Mona in the Promised Land | Gish Jen | A Very Interesting Read!

Mona in the Promised Land | Gish Jen | hilarious!

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Mona in the Promis...

	Mona in the Promised Land Gish Jen Knopf, 1996 - 303 pages average customer review:based on 22 reviews view larger image
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In 1968, the Chang family moves to posh Scarshill, New York, where the rhodendrons are as big as the Chang family's old bathroom, and nobody trims the forsythia into little can shapes. This takes some getting used to--especially since there's also a new social landscape, with a hot line, a mystery caller, and a temple youth group full of radical ideas. From the author of Typical American.

A Very Interesting Read!

I had to read this for class and I thought it was an extremely interesting read. I thought the characters were, although at times stereotypical, also came alive on the page. I thought this book explored many racial attitudes and what it means to be from a certain race or culture.

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hilarious!

Important note: Read Jen's first novel FIRST, and then the end of Mona won't seem too slapdash and tacked-on, too easy. You really need the context of the first novel to get the full impact of that one.

That said, the characters are great individuals, individually lovable and frustrating and exasperating-- in other words, they're people. And they're teenagers in the 1960s, with racial tension stretching from China and Japan's conflict to black and white clashes. Protestant and Jewish clashes. And in all of this, Jen maintains a high level of downright hilarity. She's a wonderful writer, and this is one book you won't want to return to the library.

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Mona needed to have a reality check.

After starting this book and putting it down in three years, I finally am able to give it three stars. I found it very hard to get into this book and want to continue to read it. If it hadn't been for a snow storm I may never have gotten around to finishing it.

While Mona Chang is a wise cracking character throughout the book, her mother is the true comedian. Her character kept me laughing and often thinking about one of the mothers from the book the "Joy Luck Club." Her level of sarcasm was unbeatable.

When Mona's sister embraces their culture Mona finds her odd. Yet she doesn't think anything of embracing the culture of her friend. It was almost painful to read when Mona dines with her WASP friend and family.

One of the reasons I was not a huge fan of this book, was due to Mona's constant need to be Jewish. I don't know why it just didn't appeal to me for this character. She fought against her own heritage to the point that she actually became a rude character that just didn't seem to get it. It being what her parents had worked for and struggled for. They were people that were proud to be American. Mona on the other hand found a love interest and a friend that spent too much time looking for the injustice in life. Mona's parents become frustrated with her for good reason.

The Underground Railroad section was definitely a grasping at straws moment. Later when Seth and Mona struggle in their relationship I found the "jumping" section a bit dramatic. Especially for the reasoning behind Seth's need for attention.

Although it is easy to find fault with this book, it is also a book that in the end I am glad I read. Mona is a character that you will not soon forget.

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Delightful read, with many flaws

Jen's clever narrative style, chocked full of witty observations, and bubbling with good humor, makes the book uplifting, to say the least. The protagonist, Mona, has an infectiously cheeky attitude and confidently undertakes unique and unconventional choices, such as converting to Judaism. She is also smart, talkative, and consciencious, openly protesting her parents' racism towards Alfred, the black cook in the family restaurant. Through Mona, Gish Jen makes an obvious effort at projecting a non-stereotypical (rather anti-stereotypical) image of the Asian-American female: namely, one who is loudmouth, daring, and a self-motivated intellectual rather than only obediently school-smart like her sister Callie. (Jen, however, allows Callie's character to pale into simplistic stereotype, in order to better contrast Mona - a weak choice for a novel dealing mainly with complicated multicultural issues of identity.) Mona's parents, Helen and Ralph, with all their quirks and Chinese-isms are humorously and sympathetically depicted. Being Asian-American, and from Shanghai, just like Mona's family, I found the family scenes to be hilariously accurate, and a very enjoyable read. I also found Jen's ruminations on the cultural conflicts between parents and children, the first and second generations, family/politeness-centered values versus self/sincerity-centered values helpful and touching in sorting out my own experiences and family relationships.

That said, the plot and character development in Jen's second novel is appallingly simplistic, and she too often sacrifices depth of character and realistic portrayal of life for a clever jab, a nice, racy guffaw. Indeed, "jab" would be an accurate word for describing the way she treats her characters, all of whom are blunt stereotypes embodying one or another cultural phenomenon (the white-bourgeois-hippie-pseudo-intellectual with no consideration for social politeness or the feelings of his lady free-loves; the Chinese girl who goes to college and becomes very very Chinese by influence; the non-Asians who are obsessed with Asian culture; the wasps and their wealthy conformist ways; the Jewish girls and their nose jobs; the Japanese and their confounding zen; the black guy and his ignorant, sex-obsessed, wife-cheating ways; the only Hispanic guy who turns out to be the burglar and maybe-attempted-rapist): Jen pokes fun at all her characters (except Mona), sarcastically, simplistically, without any real attempt at portraying human complexity in her prototypical caricatures, and without any real respect for the nuances and larger questions of the cultural movements of the late sixties, where she chose to set her book. I was most uncomfortable with the way black males (and all black people) were portrayed in the book. Adverse to Jen's attempt to break the cultural stereotype through Mona's characterization, her blatant insensitivity for African-American stereotypes, was disappointing to me.

However, contrary to some previous reviewers, I don't believe that Jen's choice to convert to Judaism is a "denial of her heritage," deserving of disparagement. Rather it reflects the multiplicity of modern Asian-American identity, set in a scene of increasing diversity in America, and increasing opportunities to "switch". Judaism is a religion, not merely an ethnicity; there are Jews in China, too, as Mona emphatically states to her mother. Mona's willingness to explore the multifarious nature and beliefs of the people around her is not the downfall of the novel. Rather, it is Gish Jen's own unwillingness to acknowledge them in her writing.

Plus which, her plot is like a teenage fairy tale. Too fantastic. Too convenient. The epilogue does not do justice to the wit and beautiful writing technique of Gish Jen.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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