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The opposite of fate : a book of musings / Amy Tan.
Van Pelt Library PS3570.A48 Z47 2003
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Tan, Amy.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Tan, Amy.
- Tan, Amy--Family.
- Novelists, American--20th century--Family relationships.
- Novelists, American.
- Families.
- Novelists, American--20th century--Biography.
- Chinese Americans--Biography.
- Chinese Americans.
- Free will and determinism.
- Chinese American families.
- Fiction--Authorship.
- Fiction.
- Fate and fatalism.
- Genre:
- Biographies.
- Physical Description:
- 398 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Putnam, [2003]
- Summary:
- These are musings on my life, including the metaphors I used as an eight-year-old child, sensing books as windows opening and illuminating my room, and the thoughts I had as I wrote my mother's obituary, trying to sum up who she was and what legacy she had bequeathed to me... They are musings linked by my fascination with fate, both blind and blessed, and its many alternatives: choice, chance, luck, faith, forgiveness, forgetting, freedom of expression, the pursuit of happiness, the balm of love, a sturdy attitude, a strong will, a bevy of good-luck charms, adherence to rituals, appeasement through prayer, trolling for miracles, a plea to others to throw a lifeline, and the generous provision of that by strangers and loved ones.
- Born into a family who believed in fate, Amy Tan has always looked for alternative ways to make sense of the world. And now, in The Opposite of Fate, her first book of nonfiction, she shares her thoughts on how she escaped the expectations and curses of her past, and created her own destiny. Amy Tan tells of her family, of the ghosts that inhabit her computer, of specters of illness, ski trips, the pliability of memory, rock and roll, and the twinned mysteries of faith and fate. Whether she is remembering arguments with her mother in suburban California, recounting trips to an outdoor market in Shanghai, or describing her love-hate relationship with the CliffsNotes edition of her first book, The Joy Luck Club, her recollections offer an intimate glimpse of a best-selling writer whose own life story is as magical and hopeful as her fiction. With the same spirit and humor that characterize her beloved novels, Amy Tan presents a refreshing antidote to the world-weariness and uncertainties we face today, contemplating how things happen -- in her life and beyond -- but always returning to the question of fate and its opposites: the choices, charms, influences, attitudes, and lucky accidents that shape us all.
- Contents:
- Fate and Faith
- The CliffsNotes Version of My Life 7
- How We Knew 39
- A Question of Fate 41
- Faith 61
- Changing the Past
- Last Week 69
- My Grandmother's Choice 99
- Thinly Disguised Memoir 105
- Persona Errata 113
- Scent 121
- American Circumstances and Chinese Character
- Fish Cheeks 125
- Dangerous Advice 128
- Midlife Confidential 135
- Arrival Banquet 154
- Joy Luck and Hollywood 176
- Strong Winds, Strong Influences
- What She Meant 207
- Confessions 212
- Pretty Beyond Belief 215
- The Most Hateful Words 218
- My Love Affair with Vladimir Nabokov 221
- Luck, Chance, and a Charmed Life
- Inferior Decorating 231
- Room with a View, New Kitchen, and Ghosts 235
- Retreat to Reality 239
- My Hair, My Face, My Nails 245
- The Ghosts of My Imagination 250
- A Choice of Words
- What the Library Means to Me 269
- Mother Tongue 271
- The Language of Discretion 280
- Five Writing Tips 291
- Required Reading and Other Dangerous Subjects 299
- Angst and the Second Book 324
- The Best Stories 334
- Hope
- What I Would Remember 357
- To Complain Is American 360
- The Opposite of Fate 367.
- ISBN:
- 0399150749
- OCLC:
- 52493386
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