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| Disappearing Moon Cafe |
| 作者Author / Sky Lee |
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Disappearing
Moon Cafe
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 A time line of the novel
Chapters and characters
History of the family
The position of women
The novel as a Kunstlerinroman
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| A time line of the novel |
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| 1892:
the beginning of the retrieval of bones, meeting Kelora Chen--
1894 the famine--
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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
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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 |
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| Chapters
and characters |
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Prologue--Searches
for the Bones;
- [Kae Ying
Woo] Waiting for Enlightment; pp. 19-Kae Ying and Mui Lan's early life and
letters --Fong Mei and
Ting An
- 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]
- Triangles
--Fong Mei --Mui Lan-- Choy Fuk; Choy -Fuk -- Song Ann;
Fong Mei-- Ting An
- Ties
to the Land--A Ticket Out story after the two
babies are born. What's the ticket out?
Beatrice? Hermia? Chi?
- Identity
Crisis-- about Morgan and Sue (168); Fong Mei's
167; Suzie's story told by Chi (Kae's 191)
- The
Writer--criticizes her own language 184; I,
the resolution, give the story some sense of purpose 209; creation not
aborted 215
- The
Suicide -- Suzie's perspective before the suicide
Epilogue New
Moon
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| History of the family |
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- 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
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| The position of women |
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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!"
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| The
novel as a Kunstlerinroman |
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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:
- 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
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- 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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