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darlingfox) wrote2010-10-03 11:49 pm
darlingfox) wrote2010-10-03 11:49 pm
Entry tags:
[book challenge] animal & plant
Wild Swans by Jung Chang
Jung Chang recounts the evocative, unsettling, and insistently gripping story of how three generations of women in her family fared in the political maelstrom of China during the 20th century. Born just a few decades apart, their lives overlap with the end of the warlords' regime and overthrow of the Japanese occupation, violent struggles between the Kuomintang and the Communists to carve up China, and, most poignant for the author, the vicious cycle of purges orchestrated by Chairman Mao that discredited and crushed millions of people, including her parents.
- Amazon.com
Wild Swans is an autobiographical story/family history of three generations of Chinese women in the 20th century China. It's a thick book but the story was so engrossing that it didn't feel long at all.
I've always liked cultural history more than political because politics tend to bore me. In Wild Swans, the political aspects were very important but they were usually shown, not told to the reader. Perfect for me, then! I would've loved to hear more about Yu-fang and the China of her time but since she was the author's grandmother, it's understandable that her story was the shortest. The author's story overlaps with her mother's and the differences between a child and an adult's perpectives of the same events were sometimes very startling.
What I found particularly interesting was the portrayal of people as a mass and how difficult it was to be an individual in an environment where it was discouraged and where everyone was watching you. Following the author and her growing doubts in the midst of the Cultural Revelation was sometimes difficult to read because it was clearly very painful for her. After reading the book, I did some googling and wasn't surprised at all to learn that it's been banned in China.
Whenever I'll have time and I'm in the mood for it, I'll read Chang's book about Mao.
Peony in Love by Lisa See
Set in 17th-century China, this is a coming-of-age story, a ghost story, a family saga and a work of musical and social history. As Peony, the 15-year-old daughter of the wealthy Chen family, approaches an arranged marriage, she commits an unthinkable breach of etiquette when she accidentally comes upon a man who has entered the family garden. Unusually for a girl of her time, Peony has been educated and revels in studying The Peony Pavilion, a real opera published in 1598, as the repercussions of the meeting unfold. See offers meticulous depiction of women's roles in Qing and Ming dynasty China and vivid descriptions of daily Qing life, festivals and rituals.
- Amazon.com
Okay, let's be honest here: I didn't like this book because I didn't like the narrator and certain inconsistencies within the novel's mythology. I didn't like the Never-ending Whinings of Young Werther either and from what I can remember, it had something in common with this story. For one, the play Peony Pavilion did in China what Werther did in Europe: encouraged young people to commit suicides.
(Which, strange as it sounds, is not something I think is a fault in a book. But I digress.)
Peony in Love is for the most part a ghost-story so I don't think I'll spoil anyone if I tell you right away that the main character dies soon enough (unlike Werther). Due to the unfortunate circumstances surrounding her death, she's stuck here as a ghost instead of continuing her way to the more pleasant parts of afterlife.
The premise is interesting enough but it gets lost in a writing style I didn't particularly like and a main character I actively hated (whyyyyy don't you just die, Werther?). After her dead, Peony became a horrible person who did horrible things and I was left with the impression that the readers were supposed to support and cheer her on.
See got some things just right and some so wrong in her story. The horrifying foot-binding scene was told just right: while some of the characters found it emotionally difficult to do, no one denied its importance or decided to rebel against it. In that setting, no one would have. On the other hand, the whole afterlife business was wasted potential because it wasn't internally consistent. The characters used remedies based on their beliefs to cure people. Fine, makes sense. But why did some of them work and some didn't? Peony never wondered that but I definitely did.
I wouldn't read this again and I doubt I'll read See's other novels.
Jung Chang recounts the evocative, unsettling, and insistently gripping story of how three generations of women in her family fared in the political maelstrom of China during the 20th century. Born just a few decades apart, their lives overlap with the end of the warlords' regime and overthrow of the Japanese occupation, violent struggles between the Kuomintang and the Communists to carve up China, and, most poignant for the author, the vicious cycle of purges orchestrated by Chairman Mao that discredited and crushed millions of people, including her parents.
- Amazon.com
Wild Swans is an autobiographical story/family history of three generations of Chinese women in the 20th century China. It's a thick book but the story was so engrossing that it didn't feel long at all.
I've always liked cultural history more than political because politics tend to bore me. In Wild Swans, the political aspects were very important but they were usually shown, not told to the reader. Perfect for me, then! I would've loved to hear more about Yu-fang and the China of her time but since she was the author's grandmother, it's understandable that her story was the shortest. The author's story overlaps with her mother's and the differences between a child and an adult's perpectives of the same events were sometimes very startling.
What I found particularly interesting was the portrayal of people as a mass and how difficult it was to be an individual in an environment where it was discouraged and where everyone was watching you. Following the author and her growing doubts in the midst of the Cultural Revelation was sometimes difficult to read because it was clearly very painful for her. After reading the book, I did some googling and wasn't surprised at all to learn that it's been banned in China.
Whenever I'll have time and I'm in the mood for it, I'll read Chang's book about Mao.
Peony in Love by Lisa See
Set in 17th-century China, this is a coming-of-age story, a ghost story, a family saga and a work of musical and social history. As Peony, the 15-year-old daughter of the wealthy Chen family, approaches an arranged marriage, she commits an unthinkable breach of etiquette when she accidentally comes upon a man who has entered the family garden. Unusually for a girl of her time, Peony has been educated and revels in studying The Peony Pavilion, a real opera published in 1598, as the repercussions of the meeting unfold. See offers meticulous depiction of women's roles in Qing and Ming dynasty China and vivid descriptions of daily Qing life, festivals and rituals.
- Amazon.com
Okay, let's be honest here: I didn't like this book because I didn't like the narrator and certain inconsistencies within the novel's mythology. I didn't like the Never-ending Whinings of Young Werther either and from what I can remember, it had something in common with this story. For one, the play Peony Pavilion did in China what Werther did in Europe: encouraged young people to commit suicides.
(Which, strange as it sounds, is not something I think is a fault in a book. But I digress.)
Peony in Love is for the most part a ghost-story so I don't think I'll spoil anyone if I tell you right away that the main character dies soon enough (unlike Werther). Due to the unfortunate circumstances surrounding her death, she's stuck here as a ghost instead of continuing her way to the more pleasant parts of afterlife.
The premise is interesting enough but it gets lost in a writing style I didn't particularly like and a main character I actively hated (whyyyyy don't you just die, Werther?). After her dead, Peony became a horrible person who did horrible things and I was left with the impression that the readers were supposed to support and cheer her on.
See got some things just right and some so wrong in her story. The horrifying foot-binding scene was told just right: while some of the characters found it emotionally difficult to do, no one denied its importance or decided to rebel against it. In that setting, no one would have. On the other hand, the whole afterlife business was wasted potential because it wasn't internally consistent. The characters used remedies based on their beliefs to cure people. Fine, makes sense. But why did some of them work and some didn't? Peony never wondered that but I definitely did.
I wouldn't read this again and I doubt I'll read See's other novels.