44 pages • 1 hour read
Amy TanThe Valley of Amazement
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 9-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary: “Quicksand Years”
By March of 1925, Violet’s career as a courtesan goes into slow decline. She spends much of her time as a musical entertainer at parties. At one of these, she is introduced to a man named Perpetual, who pays elaborate compliments after hearing Violet’s poetry performance. Perpetual says he is a painter-poet. They engage in witty repartee until the man confesses that he is a widower who misses his dead wife. Violet bonds with him over her own loss of Edward. Perpetual recites a poem for Violet that speaks of love and loss. It touches her deeply, and she then recites it for the party guests. The performance is an instant success. As a result, Violet’s popularity as a party entertainer soars.
Violet determines to wheedle more poetry out of Perpetual by inviting him to tea the next afternoon. He is too poor to afford her services as a courtesan, but she agrees to take him as a lover in the hopes of hearing more poetry that she can incorporate into her party act. The two form an emotional bond that Violet finds satisfying: “This kind of love was more one of growing contentment that would come from being adored for the rest of my life” (516).
After reading more of Perpetual’s poetry, Violet fears his only good poem was the first he recited to her. Weeks of feeble verse later, he once again begins to produce worthwhile poetry. This blossoming relationship is interrupted by rioting in the streets of Shanghai. The civil unrest consists of anti-foreign protests directed at the Japanese, who are quietly taking over the city’s businesses. Rioting even reaches the street where the House of Vermillion is located. It takes weeks to restore order. In the meantime, regular customers have been scared off, and the house is struggling to maintain business as usual.
Violet considers her prospects as a courtesan to be bleak when Perpetual asks to marry her. Despite Magic Gourd’s protests that he’s a penniless dreamer, Violet decides to accept Perpetual’s offer. The couple plans to move to his home village of Moon Pond, which is 300 miles away.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Moon Pond Village”
Violet and Magic Gourd suffer through a hideous trip to Moon Pond. They hire a man with a donkey cart and his two slow-witted sons to take them to their destination. After suffering through choking dust and mud that mires the cart repeatedly, they arrive weeks later. When Violet first sees the village from a distance, she is convinced that it is the same place depicted in her father’s painting The Valley of Amazement. Upon closer inspection, the valley looks quite different from the painting, but Violet still considers the resemblance to be a bad omen.
On arrival, the village proves to be squalid, and Perpetual’s ancestral home is dilapidated and in need of repair. When they come to the courtyard, Violet and Magic Gourd receive a surly welcome from several women. The one whom Violet assumes to be her mother-in-law insults her and assigns the newcomers to the north wing. Violet thinks, “North! That was the worst corner of any house, the direction of wind and cold sun. Surely Perpetual would not have his rooms there” (568-69).
A woman with a handsome face volunteers to show them the way. She confides that she is Perpetual’s second wife. A former courtesan, now known as Pomelo, she was lured to this place by Perpetual’s promises just as Violet had been. Perpetual lied about his first wife being dead. The poem he quoted to Violet about his dead wife was the same one he used to captivate Pomelo, who reveals that it was written by the poet Li Shangyin. Azure, the first wife, is very much alive and not the beautiful soulmate Perpetual described. She is the woman Violet mistook for her mother-in-law. Pomelo says they are trapped in this hinterland because they have no money and no means of escape.
When Perpetual finally arrives, he spins more lies to assure Violet that he loves her best. She doesn’t believe him but recovers her self-esteem and her resolve:
But now I was like a bird, my wings once carried on a wind of lies. I would beat those wings to stay aloft, and when the wind suddenly died or buffeted me around, I would keep beating those strong wings and fly in my own slice of wind (586).
Chapters 9-10 Analysis
This section of the book shifts its emphasis to the theme of counterfeit art. Violet is now stagnating in her courtesan career. She’s more in demand as a party musical entertainer than as a patron’s mistress. Her listlessness and dissatisfaction leave her vulnerable to the attentions of Perpetual. He first attracts her notice by reciting a beautiful poem, which he claims to be his own composition about his deceased wife. This poem resonates with Violet because she is still mourning Edward’s loss. When Violet performs Perpetual’s poem for the party guests, she becomes an instant hit.
From a purely practical standpoint, Violet now wants to cultivate a relationship with Perpetual to wheedle more good poetry that she can use in her act. His next poetic efforts are ghastly, and it takes several weeks before he comes up with another gem. Violet is yet unaware that Perpetual has plagiarized the best poems from another source. Only the very worst efforts are his own composition.
Violet’s weakness for counterfeit art carries consequences just as dire as those that afflicted her mother. The poetry is the hook Perpetual uses to lure Violet and Magic Gourd to his home in Moon Pond Village. Perpetual paints a word picture of the pastoral serenity of the place, which is as counterfeit as his poetry. Ironically, Violet’s first glimpse of the village in the valley reminds her of her father’s painting. Later, she will discover that her father’s work is a reproduction of another artist’s work. Lu Shing varies the composition slightly but always paints the same scene. It is just as counterfeit as Perpetual’s word-painting of Moon Pond Village. Both Violet and Lulu are doomed to learn the same hard lesson about counterfeit art and the artists who create it.
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By Amy Tan
