Reviews of The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan

Chapter 1
Hidden Jade Path

Shanghai
1905–1907
Violet

When I was seven, I knew exactly who I was: a thoroughly American girl in race, manners, and speech, whose mother, Lulu Minturn, was the only white woman who owned a first-class courtesan house in Shanghai.

My mother named me Violet after a tiny flower she loved as a girl growing up in San Francisco, a city I have seen only in postcards. I grew to hate my name. The courtesans pronounced it like the Shanghainese word vyau-la—what you said when you wanted to get rid of something. "Vyau-la! Vyau-la!" greeted me everywhere.

My mother took a Chinese name, Lulu Mimi, which sounded like her American one, and her courtesan house was then known as the House of Lulu Mimi. Her Western clients knew it by the English translation of the characters in her name: Hidden Jade Path. There were no other first-class courtesan houses that catered to both Chinese and Western clients, many of whom were among the wealthiest in foreign ...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. Amy Tan did extensive research on courtesan culture in Shanghai during the turn of the twentieth century, making The Valley of Amazement her most extensively researched book by far. Do you feel like the book effectively transported you to that world? If so, what details were the most helpful? If not, what was lacking or felt anachronistic to you?
   
   
2. Amy Tan describes the sexual acts of the courtesans and their clients in unflinching detail. Do you feel that the level of detail in these scenes helps to deepen the portrayals of the courtesans? Do the descriptions of the more quotidian aspects of their lives do as much to develop their characters as do the frank depictions of their sexual acts?
   
   
3. Though...