Amy Tan is a great writer who must be considered a part of the literary
cannon because she has been a major force in highlighting the issues facing
the Chinese and immigrant community in the United States. But Amy herself
doesn't want to be labeled as a Asian American writer and thus instead of
being a part of Asian literary canon, it would be great to include her in
the lost of major writers of United States. Below we shall discuss some
features of her famous works and then see why she must be a part of the
literary cannon.
The Hundred Secret Senses' is Amy Tan's third novel and received positive
response from the readers because of her earlier successes namely The Joy
Luck Club and the Kitchen God's Wife'. The book as her earlier works was a
beautiful blend of east and west and the writer herself coming from a
Chinese family brings an element of Oriental culture and values in the
Hundred Secrets Senses too. While the storyline is definitely unique in its
own way, it is important to understand that it is not the plot for which
Amy Tan is famous but it is her wonderful and lively characters, their
amazing and rather incredible powers and their ability to bring something
different to everyday American life that makes her novels interesting and
gripping. The readers may not always be able to relate to those characters
but they are special because they open new vistas and introduce the readers
to a world they didn't know existed.
Huntley (1998) explains why Amy Tan should be a part of the literary canon:
"Like a growing number of contemporary writers, Amy Tan crafts novels that
resist facile and definitive classification into any of the conventional
fictional genres. That the books are novels is widely acknowledged,
although Tan has said that she intended The Joy Luck Club to be a
collection of short stories. Readers and critics alike do, however, agree
that Tan's work incorporates or echoes other genres inc...