Moneky Hunting – Overall Review

This is nearly getting a Not Worth Consuming from me and I love the author Christina Garcia and looked so forward to reading this book which may be why I am so let down. Typically I am able to get the entire picture from a novel, even if it is not plot driven – which this one had absolutely no plot, no character growth and no reason to continue reading. The concept is excellent, finding the descendents from one country (China) and tracing them through three eras and three countries (China, Cuba, and America)! Definitely a concept worth exploring maybe more in a saga type novel, not a 251 page novel where you have no time to explore the characters and their connections to one another. Not to take anything away from Garcia – Dreaming in Cuban was set up similar to this, but you had more time with each character and came to love and show concern for what happened to them. Here, you just didn’t care because you didn’t really know the characters. The linear patterns for all three characters went like this, born, shifted location, something big happens, death or in Chen Pan’s case immortality. The something big that happened was also so slight that you barely knew something happened overall. There were no problems, just daily life adjusting the characters, again no reason to read. This is just my opinion and I may be missing the big picture on this one, but I typically don’t.

Made a lot of progress on Monkey Hunting the other day and nearly at the end of the book, I’m realizing that I am feeling very let down. Maybe the last 50 pages will change my mind. SPOILERS - We finally get inot Lucretia’s mind and find out that she and Chen Pan have had three children. She is dying. Chen Fang has fallen in love with another woman, Dauphine and has been left behind, and Domingo has fallen for a prostitute who is pregnant with his baby. Shift back to Chen Pan, whose wife has died and he is with his middle son Lorenzo. Pt 3 is rumored for all main characters to die, so let’s see how that goes. Not too impressed, but it has kept me intersted up this this point, I’ll give a final conclusion after I finish reading.

Possible Spoilers

We are back to Domingo who is trying to survive the Vietnam War. He goes through so much thought into his own death and how he has had so many close calls. Domingo also does some remembering about his father, mother and the relationship they had back in Cuba before going to New York and how his father was in an asylum for being a rebel and his mother put him there. His father’s suicide haunts him profusely and he wants to go home back to the life he left. He is watching many of his comrades die. Still a good book, I guess I am almost half way done and I expected a little more – will see how the second half pans out. Oh, and we also find out that Domingo is Chen Pan’s great grandson.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS

Now we’ve been introduced to Chen Fang, Chen Pan’s grandaughter who was raised as a boy since women were viewed as the inferior sex in China and as another mouth to feed. Chen Fang, raised as a male in a female body, was forced to become a female hen her mother decided it was time for her to get married so she could get the dowry, she became pregnant and was paid a great deal of money to leave her son behind. She went to teach at a school since she was educated because she was raised as a boy. Very strange, but it rings so true with Chinese culture. Also on a sadder note, Chen Pan’s infant slave (who he treated as a son) died as well. :( starting to really warm up to this book.

I actually got up early this morning to read more of this book before work. It is good, not great so far. I tend to read more books written in the female perspective and this is written by a female in the male perspective. It is darn near impossible to tell that it is a female author. Since my last post we were introduced to Domingo who is a young male in New York City having moved from Havana Cuba with his father. The first two chapters were from Chen Pan (still in Havana – an escaped slave). In the glimpse we get from Domingo he seems rebellious, but just trying to find his place in the world. What surprised me about this chapter, was that sexual lives in the mid-20th century seemed promiscious and I didn’t expect that. The following chapter glimpsed us back to Chen Pan and started talking about his anti-slavery feelings (of course, he had been a slave so this was expected). He buys a woman and baby from slavery and brings them home. Now the woman is trying to find out what a Chinese man wants from her since he is being so nice. Interesting stuff.

I insisted on reading a bit last night and hit the part where Chen Pan is a slave in Cuba. The book not only discusses slave life, but compares African American slaves in Cuba to Chinese slaves cutting sugarcane. Little dry, but still interesting becasue there is enough depth there with the evening life and how the slaves cope with their situation. Lots of death and punishment. I find it very interesting that when Garcia mentions so and so is from W, anyone have any idea why she never mentions actual place names? I like Garcia because she is very straight forward, not a lot of guessing as to what she is trying to get at. It was nice to see more Chinese culture of the filial duties a son owes his mother brought up as well.

This seems like an exciting book to read, about a man who lives in China and immigrates to Cuba and ends up in America. Why is it exciting? lots of culture, lots of history and it offers a different perspective on life. In the Intro and Chapter 1 we cover a little bit of culture and a long, deadly boat ride (3 months) from China to Havana. You see a little of the medicine man thing, some alternative beliefs, and some of the lotus foot culture that is so common in China. Christina Garcia did an excellent job with Dreaming in Cuban – and since Asian (Female China) is my favorite literature matching the two should be a phenomenal experience. Will keep you posted.