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The Hundred Secret Senses | 
 enlarge | Author: Amy Tan
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $0.76
You Save: $14.19 (95%)
New (25) Used (78) Collectible (4) from $0.76
Rating:  207 reviews
Sales Rank: 35100
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 0375701524
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780375701528
ASIN: 0375701524
Publication Date: June 30, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Standard used condition.
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Product Description
The Hundred Secret Senses is an exultant novel about China and America, love and loyalty, the identities we invent and the true selves we discover along the way. Olivia Laguni is half-Chinese, but typically American in her uneasiness with her patchwork family. And no one in Olivia's family is more embarrassing to her than her half-sister, Kwan Li. For Kwan speaks mangled English, is cheerfully deaf to Olivia's sarcasm, and sees the dead with her "yin eyes."
Even as Olivia details the particulars of her decades-long grudge against her sister (who, among other things, is a source of infuriatingly good advice), Kwan Li is telling her own story, one that sweeps us into the splendor, squalor, and violence of Manchu China. And out of the friction between her narrators, Amy Tan creates a work that illuminates both the present and the past sweetly, sadly, hilariously, with searing and vivid prose.
"Truly magical...unforgettable...this novel...shimmer[s] with meaning."--San Diego Tribune
"The Hundred Secret Senses doesn't simply return to a world but burrows more deeply into it, following new trails to fresh revelations."--Newsweek
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| Customer Reviews: Read 202 more reviews...
 So nice I read it twice. September 2, 2008
While Amy Tan is an amazingly talented writer with a lot of great books under her belt, she is arguably most well known as the author of The Joy Luck Club, which I have yet to read. I did, however, read The Hundred Secret Senses (originally published in 1996) not once but twice. I almost never do that because the second reading just feels boring. However, that wasn't the case with this book because it was so enjoyable and rich that rereading felt more like visiting old friends than rehashing something I already knew.
While on the subject of this novel's freshness, it bears mention that some reviewers suggested The Hundred Secret Senses was little more than a rehash of previous, very similar, plots from her earlier books. Obviously, I can't speak for The Joy Luck Club but I did read The Kitchen God's Wife which had a similar theme but in my view an entirely different plot. I also happened to think this novel was the markedly better of the two.
Olivia's mother is American, her father Chinese. She comes from a "traditional American family." At least for the most part. At the age of eighteen, Kwan entered the lives of Olivia (then four) and her family from her native China. Nothing about Kwan is American from her accent to her belief that she has yin eyes to see "those who have died and now dwell in the World of Yin, ghosts who leave the mists just to visit her kitchen on Balboa Street in San Francisco."
These ghosts are not only a fundamental part of the story but one of the main reasons Olivia can never truly get along with her older sister.
For a while, it seems like Olivia will be able to ignore Kwan's eccentricities and lead her own, American, life. But the more Olivia hears, the more Kwan's old ghosts stories intrigue her. Their enticement grows when Olivia unexpectedly finds herself traveling to China with her husband, Simon, and Kwan for a magazine assignment. As the three navigate Kwan's childhood stomping grounds, surprising connections are made between the threesome and, amazingly, with one of Kwan's ghost stories.
The novel chronicles Olivia's relationship with Kwan as well as her early courtship and eventual estrangement from Simon. At the same time, in alternating chapters, The Hundred Secret Senses tells the story of one of Kwan's past lives in China during the 1800s--a dramatic love story closely tied to Kwan's (and Olivia's) present lives.
Tan's prose here is conversational and enticing, feeling like a friend telling a particularly juicy story at dinner or over the phone. The connections between past, present and the very distant past is seamless creating a tight narrative that, by the end of the book, weaves all aspects of the story together in a neat package.
At the same time, The Hundred Secret Senses offers an interesting commentary on assimilation and multi-cultuarism with both Olivia and Simon being half-white and half-Chinese. Although Olivia might be too old to say she comes of age in this novel, it would be fair to say she learns to accept her own identity by the novel's completion.
While all of that makes for a dynamo on its own, my favorite aspect of this book is the way in which it deals with family relations both romantically (with Olivia and Simon) and otherwise (with Olivia and Kwan). The story ends with an optimism that suggests, if you are willing to see them, loved ones are never very far away.
 Good... May 30, 2008
First 50 pages or so are bit hard to digest but as you start to get involved into the story, the whole experience of reading this book is quite satisfying. I think Amy has handled mysticism very well in this book as it blends in with the story even though it is not exactly clear whether Kwan was really seeing ghosts or lying about it. I would like to compare incompetent handling of mysticism in Hundred Years of Solitude that had left a bad taste in my mouth.
Money well-spent, I must say! BTW, it is very funny too at times!
I love this book ! March 22, 2008
THIS IS MY FAVORITE OF AMY TAN'S BOOKS- It is original- love the characters especially Kwan. I LOVE THE PAST AND PRESENT STORIES. AND MOST OF ALL I LOVE the fact that I look at my dog and wonder what unloyal man was he and how many loyal dog lives will he endure to make it toi Chinese heaven.
It has been years since I read this book but all the characters have stayed in my memory and often pop in my mind like a good Seinfeld episode.
the hundred secret senses March 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
i have enjoyed many but not all of Tan's novels. This was my favorite by far. the story drew me in completely and i felt i could hear the voices of the sisters so clearly. i didn't want it to end.
Another great read March 1, 2008
Tan's novel of the conflicts between two very different Chinese-American sisters spent 12 weeks on Publisher's Weekly's bestseller list. As in Tan's previous novels, we meet a cast of wonderful characters and explore their hopes and conflicts. It was not as good as The Kitchen God's Wife, but still a very enjoyable read.
In this story, Olivia, daughter of an American mother and a Chinese father, discovers that she has a Chinese half-sister. She meets 18-year-old Kwan for the first time shortly after their father's death. Kwan adores her new sibling and introduces Olivia to her Chinese heritage through stories and memories. Olivia finds Kwan's information sessions embarrassing, especially as she talks about past lives. As Olivia grows older, she can find a place in her life for Kwan's Chinese superstitions, spirits, and reincarnations. Eventually Olivia--now a photographer--travels to China on assignment with her writer husband, and Kwan serves as their interpreter. When the group visits the village where Kwan grew up, Olivia experiences an epiphany about Kwan's lessons: Our departed loved ones are lost only to our ordinary senses; by remembering, we can find them again anytime using our hundred "secret" senses. Definitely something to think about!
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