrator of the audio version made some very strange choices when reading the book, especially with the male voices. In the physical book, I had trouble remembering who was who and figuring out how they were connected. Like so many in the CBBC, I had to decide to let it go and just read the book already. In the film, the structure was different, so you could more easily figure out which mother went with which daughter and why it was important.
I feel like I used to own this book and that I have read it before, but after this experience, I’m not so sure. Now I wonder if I just saw the film when in came out in the early ‘90s, and that’s it. Mostly, the film is pretty true to the book, but there is one especially haunting difference.
SPOILER ALERT
If you have only read the book and not seen the movie, and if you may watch it, there is (to me) a big difference. In the book, mother Ying Ying’s abusive husband abandons her, and she finds herself pregnant. She has an abortion, and eventually moves to San Francisco. In the film, she has her baby, a little boy, and in order to punish her husband for his cheating and cruelty, she takes what is most important to him. She drowns their baby son. It’s a devastating scene, where she comes to her senses when it is too late and she cannot save her beloved son. I was thinking about that scene yesterday, about how in the film it seems like a split second decision, and one that she immediately regrets. Whereas an abortion requires an appointment and a ride to and from the office, and a lot more thought. Either way, she was haunted by her decision in both the book and the film.
Aside from this terrifying scene, I liked the film better because the connections between mothers and daughters is cleaner, and you can see why it is important that mother x gave birth to daughter Y. Is it a perfect film? No, it is definitely of its time. The men are not nearly so horrible as they are in the book, so you don’t really understand the motivations. Having lived in San Francisco for 7 years, and in the Bay Area for most of my life, I loved reading the street names and so on in the book, knowing where they were, what bank and church they were referencing and so on. Little things. Recommended.
24 Comments
Elisabeth
Yikes! That sounds like a horrific scene, indeed.
I really “enjoyed” the book and agree that it was very hard to keep track of characters and plot points. I did take notes throughout and was constantly referring back to them to keep things straight.
I think I’ll skip the movie, but I’m really glad I’ve read the book as I know it’s a culutural touchpoint and I can see why it elicites such strong reactions.
J
I liked the book a lot, but I didn’t really try very hard to keep track of who is who and how they’re connected. The film made it easier, seeing faces vs a name was helpful for me.
Nicole MacPherson
Wow, I have not seen that movie and I probably will not. This is my problem with page to screen – the screen is always so different from the book! It’s okay if I don’t have big feelings about the book, but I did love The Joy Luck Club, so no thank you on the movie.
J
I wonder why they made this creative change? A disassociation scene vs. a planned abortion is a big change.
Jenny
I think I would also have a problem with the movie- the scene of the mother drowning her son (shudder) would be the main thing that stays with me, and it wasn’t in the book at all. Also, I did like the book but because I had trouble keeping all the mothers and daughters straight, I just read it as a series of short stories. I really enjoyed it like that, but can’t see how it would be put into a linear storyline for a movie.
Anyway- I like your “immersive” reading experience! That does sound fun.
J
The film was more linear, I think…I mean, it wasn’t as confusing.
Michelle G.
I listened to the audiobook, and I agree with you that the narrator made some really strange choices for the male characters. I never could have kept the stories straight without Engie’s weekly summaries. I didn’t love the book, but I did love the ending. The ending made it all worthwhile. I don’t plan to see the movie – I’ve had enough of that story!
J
You know, I blamed the narrator, but likely it was the director, right?
StephLove
I read the book in the 90s and I’m pretty sure I saw the movie, too, but that’s fuzzy. I do remember liking the book.
J
That was the last time for me, too.
PocoBrat
I read the book a long time ago with my mom and we talked about it a lot–we did a lot of that kind of book club for two kind of thing.
Agree with you that it’s very much of its time and that it’s imperfect–but it really did open up opportunities for Asian-American writers, no? I think Maxine Hong-Kingston’s work also blazed a trail in this period.
J
Definitely, after this we saw a lot more books about the Asian American experience. I love that you read it with your mom!
Sarah
Ugh when we went to buy our first house, Ben had far worse credit than I did, and it was because he rented The Joy Luck Club from the Blockbuster Video on campus instead of reading the book for his senior year English class and never returned it. He had been sent to collections for his video store late fee, but because he wasn’t living in his student apratment anymore after graduation, he never got the notices. **eye roll**
J
HAHAHAHA! I mean, not funny, but also hilarious.
Martha
I’ve had this book on my shelves for many years and have yet to read it.
J
You may love it, reviews were very mixed among the CBBC.
NGS
Thanks for reading along! I didn’t love it, as you know, but it was fun to talk about it and hear different perspectives. I cannot imagine watching someone drown a baby! The movie is DEFINITELY not for me.
J
It wasn’t violent, just quiet and sad.
Margaret
It’s surprising that we’ve never read anything by Tan in Book Club. We’ve read several by Lisa See and enjoyed those.
J
Do you tend to stick with newer books?
Lisa's Yarns
Ok, I was thinking I was going to watch the movie but that scene sounds so terrible!!! I don’t know if I could get past that! It sort of reminds me of a scene in Homeland where a woman, who suffers from severe mental health problems, holds her daughter under water for a brief period of time. Oof it was hard to watch!
It turns out I had read this book before back in 2019 and I gave it 2 stars, I think? This time around I gave it 4 stars and liked it much more. I think I’ve matured as a person/reader since then and maybe had more compassion when reading the stories of the mothers?
J
That’s pretty much the scene in the movie. She doesn’t actually hold him down so much as just not support him, and he’s a small baby. They don’t show much at all, mostly it’s her face. Very hard to watch, and that scene has stuck with me since I saw the film in the early 90s.
ernie
I initially thought I read this, but I had it confusesd with a Lisa See book. Coach insists that we saw this movie in the theater. We are lucky he remebers the names of our children let alone a movie we saw in the 90’s, so I didn’t believe him – but now that you describe the scene with the baby boy drowning . . . well, I do think I saw that movie.
I was team – just read the book and give yourself a break about who goes with which mother. Too hard. When read that way, I enjoyed it.
J
Exactly! So much easier to just let go.