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Disappearing Moon Cafe
作者Author  /  Sky  Lee  

Disappearing Moon Cafe

 

 A time line of the novel                                   

 Chapters and characters                                     

 History of the family                                     

 The position of women

 The novel as a Kunstlerinroman

 
 A time line of the novel
 
1892: the beginning of the retrieval of bones, meeting Kelora Chen--


1894 the famine--

1924: (1) Mui Lan vs. Fong Mei
Janet Smith; argument about JS bill 
1926  two babies: Keeman and Beatrice
1932 Ting An's leaving

1938: Beatrice sent to Hong Kong to study
1939: Gwei Chang old and dreaming; reunion with Lee Chong
1942  Ting An dies
 

1949 Morgan knows Sue
1950 Sue talks to her sister about her pregnancy
1951 Sue's death and Kae's birth
1962 Fong Mei's death
1967 Morgan; 1968 drunk
1971 (1)  K metting Hermia in Peking, wanting  "legitimate, traditional, conventional" family ties 
1986 (1) Kae Ying birthing
1987 telegram to Kae Ying

 

 
 Chapters and characters
 

Prologue--Searches for the Bones;
  1. [Kae Ying Woo] Waiting for Enlightment; pp. 19-Kae Ying and Mui Lan's early life and letters --Fong Mei and Ting An
  2. Ties Overseas--A Ticket In pp 57--arrangements to have a son; Morgan's search for history around the time of 1924-25 [Janet Smith]
  3. Triangles --Fong Mei --Mui Lan-- Choy Fuk; Choy -Fuk -- Song Ann; Fong Mei-- Ting An
  4. Ties to the Land--A Ticket Out  story after the two babies are born.  What's the ticket out?  Beatrice?  Hermia?  Chi?
  5. Identity Crisis-- about Morgan and Sue (168); Fong Mei's 167;  Suzie's story told by Chi (Kae's 191)
  6. The Writer--criticizes her own language 184;  I, the resolution, give the story some sense of purpose 209; creation not aborted 215
  7. The Suicide -- Suzie's perspective before the suicide
Epilogue New Moon

 

 
 
 History of the family
 
  • 1. History: CPR building, China town and the historical event of Janet Smith (1924)(1923, Chinese Exclusion Act )
1) the mythic frame: the importance of aborigenes (e.g. Kelora and her family; Kelora pp. 3, 4, 7, 8-9-the Indian girl, half Chinese 3; who is uncivilized p. 3-4; K's soothing power 10);  the meaning of searching for bones (pp. 2, 6, 12-13)

2) history of China town centered on a family and a few houses:
    a) the positioin of Disappearing Moon: p. 32; where Morgan lives p. 69;
    b) China town -- with its own hierarchy, locked up and contraining: p/ 74 extra floor; p. 78 heat;
    c) Kae's view of China town: 67; Kae in her room, her sense of space 122; Beatrice's sense of space 144-45; Sue's sense of the old house 212;
    d) metaphors of house: the mother and daughter-in-law's fight; p. 137;  Ting An 184
 
 3)  generations of Chinese immigrants:
    a) Chinese laborers Kwei Chang meets pp. 11-12; Old Chen 5;   --dispersed in different camps, surly, lonely.
    b) Kwei Chang's generation: Chinese Benevolent Association active;
    c) the older and younger generation 80; Choy-Fuk vs. his father 33;
   d) China town: paper bride and family broken apart;  like derelicts, neither here nor there  77;
   e) the historical problems of China town:

--isolated and constrained; men frustrated and absent-minded, leaving women fighting against each other; Mui Lan's and Fong Mei's loneliness 188;
-- lack of women--Keeman and Beatrice's Chinatown ties 164-65
-- claustrophobia: Sue's need to be out; Chinamen as outlaws 221
 4) the unknown part in history: pp. 20; Janet Smith case
 
  5) multiple interpretation--(the narrator's interpretation) p. 66; p. 221-22 of JS event; Morgan's pp. 67-70; Chinamen's; Gwei Chang's
 
     
     
 The position of women
  the positions of women in the Wong family and China town:
  • Mui Lan vs. Fong Mei; Mui Lan vs. Song Ann (the waitress)
    • Mui Lan--  her discontent--no baby, no friends 25, silence 26
      -- bodiless, soulless, she became demanding and noisy
      -- relies on him for her identity "merchant's wife" 28
      -- see daughters-in-law as unidentified receptacles--her self-hatred
    • grandmother (Fong Mei): and her sister;
      -- her letter 45 (reveals what she feels about the family, the house, her experience of migration); 94;
      -- the misery of young bride 49;
      -- speaks 187
    • Both migrate to join their husbands; both are lonely.
    • Song Ann 92, 93-
  • The Men:
    • Gwei Chang mysterious; relaxed;
    • Choy Fuk-- afraid of his mother; impatient with his wife 94-96; powerless outside 97-99; dependant on Song An 100-104
    • Ting An's sympathy for Fong Mei  53-
  • historical perspectives of the family romance: e.g. Kae Ying's interpretation of his great granny: 31--"My dumb great-granny"--she becomes a tyrant; her view of Fong Mei 37.
  • a great Chinese tragedy--caused by history 179; "we're all related at the end" 69;
  • Women's position-- like orphan: "If you were a little child, desperately trying to cling to somebody who refuses to nurture you, you would get quite hysteric too."  "Grown women are orphan --children" p. 138
  •  they were ungrounded women, living with displaced chinamen, and everyone trapped by circumstances.  I prefer to romanticize them as a lineage of women with passion and fierceness in their veins.  p. 145
  • Beatrice and Chi  129-
    p. 352  Suzanne's ghost--"All this bondage we volunteer on ourselves!  Untie them!  Untie me!"
    The narrator, Kae, exclaims her freedom: "after three generations of struggle, the daughters are free!"
 
 
 The novel as a Kunstlerinroman
  the novel as a Kunstlerinroman (story of the growth of a female artist)
  • reconstruction of four kinds of fragments: 1) bones, 2) broken family (revelation of secret: p. 32; 132; "lost babies 132), 3) unknown history (JS bill), 4) Kae Ying's identity.
  • the conscious use of romance elements:
    • revelation p. 22;
    • Morgan's and Kae's response to romance and mystery  66; 70
    • Fong Mei and Ting An 184
    • titles 208-209;
  • the narrator's self awareness:
    • tries to break the mother's silence180
    • writing--In writing, I feel like a drunk weaving all over the road.  ...How many ways are there to tell stories? 185-
  • Kae Ying's growth:
    • at 17:  64-65;
    • lost Morgan with his alcoholism;--> Morgan's story 136 (about the fight);
    • Kae Ying's fear of risks 1971 p. 41
    • disappointed at moment of birthing: kinship for enlightenment 19; her interpretation of "female-bang" 62-63.
    • Disappearing Moon to New Moon
  • K and Sue:
    • look like Sue 87;
  • K and the marginalized: Hermia and Chi
    • -the misplaced bastard daughter of a gangster and his moll 41
    • Hermia 38- 39  a bare and newborn baby; loves and understands Kae Ying; wants her to write 138;
    • "legitimate, traditional and conventional were the adjectives to wear in those days, esp. when I suspected my own identity might be as defective."  -dual personality
    • mutual comfort 210
      Chi--not a pure Chinese; the one to help Beatrice and Kae Ying. pp. 127 -
  • Kae Ying's self-reflexiveness and writing process:  --
    • fictional self-consciousness: history as reconstructions 136; reality lives are stories 209
    • criticizes her own language 184;
    • allow different women to speak
      • listens to Morgan's, the mother's and Chi's stories;
      • write her own stories in which all the women speak and Morgan speak and offer their interpretations; pp. 185-
      • present Sue's story from her perspective.
    • I, the resolution, give the story some sense of purpose 209;
    • the letter to Hermia about "reality" 214-15.
    • creation not aborted 215
 
 
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