I liked the book. I learned A LOT about the San Francisco gold rush. Typical American history makes you think this is solely an American event, now I know there were LOTS of 49’ers from lots of countries.
I really enjoyed Part 2. Tao Chi’en was my favorite character and I really wish the whole book was about him. Was it just me or did Part 1 read very “Spanish” and the rest of the book very “English”? Part 1 seemed more literal translation to me and seemed harder to read.
I didn't like the ending - it was all too tidy. And I really didn't like how Joaquin became the villian and Eliza is okay with it all. And what became of Mama Fresia? If all the ends are going to be "wrapped up", what about her?
Anyway, favorite quotes:
I know A will pick up on the sexual ones so I’ll beat her to the punch. From “Miss Rose”: “opulent bust and hips” so much in vogue and Karl Bretzner’s “rosy perky gherkin”. From “The News”: prostitutes disembark from the ship and study “the LAY of the land”. From "The Argonauts": an interest rate of 10% interest per HOUR! Holy crap! Also, I never knew the people flooding California were referred to as Argonauts. From “Disillusion”: Esther and James Morton get married and a “DOUBLE row of former customers lined both sides of the street”. Wow some wedding. Esther is that popular and James Morton must be ?? lucky? a heck of a guy? I can’t even think how to describe him. Also from “Disillusion”: Joe Bonecrusher’s quote “This is a shitty profession, girls”. Get yourselves married, go study to be teachers. Do something with your fucking lives and stop hanging around me.” Prostitute to teacher?
Questions: Why isn’t Jeremy married? How exactly does Eliza pass herself off as Tao Chi’en’s brother? Doesn’t her complexion and EYES give her away? AND the best secret of all is not about Eliza but that MISS ROSE writes PORN!
New vocab for me: Epizootic – an epidemic among animals Seraglio – harem Placer – deposit of gravel or sand containing heavy ore minerals Pettifogger – a lawyer who handles petty cases, usually unethical Limn – to paint or draw, illuminate gorge – a feeling of disgust or anger
I liked the book. I learned A LOT about the San Francisco gold rush. Typical American history makes you think this is solely an American event, now I know there were LOTS of 49’ers from lots of countries.
I really enjoyed Part 2. Tao Chi’en was my favorite character and I really wish the whole book was about him. Was it just me or did Part 1 read very “Spanish” and the rest of the book very “English”? Part 1 seemed more literal translation to me and seemed harder to read.
I didn't like the ending - it was all too tidy. And I really didn't like how Joaquin became the villian and Eliza is okay with it all. And what became of Mama Fresia? If all the ends are going to be "wrapped up", what about her?
Anyway, favorite quotes:
I know A will pick up on the sexual ones so I’ll beat her to the punch. From “Miss Rose”: “opulent bust and hips” so much in vogue and Karl Bretzner’s “rosy perky gherkin”. From “The News”: prostitutes disembark from the ship and study “the LAY of the land”. From "The Argonauts": an interest rate of 10% interest per HOUR! Holy crap! Also, I never knew the people flooding California were referred to as Argonauts. From “Disillusion”: Esther and James Morton get married and a “DOUBLE row of former customers lined both sides of the street”. Wow some wedding. Esther is that popular and James Morton must be ?? lucky? a heck of a guy? I can’t even think how to describe him. Also from “Disillusion”: Joe Bonecrusher’s quote “This is a shitty profession, girls”. Get yourselves married, go study to be teachers. Do something with your fucking lives and stop hanging around me.” Prostitute to teacher?
Questions: Why isn’t Jeremy married? How exactly does Eliza pass herself off as Tao Chi’en’s brother? Doesn’t her complexion and EYES give her away? AND the best secret of all is not about Eliza but that MISS ROSE writes PORN!
New vocab for me: Epizootic – an epidemic among animals Seraglio – harem Placer – deposit of gravel or sand containing heavy ore minerals Pettifogger – a lawyer who handles petty cases, usually unethical Limn – to paint or draw, illuminate gorge – a feeling of disgust or anger
I LOVED this book. I had it finished about two weeks ago, because I devoured it, but am only just getting time to write about it. I enjoyed the characters, the plot, the writing. But not the ending. It was too abrupt and left too much hanging. Like, was it Joaquin's head in the bottle?
J already stole some of my quotes. Notably the "rosy perky gherkin". I had to read that aloud to both Mom and Ken!
Others: From "Eliza": "...you were covered in your own caca. Your nose was running and you were red as a bioled lobster, with a head full of fuzz like corn silk. That's how it was. Don't get any ideas." There's a dose of reality for you.
"In addition, she had totted up her possibilities and had decided that marriage, even in the best of cases, was a dreary business." Followed by giving birth to a salamander. :-)
Rose's threat to learn to play piano like a little lady so she didn't end up in the orphanage combined with the fact that she ended up playing in a brothel.
From "The English": The description of Todd's illness. Wow.
"The only good thing about marriage is becoming a widow." Oh, if I had only known the line in high school.
Senioritas: "I would happily give half my life to have the freedom a man has, Elia. But we are women, and that is our cross. All we can do is try to get the best from the little we have." Rose is my favorite character. I can't believe I didn't figure out that she was the author of the porn novels!
Miss Rose: "He loved books so muchthat he was quite capable of depriving his family of food and going into debt to acquire first edictions signed by his favorite authors." I'm not that bad, at least!
The News: I don't care how badly I wanted to end an unwanted pregnancy, I would nt drink chicken shit dissolved in black beer.
Fourth Son: Isn't it sad to think that female infanticide is still happening in China today?
Tao Chi'en: How can someone love golden lilies when "the destroyed bones seeped a foul-smelling substance. And a physician at that!
I had to laugh when Tao would not allow Lin to have a midwife and then ended up running out to get a midwife because he didn't know what to do. Yep, sounds like a man to me. :-)
El Dorado: And isn't it sad that we still have animal fighting going on in this day and age?
I loved Eliza's description of the freedom she felt dressing as a man and travelling in California. I can't help but think that Rose also would have enjoyed that life, as prissy as she seems.
I'm about halfway through - hope to make good progress next week (maybe this weekend). Haven't read your comments above yet to avoid spoilers, but did find some comment-worthy things to post.
First of all in my used copy I found a video rental receipt for Patricia Brown, Ithaca, NY, from May 2, 2002. She rented The Last Castle, Serendipity and K-Pax. Pat has quite eclectic tastes in movies!
Getting back to the book, here are some lines that really stood out. A Ruined Reputation "Todd had no idea what he was walking through, only that his feet were sinking into a pestilential broth."
Miss Rose "His physique--barrel-chested but thin in the pins--lacked elegance, and his ruddy face, topped with a mass of salt-and-pepper curls, added up to a rather vulgar whole."
"..her information was based on overblown descriptions in the racy books and Japanese postcards she had discovered in her uncle John's luggage, in which the male organs were depicted in frankly optimistic proportions. The rosy, perky gherkin..did not frighten her.." hahaha ain't that the TRUTH!
Fourth Son "He made Tao memorize each of the 222 positions of love, along with their poetic names, until he could identify them unhesitatingly in the exquisite illustrations of the books, all of which added immeasurably to the young man's distraction."
Overall just want to comment how much the chapters Fourth Son and Tao Chi'en remind me of a condensed version of The Good Earth, which I just read a few months ago.
Some things were disturbing: referring to the bound feet of chinese women as "golden lilies" when the tiny feet were the result of the horrible practice of binding the feet of young girls to make them that way - for what - for men. In the movie "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" the missionary woman fights to ban the practice because it was so painful.
Another thing that bothered me was the description of the chinese marketplace where there were dogs and cats in cages waiting to be killed for some customer for eating. I know customs are different in different countries but I still shiver at the thought.
It is ironic that both Rose and Eliza are described as proper ladies who say and do all the polite things... and both of them wind up in no holds barred romps in the hay. I guess you really can't tell a book by its cover.
Reading about Tao Chi'en's marriage and the loss of his wife was truly very sad. It is easy to imagine him standing holding his dead wife and screaming. So sad.
Finished the book. Enjoyed it very much. This is the kind of a story that easily could have a sequel. In fact I wish it did to answer all the questions about what happened to who.
I don't think I have heard the racial slur "greaser" before. I have heard many others, but not that one. I am assuming it refered to the way they fixed their hair.
Have to say I have known my share of pushy no-it-all women in my time and I thoroughly symmpathize with John Sommers having to have Pauline on his ship... as well as her bratty kids. Spoilsville..
Finally, finally finished! It's not that I didn't enjoy this book - overall I really liked it - but I've been so busy at work (how lame!)
Some more quotes: The Voyage "If Eliza was awake, Azucena told her about her own life and taught her to pray the rosary that, according to her, was the best way to pass hours without thinking and at the same time get to heaven without too much effort."
The Argonauts "Many years later...Eliza asked herself with amazement why neither of them had recognized the undeniable attraction they felt. ... they believed there was no place for a couple like them anywhere in the world." Roughly halfway through the book and you give away the ending?! Grrr! I wish I had skimmed this bit!
El Dorado "Sitting on the driver's seat of the first carriage was a large woman with hyperbolic breasts"
Business Dealings "The plot invariably had to do with burning love between a member of the European nobility and a common peasant girl, or sometimes the reverse.." This REALLLY reminded me of Adios Scheherazade
Words I learned: Chinese shadow plays - had to Google image search them. Diaphanous - so fine it's transparent Hyperbolic - with the properties of a hyperbola (picture two cones point-to-point)
General comments: I loved Mama Fresia, Tao and Eliza, Joe Bonecrusher and Babalu the Bad. Miss Rose, Paulina, John - eh, OK. Didn't care for Joaquin or Jeremy. I figured out that Rose was writing porn, but was completely blindsided that Eliza was John's daughter. (ps the illustrated versions of Rose's books reminded me of Fanny Hill!)
I, too, thought the end was way too tidy. Again and again I lament how authors can spend 400 pages building and building only to wrap everything up in 5 pages. In fact, as I was nearing the end, around 30 pages out and Eliza and Tao still weren't "together," I said to Harold, "She's running out of time here.. Not enough pages left to wrap everything up properly." Over the course of my studies I've read several of Allende's books, and this one sure fits her style. Tons of interwoven subplots, lots of characters, feisty women, and a few high-ranking society types with dark & scandalous secrets thrown in for good measure. Makes for a great novel if you don't mind making a few assumptions at the end of the book.
Parts that I hated reading: The bull and the bear The amputation of the fingers The description of the singsong ladies - but so glad Tao and Eliza did all they could to save some. Lots of people tied to trees and tortured. Jacob Todd/Freemont - he really annoyed me.
There's an NPR article on foot binding here -- I heard it on air a few years ago and it stuck with me!
To answer Joy's question about how Eliza passed as Tao's brother, I think a lot had to do with wearing a hat and keeping her head down. A few times Tao mentioned how he never made eye contact with white people - and then there was what Eliza mentioned about men not looking at other men, especially someone as inconsequential as a deaf, mute Chinese boy.
Also wanted to mention that somewhere along the line Miss Rose had a line about how women don't marry to be entertained, but rather maintained. Can't find that line to get it exact but I did like it. My, how times have changed!
13 comments:
ALL right, first to blog! Go me!
I liked the book. I learned A LOT about the San Francisco gold rush. Typical American history makes you think this is solely an American event, now I know there were LOTS of 49’ers from lots of countries.
I really enjoyed Part 2. Tao Chi’en was my favorite character and I really wish the whole book was about him. Was it just me or did Part 1 read very “Spanish” and the rest of the book very “English”? Part 1 seemed more literal translation to me and seemed harder to read.
I didn't like the ending - it was all too tidy. And I really didn't like how Joaquin became the villian and Eliza is okay with it all. And what became of Mama Fresia? If all the ends are going to be "wrapped up", what about her?
Anyway, favorite quotes:
I know A will pick up on the sexual ones so I’ll beat her to the punch.
From “Miss Rose”: “opulent bust and hips” so much in vogue and Karl Bretzner’s “rosy perky gherkin”.
From “The News”: prostitutes disembark from the ship and study “the LAY of the land”.
From "The Argonauts": an interest rate of 10% interest per HOUR! Holy crap! Also, I never knew the people flooding California were referred to as Argonauts.
From “Disillusion”: Esther and James Morton get married and a “DOUBLE row of former customers lined both sides of the street”. Wow some wedding. Esther is that popular and James Morton must be ?? lucky? a heck of a guy? I can’t even think how to describe him.
Also from “Disillusion”: Joe Bonecrusher’s quote “This is a shitty profession, girls”. Get yourselves married, go study to be teachers. Do something with your fucking lives and stop hanging around me.” Prostitute to teacher?
Questions:
Why isn’t Jeremy married?
How exactly does Eliza pass herself off as Tao Chi’en’s brother? Doesn’t her complexion and EYES give her away?
AND the best secret of all is not about Eliza but that MISS ROSE writes PORN!
New vocab for me:
Epizootic – an epidemic among animals
Seraglio – harem
Placer – deposit of gravel or sand containing heavy ore minerals
Pettifogger – a lawyer who handles petty cases, usually unethical
Limn – to paint or draw, illuminate
gorge – a feeling of disgust or anger
Overall, an okay read.
ALL right, first to blog! Go me!
I liked the book. I learned A LOT about the San Francisco gold rush. Typical American history makes you think this is solely an American event, now I know there were LOTS of 49’ers from lots of countries.
I really enjoyed Part 2. Tao Chi’en was my favorite character and I really wish the whole book was about him. Was it just me or did Part 1 read very “Spanish” and the rest of the book very “English”? Part 1 seemed more literal translation to me and seemed harder to read.
I didn't like the ending - it was all too tidy. And I really didn't like how Joaquin became the villian and Eliza is okay with it all. And what became of Mama Fresia? If all the ends are going to be "wrapped up", what about her?
Anyway, favorite quotes:
I know A will pick up on the sexual ones so I’ll beat her to the punch.
From “Miss Rose”: “opulent bust and hips” so much in vogue and Karl Bretzner’s “rosy perky gherkin”.
From “The News”: prostitutes disembark from the ship and study “the LAY of the land”.
From "The Argonauts": an interest rate of 10% interest per HOUR! Holy crap! Also, I never knew the people flooding California were referred to as Argonauts.
From “Disillusion”: Esther and James Morton get married and a “DOUBLE row of former customers lined both sides of the street”. Wow some wedding. Esther is that popular and James Morton must be ?? lucky? a heck of a guy? I can’t even think how to describe him.
Also from “Disillusion”: Joe Bonecrusher’s quote “This is a shitty profession, girls”. Get yourselves married, go study to be teachers. Do something with your fucking lives and stop hanging around me.” Prostitute to teacher?
Questions:
Why isn’t Jeremy married?
How exactly does Eliza pass herself off as Tao Chi’en’s brother? Doesn’t her complexion and EYES give her away?
AND the best secret of all is not about Eliza but that MISS ROSE writes PORN!
New vocab for me:
Epizootic – an epidemic among animals
Seraglio – harem
Placer – deposit of gravel or sand containing heavy ore minerals
Pettifogger – a lawyer who handles petty cases, usually unethical
Limn – to paint or draw, illuminate
gorge – a feeling of disgust or anger
Overall, an okay read.
I LOVED this book. I had it finished about two weeks ago, because I devoured it, but am only just getting time to write about it. I enjoyed the characters, the plot, the writing. But not the ending. It was too abrupt and left too much hanging. Like, was it Joaquin's head in the bottle?
J already stole some of my quotes. Notably the "rosy perky gherkin". I had to read that aloud to both Mom and Ken!
Others:
From "Eliza": "...you were covered in your own caca. Your nose was running and you were red as a bioled lobster, with a head full of fuzz like corn silk. That's how it was. Don't get any ideas." There's a dose of reality for you.
"In addition, she had totted up her possibilities and had decided that marriage, even in the best of cases, was a dreary business." Followed by giving birth to a salamander. :-)
Rose's threat to learn to play piano like a little lady so she didn't end up in the orphanage combined with the fact that she ended up playing in a brothel.
More to come, but my dinner is ready now.
From "The English": The description of Todd's illness. Wow.
"The only good thing about marriage is becoming a widow." Oh, if I had only known the line in high school.
Senioritas: "I would happily give half my life to have the freedom a man has, Elia. But we are women, and that is our cross. All we can do is try to get the best from the little we have." Rose is my favorite character. I can't believe I didn't figure out that she was the author of the porn novels!
Miss Rose: "He loved books so muchthat he was quite capable of depriving his family of food and going into debt to acquire first edictions signed by his favorite authors." I'm not that bad, at least!
The News: I don't care how badly I wanted to end an unwanted pregnancy, I would nt drink chicken shit dissolved in black beer.
Fourth Son: Isn't it sad to think that female infanticide is still happening in China today?
Tao Chi'en: How can someone love golden lilies when "the destroyed bones seeped a foul-smelling substance. And a physician at that!
I had to laugh when Tao would not allow Lin to have a midwife and then ended up running out to get a midwife because he didn't know what to do. Yep, sounds like a man to me. :-)
El Dorado: And isn't it sad that we still have animal fighting going on in this day and age?
I loved Eliza's description of the freedom she felt dressing as a man and travelling in California. I can't help but think that Rose also would have enjoyed that life, as prissy as she seems.
Overall, great pick, A.
still waiting to get my copy to read.
I'm about halfway through - hope to make good progress next week (maybe this weekend). Haven't read your comments above yet to avoid spoilers, but did find some comment-worthy things to post.
First of all in my used copy I found a video rental receipt for Patricia Brown, Ithaca, NY, from May 2, 2002. She rented The Last Castle, Serendipity and K-Pax. Pat has quite eclectic tastes in movies!
Getting back to the book, here are some lines that really stood out.
A Ruined Reputation
"Todd had no idea what he was walking through, only that his feet were sinking into a pestilential broth."
Miss Rose
"His physique--barrel-chested but thin in the pins--lacked elegance, and his ruddy face, topped with a mass of salt-and-pepper curls, added up to a rather vulgar whole."
"..her information was based on overblown descriptions in the racy books and Japanese postcards she had discovered in her uncle John's luggage, in which the male organs were depicted in frankly optimistic proportions. The rosy, perky gherkin..did not frighten her.."
hahaha ain't that the TRUTH!
Fourth Son
"He made Tao memorize each of the 222 positions of love, along with their poetic names, until he could identify them unhesitatingly in the exquisite illustrations of the books, all of which added immeasurably to the young man's distraction."
Overall just want to comment how much the chapters Fourth Son and Tao Chi'en remind me of a condensed version of The Good Earth, which I just read a few months ago.
Half way through the book. A very enjoyable read.
Some things were disturbing: referring to the bound feet of chinese women as "golden lilies" when the tiny feet were the result of the horrible practice of binding the feet of young girls to make them that way - for what - for men. In the movie "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" the missionary woman fights to ban the practice because it was so painful.
Another thing that bothered me was the description of the chinese marketplace where there were dogs and cats in cages waiting to be killed for some customer for eating. I know customs are different in different countries but I still shiver at the thought.
It is ironic that both Rose and Eliza are described as proper ladies who say and do all the polite things... and both of them wind up in no holds barred romps in the hay. I guess you really can't tell a book by its cover.
Reading about Tao Chi'en's marriage and the loss of his wife was truly very sad. It is easy to imagine him standing holding his dead wife and screaming. So sad.
Finished the book. Enjoyed it very much. This is the kind of a story that easily could have a sequel. In fact I wish it did to answer all the questions about what happened to who.
I don't think I have heard the racial slur "greaser" before. I have heard many others, but not that one. I am assuming it refered to the way they fixed their hair.
Have to say I have known my share of pushy no-it-all women in my time and I thoroughly symmpathize with John Sommers having to have Pauline on his ship... as well as her bratty kids. Spoilsville..
that should read "know-it-all".. that is actually funny that I should mess up that term... obviously it didn't apply to me.
I got my wish. There is a sequel. It is titled "Portrait in Sepia"
There is a sequel? I'll have to look it up since I really liked the book as well.
Finally, finally finished! It's not that I didn't enjoy this book - overall I really liked it - but I've been so busy at work (how lame!)
Some more quotes:
The Voyage
"If Eliza was awake, Azucena told her about her own life and taught her to pray the rosary that, according to her, was the best way to pass hours without thinking and at the same time get to heaven without too much effort."
The Argonauts
"Many years later...Eliza asked herself with amazement why neither of them had recognized the undeniable attraction they felt. ... they believed there was no place for a couple like them anywhere in the world."
Roughly halfway through the book and you give away the ending?! Grrr! I wish I had skimmed this bit!
El Dorado
"Sitting on the driver's seat of the first carriage was a large woman with hyperbolic breasts"
Business Dealings
"The plot invariably had to do with burning love between a member of the European nobility and a common peasant girl, or sometimes the reverse.."
This REALLLY reminded me of Adios Scheherazade
Words I learned:
Chinese shadow plays - had to Google image search them.
Diaphanous - so fine it's transparent
Hyperbolic - with the properties of a hyperbola (picture two cones point-to-point)
General comments: I loved Mama Fresia, Tao and Eliza, Joe Bonecrusher and Babalu the Bad. Miss Rose, Paulina, John - eh, OK. Didn't care for Joaquin or Jeremy.
I figured out that Rose was writing porn, but was completely blindsided that Eliza was John's daughter. (ps the illustrated versions of Rose's books reminded me of Fanny Hill!)
I, too, thought the end was way too tidy. Again and again I lament how authors can spend 400 pages building and building only to wrap everything up in 5 pages. In fact, as I was nearing the end, around 30 pages out and Eliza and Tao still weren't "together," I said to Harold, "She's running out of time here.. Not enough pages left to wrap everything up properly." Over the course of my studies I've read several of Allende's books, and this one sure fits her style. Tons of interwoven subplots, lots of characters, feisty women, and a few high-ranking society types with dark & scandalous secrets thrown in for good measure. Makes for a great novel if you don't mind making a few assumptions at the end of the book.
Parts that I hated reading:
The bull and the bear
The amputation of the fingers
The description of the singsong ladies - but so glad Tao and Eliza did all they could to save some.
Lots of people tied to trees and tortured.
Jacob Todd/Freemont - he really annoyed me.
There's an NPR article on foot binding here -- I heard it on air a few years ago and it stuck with me!
To answer Joy's question about how Eliza passed as Tao's brother, I think a lot had to do with wearing a hat and keeping her head down. A few times Tao mentioned how he never made eye contact with white people - and then there was what Eliza mentioned about men not looking at other men, especially someone as inconsequential as a deaf, mute Chinese boy.
Also wanted to mention that somewhere along the line Miss Rose had a line about how women don't marry to be entertained, but rather maintained. Can't find that line to get it exact but I did like it. My, how times have changed!
And I think it was Joaquin's head in the jar.
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