The Mystery Remains

I've been questioning along with Olivia throughout the Hundred secret senses, wondering about all the stories that Kwan tells; whether they are true or not. The search for truth has all started with Olivia's father's death and ends with yet another mystery as if we have had enough of the answers which were nowhere to be found. Closing the book, I began pondering once more about the real version of the real world; the who's-who and what's what, but then it suddenly dawned on me; it has always been like this; it's the way it is. You are supposed to follow your heart and to ignore what you can see and reason but take more seriously what you feel and hope. The novel, though written in English, has a strangely familiar touch of Chinese stories we have heard throughout our childhood; legends that we no longer pay heed to and which have secretly grown into our spine in a careless way. This book brings back a vague familiarity of childhood make-believes. It's amazing how Tan can reach out to people's hearts by using Chinese superstitious tales and myths. It's intriguing, funny and breathtaking. Everything is a mystery and every secret has a root that links to yet another enigma.

What I've found out about Tan is that I can never pick out a really great sentence or phrase from her books, but the story on the whole always grabs me with an intensive force that make me want to go further and deeper into that world of hers, where generations and cultural gaps are more than a mist of different tastes in clothing and food and love and affection intertwine with mysterious ancestral tales which result in who we are today.