Shared by:jason98
Written by Wayson Choy
Format(s): EPUB MOBI
Language: English
Jade Peony
Wayson Choy's The Jade Peony is about growing up in Vancouver's early Chinatown. The book, which began as a much anthologized short story almost twenty years ago, is divided into three sections, each narrated by a different child from the same family: Jook-Liang, the "useless" female, whose main interests are going to movies, tap dancing, and imitating Shirley Temple; the adopted orphan Jung-Sum, the second oldest brother, who discover he's gay; and Sek-Lung, the youngest brother and the only one in the family born in Canada.
Choy does a fine job of orchestrating the narrative voices and showing how family patterns and themes operate in diverse, often unpredictable ways, in the individuals' lives. Within the three main stories, the stories of other characters are also embedded, and this is where Choy truly excels. His "secondary" characters are not secondary at all. The most notable of these is Poh-Poh, the grandmother, who lives with the family. She believes in the "old ways"; hers is a world of ghosts and omens, of ancient lore and mysterious remedies. One of her favourite pastimes is making wind-chimes, the materials for which she and Sek-Lung (who considers her his "spiritual playmate") find in the neighbourhood trash bins. The family often feels embarrassed by the "Old One", but their superstition is as strong as their embarrassment: they take her views into account far more than they would like.
Choy sets his characters' personal stories against a background of political upheaval (the Depression, the Second World War, the Japanese invasion of China) and illustrates vividly the clash of the old culture with the new that most immigrants experience. As Sek-Lung notes, "What would white people in Vancouver think of us? We were Canadians now, Chinese-Canadians, a hyphenated reality that our parents could never accept." Choy's account of this reality is lyrical and moving.
All That Matters
What matters most in Wayson Choy's elegant second novel can be summed up in one word: "values." This understated coming-of-age tale, set in Vancouver's Chinatown during the 1930s and '40s, details the surprising ways in which one culture's cherished beliefs can be subtly altered and yet upheld within another's. A much-anticipated sequel to Choy's award-winning first novel, The Jade Peony, All That Matters revisits the family home of the young Chen siblings whose intersecting points of view formed the heart of the earlier book. This time, however, "First Son" Kiam-Kim (a silent presence in All That Matters) tells his story. Born in "Old China," Kiam-Kim arrives in Vancouver at the age of three with his widowed father and strong-willed grandmother, who have been selected by a successful Chinese businessman to become his "paper family." Filtering everything through a young child's consciousness, Choy portrays, with richly compelling imagery, the underground Chinese city of "Gold Mountain"--hidden within Anglo Vancouver and yet teeming with illegal immigrants, exotic foodstuffs, and old-world customs.
As Kiam-Kim matures under the tutelage of his fawning but tough-as-nails grandmother Poh-Poh, he faces down several challenges to his family position, including the arrival of a new "Stepmother" and an adopted "Second Brother." He also makes friends with the Irish boy next door, the reckless Jack O'Connor, whose cowboy good looks bring about the central crisis of the novel. It quickly becomes apparent, however, that Kiam-Kim is a hero equal to almost any task, and his ability to calmly navigate old and new value systems saps this otherwise fine novel of some of its dramatic potential.
Not Yet: A Memoir of Living and Almost Dying
The new memoir by celebrated novelist Wayson Choy chronicles not one, but two near-death experiences. Employing a spare, restrained approach, Choy depicts a dramatic series of events through an unexpectedly tranquil filter, highlighting themes of family, home, and the fragility of growing old. The book opens in 2001, when Choy is 62 years old. He鈥檚 wheezing as he attempts to lug two heavy suitcases up a tall staircase. It鈥檚 just allergies, he tells himself of his persistent, wracking cough. Within a few pages, Choy is flat on his back in a hospital bed, trembling and intubated, surrounded by medical technicians. It isn鈥檛 allergies, but a severe asthma attack punctuated by multiple cardiac events. And this won鈥檛 be the last time; his heart nearly fails him again several years later, at the book鈥檚 close. Choy avoids tidy homilies or maudlin melodrama in favour of a matter-of-fact tone. This makes the images he chooses all the more vivid and delightful. The moment he鈥檚 first able to breathe again without a ventilator, he notices the bedside monitors beeping in time to his heaving gulps, 鈥淕inger Rogers to [his] Fred Astaire.鈥?He adroitly captures the surreality of an extended hospital stay and rehabilitation, right down to the hallucinations. Subtle glints of humour 鈥?such as his description of an origami butterfly so poorly executed it resembles an ordinary envelope 鈥?keep the writing far from the sentimental or precious. Along the way, Choy provides sufficient personal background for the reader to appreciate the significance of the faces that greet him when he first returns to consciousness. He also notes the ways in which his experience influenced his creative process, prompting him to rewrite his last novel, All That Matters. Relearning how to speak, write, and walk does not inoculate the author from future risk. Choy demonstrates that self-awareness about the body and its dangers cannot save you from every peril. In lovely prose, he captures the beauty and imperfection of being human.
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| Creation Date: | Fri, 13 Apr 2012 06:14:18 +0400 |
| This is a Multifile Torrent | |
| All That Matters - Wayson Choy.epub 1.95 MBs | |
| Not Yet_ A Memoir of Living and Almost D - Wayson Choy.epub 1.83 MBs | |
| All That Matters - Wayson Choy.mobi 813.26 KBs | |
| The Jade Peony - Wayson Choy.mobi 351.55 KBs | |
| The Jade Peony - Wayson Choy.epub 294.94 KBs | |
| Not Yet_ A Memoir of Living and Almost D - Wayson Choy.mobi 288.63 KBs | |
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