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Amy Tan: Writer talks about her favorite authors, characters and books
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What’s the best book you’ve read so far this year?
Richard Ford’s “Canada.” I’ve loved all his books, from the characters to the parenthetical sentences. His voice always sounds so casual, as if the narrator is working it out in his head for the first time. There’s quiet intensity, an easy familiarity with the character. You know the habits in how the character thinks, what he might take into account. The narrator is more observational than judgmental, and forgiving in that way. It has much to do with a need to be rewarded for doing more, or compensated for following the rules or recognized as better for working harder. It’s not simple greed. It’s about a sense of self, before and after you’ve taken the wrong road to a land of diminishing opportunity.
Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).
I’ve often fantasized I would get a lot of writing done if I were put in prison for a minor crime. Three to six months. Incarceration would be good for reading as well. No email, no useless warranties to get steamed about, no invitations to fund-raisers. But until I commit the necessary minor crime, I would choose a 12-hour flight. Time flies by fast with a good book. Two benefits. I do have to pick the right-length book matched to destination. It’s terrible to have 20 pages left and then be told to put your seat in an upright position. That happened when I read “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.”
Do you have a favorite classic work of Chinese literature?
“Jin Ping Mei” (“The Plum in the Golden Vase”). The author is anonymous. I would describe it as a book of manners for the debauched. Its readers in the late Ming period likely hid it under their bedcovers, because it was banned as pornographic. It has a fairly modern, naturalistic style — “Show, don’t tell” — and there are a lot of sex scenes shown. For years, I didn’t know I had the expurgated edition that provided only elliptical hints of what went on between falling into bed and waking up refreshed. The unexpurgated edition is instructional.
Who are the best Chinese and Chinese-American writers working today?
I’ve read Chinese novels only in translation, which limits how well I can judge who is “best.” I’ve read work by the early feminist writers Wang Anyi, Zhang Jie and Cheng Naishan (who died recently). You have to understand how radical their novels and short stories were at the time they were published. They included notions of suffering, thwarted love, the “cultural revolution,” a forlorn look at the past, and a nostalgic Shanghai. A love story could have been seen as criticism of the “cultural revolution (1966-76).” I also admire Yan Geling’s stories. Beneath beauty and idealism is cruelty and ill intent. I’ve read a couple of Mo Yan’s novels, which also could be judged as a less patriotic view of the “Great Leap Forward.” With prizes, I’ve observed, literary merit is often a sliding scale based on the author’s political actions — or inaction.
Among Chinese-American writers, two immediately come to mind: Yiyun Li and Ha Jin, with their particular mix of displaced characters, circumstances and past. Their stories often have tragedy, but rise above that. They elicit discomfort and compassion — good and necessary conditions that change me, as any writing is capable of doing by putting me in unfamiliar situations and magnifying the details I would have overlooked.
What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves?
A lot of books on animal cognition and behavior — crows, ravens, dogs and even ants. I’m a sucker for dog training books as well. And I collect antiquarian books on biology. One is a four-volume set, “The Science of Life,” by sci-fi writer HG Wells; his son GP Wells; and Julian Huxley, a biologist and also a prominent eugenicist.
Do you have a favorite childhood literary character or hero?
Jane Eyre remains a favorite. Her truthfulness sometimes made me laugh. And her loneliness and need to make her own way mirrored my feelings. “The Little Prince” is another lost soul I clung to. Pippi Longstocking was a bit too cheerful.
If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know?
Emily Dickinson. I would be her nursemaid, her quiet companion on walks in the woods. I imagine that anything she spotted — feathers, tea leaves, a hole in a fence — would lead her to utter something profound about human emotions.
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