First Book Syndrome

I watched "Memoirs of a Geisha" last night with Stef. I'm guessing the book was better. More on the movie after a tangent.

I really like Amy Tan. I first read an excerpt of her writing in a college Lit class, and sought out a novel. I read "The Kitchen God's Wife" first, and enjyoed it greatly. I went on to read "The Hundred Secret Senses," "The Bonsetter's Daughter," and at some point in there "The Joy Luck Club." At the beginning of every new author's first book, they should be presented with two choices, and forced to check one. Only one.

O I had an idea for a story.
O I have some things I want to get off my chest.

The Joy Luck Club falls squarely into the second of those. Yes, it's fiction, but it carries so much baggage that it's almost an "I have to get this out of the way" book. The other three novels of hers I have read (and I see that she has two more! Where have I been from 2003-2005?) were so much more entertaining, simply becuase the scope was defined and adhered to. I haven't seen the movie of The Joy Luck Club, but I hear it's a quintessential (etymology, please?) chick flick. That alone has kept me from recommending Amy Tan to many friends, especially those with a counter-culture bend. "Isn't she the Joy Luck something lady?" Yes. Yes, she is.

Okay, so something about MoaG struck me as oddly familiar, and I couldn't put my finger on it. Duh. Michelle Yeoh and Ziyi Zhang. That's it, I'm going to drop $10 on a copy of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I'll bet Spielberg tried to get Chow Yun Fat for the part that Ken Watanabe played too. But, about the movie.... it wasn't really bad, and it was well acted, but it just failed to evoke any emotion from me. And I am not a difficult person in whom to evoke emotion.

For sitting through the entire rant, here is your >reward<.