The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts

The anti-feminist backlash this novel seems to elicit (e.g., on this review page) should be testimony to how provocative it is, and how many assumptions it can challenge.

As for it being a misrepresentation of Chinese culture, well, it's a subjective account. It's the culture through Maxine's eyes (and her family's eyes); it is not meant to be an objective anthropological study. And I did not find it at all exoticizing. In fact, it's a shame that MHK often gets mentioned in the same sentence as Amy Tan -- beyond the superficial similarity of both being Asian-American women, they have little in common. MHK does none of the silly exoticization that AT does, and at least to me, does not engage in the "Asians must be rescued by Western culture" ideology of AT. This is ultimately a personal, autobiographical account, that is neither judgmental nor self-pitying.


A multifaceted exploration of Chinese-American experience   July 27, 2002
Michael J. Mazza (Pittsburgh, PA USA)
14 out of 17 found this review helpful

I don't think that "The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts," by Maxine Hong Kingston, is an easy book to categorize. It's a blend of Chinese-American family saga, heroic fantasy, ghost story, and first-person account of growing up Chinese-American. The book is divided into five sections: "No Name Woman," "White Tigers," "Shaman," "At the Western Palace," and "A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe." Although each of these sections could stand as an independent unit, together they form a coherent and compelling whole.

"Woman Warrior" features a number of compelling characters. They include a female warrior (whose story might remind you of the film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"), a Chinese woman doctor, and a Chinese-American girl who is navigating her way between her two cultures. Along the way Kingston addresses many issues: multilingualism, dragon lore, cross dressing, magical transformation, ghost fighting strategy, Chinese polygamy, mental illness, family relationships, and women's roles in traditional Chinese culture.

Although at times a bit grim, "Woman Warrior" is also often quite lively and colorful. For some interesting companion texts that deal with comparable subject matter, try Eric Liu's essay collection "The Accidental Asian" and David Henry Hwang's play "Golden Child." For a marvelous complementary text from a Japanese-American female perspective, try Yoshiko Uchida's "Desert Exile."


In Search of Identity   December 18, 2002
Scott Esposito (Oakland, CA United States)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful

Maxine Hong-Kingston - The Woman Warrior

In the upper left hand corner on the back side of my edition of "The Woman Warrior" there are two words written to help classify this book: "nonfiction" and "literature." In a way, this seeming contradiction is a microcosm of "The Woman Warrior." At times "The Woman Warrior" is an autobiographical work, but at other times things happen in the book that have never occurred in Kingston's life, or anyone's life. Why has Kingston chosen to write her autobiography in the language of literature? The answer, like the book, is compelling.

"The Woman Warrior" opens with a graphic, but short, tale of life in rural China in which the narrator's aunt sees her family's estate destroyed because the aunt has had a child out of wedlock. No sooner has that harsh story ended then we are greeted with a thoroughly surreal story of a warrior princess ascending the heights of a fabled mountain to battle evil armies. One of these stories is biographical in the typical sense of the word whereas the other is biographical in a way more typical of "The Woman Warrior." In an altogether novel approach to autobiography, Kingston seems to want to give equal say to those things that she thought, as well as those that she did, often switching from one to the other with little or no warning.

Such an odd approach brings to mind two questions: is this an autobiography, and why has Kingston chosen such an odd format in which to tell her life story. The answers to both questions seem to revolve around the slippery concept of identity, a concept which is indeed dear to Kingston's heart. Believe it or not, both of the aforementioned stories are "autobiographical" in their own way, although clearly only the one about Kingston's aunt has to do with the "real" facts of Kingston's life. Just because something does not correspond to actual events does not mean that it cannot be illustrative of a person's personality, however; we all daydream and fantasize, so should it be that these thoughts and ideas have any less say over who we are than things that happen in the real world?

Kingston clearly thinks not and the result is that her autobiography that puts both fantasy and reality on equal footing. This makes "The Woman Warrior" a book that, despite its straightforward text, can be difficult to follow. It also makes it a book that is deceptively simple. "The Woman Warrior" appears simple because, although Kingston makes her "facts" equal parts fantasy and reality, she does stick to the facts (such as they are) and is not prone to deviating from her narration for long bouts of reflection. In fact, the most blatant introspection you will see in "The Woman Warrior" consists of ironic words and phrases sparsely sprinkled throughout the text in deadpan manner.

The trick is that Kingston is making substantial points by the very method she has chosen to present these seemingly simple stories. By acting as though fantasies and actions are equal parts of a person's life story Kingston is making an implied point: that a person's identity is not stable, is in fact open to all the caprices of an uncertain world and an all too human mind, the workings of which no one understands. True, Kingston never openly says as much, but the way she says what she does say speaks volumes. By so thoroughly mixing thought and action Kingston all but says to the reader, "you are seeing my identity, as confused and impossible to hold as it is." This chosen method of autobiography helps the reader to really "get inside" Kingston's mind; instead of simply telling us what she thinks, Kingston exposes us to her mind, lets us be her while we read her book.

Another result of Kingston's approach is that she has created a book that works best with an extremely active mind. In "The Woman Warrior" the line between reality and imagination is often tenuous and because of this it is up to the reader to decide what is really happening and how each piece fits in to the overall picture. "The Woman Warrior" is not a book that lays out everything in discreet, easily digestible lumps; rather it is a jumble, something of an inkblot where it is not only the author's job to create, but the reader's also. And perhaps all this is to the greater point which the author, in her autobiography, seems to lead us toward: that Maxine Hong-Kingston is not who she thinks she is but who we think she is.


A Most Unique Memoir of Growing Up Chinese-American.   December 14, 2002
momwith2kids (Chicago, IL United States)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful

Very challenging book to read. The author seamlessly weaves her own experiences in with the fantastic tales passed down by her mother. Sometimes you forget what's real and what's not. By the end, the reader really gets a sense of how alienated the narrator felt, growing up amid the old Chinese traditions in America.

Kingston's writing is different from anything I've read. She makes no bones about describing how badly girls were regarded or treated. Her stories are angry and powerful. One of my favorites was the retelling of the legend of Fa Mu Lan (THE woman warrior), but even the stories of the author's mother as a medical student, the sad story of the aunt coming to America to reclaim her husband, were very exciting. The end of the book was a very emotional chapter, and I loved how the author tied the entire book together. I couldn't put this book down.