Smeared Type

By Jian Ping

Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee

Over the weekend, I finished reading Bharati Mukherjee’s novel Jasmine. It’s a story of a village girl from Punjab, India to the U.S. –her innocence, talent, love, adventurous nature and fierce resolve. The ordeals she went through didn’t diminish her and the traditional restraints on women, especially a widow, didn’t confine her. As she claims at one point: she is a survivor and adaptor. She is, in fact, much more than that.

I’ve been reading quite a bit of immigrant literature lately. From Gish Gen’s Mona in the Promised Land, Amy Tan’s The Opposite of Fate: a Book of Musings to Patricia Chu’s Assimilating Asians, I am reading several books simultaneously. While each writer has her own characteristics, Mukherjee’s Jasmine was the one that I couldn’t put down and finished reading first. Aside from the narrative that made me keep turning the pages, the indomitable spirit of the protagonist, the concise yet powerful language, and the presentation of immigrants, with a profound understanding and respect, struck me with awe.

I had attended a talk by Bharati Mukherjee at the Harold Washington Library Center in Chicago three years ago. I was impressed by the list of awards she had received for her writing and amazed by her talk on the writing of a recentlypublished book. I wish that I had started reading her books right then. Now I’m all excited about my “discovery” and can hardly wait to start reading another book of hers: The Middle Man and Other Stories—also on immigrant lives.

Jian Ping, author of Mulberry Child: A Memoir of China. Visit www.moraquest.com, www.mulberrychild.com