Love.
Love. Love. Love this book.
Will post more later. But seriously, go read this. So good.
Didn't I complain previously about incomplete sentences? Oh well.
Friday, February 27, 2015
Empress
This was an interesting book. I don't think I liked it, but I was interested by it. It was written in French by an author originally from China and translated into English. The writing style is unusual, but I'm not sure how much of that is translation, how much of that is an author writing in a second language, and how much of that is authorial intent.
It is written from the perspective of Empress Wu, whom we know as Heavenlight; a real woman who ruled China and contributed to the historical archetype of the evil usurping empress. As an East Asian History major, I know all about that archetype. Critics of the cultural revolution used Empress Wu and others as examples to malign Madame Mao... it's that central. Anyway, the book follows her from fetus (no, really) to death. She is an interesting character - sympathetic at first, dealing with the loss of her father and her family status, then with isolation and lonliness as an unnoticed imperial concubine. Then, she gains strength, love, then power and eventually destroys her own family to maintain what she's gained. All the while, there are lovers (male and female) and political machinations. At times, I got bored with the story and with Heavenlight. I lost track of which advisor she trusted or was executing at any given moment and why she was mad at her husband or her current lover. I suppose that is a risk with a story that covers such a long, complex life. But I had trouble finishing it, maybe because I knew her rule fell apart at the end and I didn't want to see the unraveling.
I'd recommend it for history nerds and people who are dedicated lovers of historical fiction, but I'm not sure it has much wider appeal. It is just so overwhelmingly detailed and so centered on a single person's perspective that I didn't find it very enjoyable.
I give it a 5 out of 10.
Next: #8 Midwives by Chris Bohjalian
It is written from the perspective of Empress Wu, whom we know as Heavenlight; a real woman who ruled China and contributed to the historical archetype of the evil usurping empress. As an East Asian History major, I know all about that archetype. Critics of the cultural revolution used Empress Wu and others as examples to malign Madame Mao... it's that central. Anyway, the book follows her from fetus (no, really) to death. She is an interesting character - sympathetic at first, dealing with the loss of her father and her family status, then with isolation and lonliness as an unnoticed imperial concubine. Then, she gains strength, love, then power and eventually destroys her own family to maintain what she's gained. All the while, there are lovers (male and female) and political machinations. At times, I got bored with the story and with Heavenlight. I lost track of which advisor she trusted or was executing at any given moment and why she was mad at her husband or her current lover. I suppose that is a risk with a story that covers such a long, complex life. But I had trouble finishing it, maybe because I knew her rule fell apart at the end and I didn't want to see the unraveling.
I'd recommend it for history nerds and people who are dedicated lovers of historical fiction, but I'm not sure it has much wider appeal. It is just so overwhelmingly detailed and so centered on a single person's perspective that I didn't find it very enjoyable.
I give it a 5 out of 10.
Next: #8 Midwives by Chris Bohjalian
White Ghost Girls
This book was... odd. The author clearly went to the "beautiful but disjointed descriptions of objects" school of writing that I thought was very high-brow when I was in high school. Now I'm too old and tired to find it much more than annoying. I'm sure, from an educated critic's perspective, the writing is lovely and inventive. But seriously, I can only handle so many incomplete sentences about the color of a fish at a market stall before I really want to move on.
This book is ostensibly about a white American family living in Hong Kong. The father is a journalist covering the Vietnam war and is mostly an absentee. The mother is distant and exhausted for unclear reasons. There are two daughters, one who is wild and the other who protects her. And, of course, there is the requisite staff person of local extraction. The Amah in this case is little better than a stereotype: a large Chinese woman who speaks broken English, yells at the girls and takes them to markets and temples. The book is very short, so maybe I shouldn't expect more characterization of a secondary character. But you're already treading a little thin writing about a white family in Hong Kong, couldn't you try to make the one important Chinese character a little less... ugh?
Given that I will be a doctor in 12 weeks (hide your children), I couldn't help diagnosing the wild daughter with a personality disorder. She clearly has histrionic or borderline personality disorder. This novel is practically the DSM IV (DSM V wasn't out when I started med school). So, I had some trouble identifying with her and her sister's attempts to help her.
And then, the writing. There is actually a decent amount of plot in this book. There's a possible sexual assault, the Vietnam war, and even the death of a major character, but it gets a bit lost in the writing. So much of the small space in this book is allotted to "evocative" descriptions of the landscape or the way a man holds his brandy snifter. All in incomplete sentences. Like this. Repeatedly.
So, yea, I guess you can tell I didn't like it much. But I finished it.
I give it 2 out of 10.
Next up: #42 Empress by Shan Sa
This book is ostensibly about a white American family living in Hong Kong. The father is a journalist covering the Vietnam war and is mostly an absentee. The mother is distant and exhausted for unclear reasons. There are two daughters, one who is wild and the other who protects her. And, of course, there is the requisite staff person of local extraction. The Amah in this case is little better than a stereotype: a large Chinese woman who speaks broken English, yells at the girls and takes them to markets and temples. The book is very short, so maybe I shouldn't expect more characterization of a secondary character. But you're already treading a little thin writing about a white family in Hong Kong, couldn't you try to make the one important Chinese character a little less... ugh?
Given that I will be a doctor in 12 weeks (hide your children), I couldn't help diagnosing the wild daughter with a personality disorder. She clearly has histrionic or borderline personality disorder. This novel is practically the DSM IV (DSM V wasn't out when I started med school). So, I had some trouble identifying with her and her sister's attempts to help her.
And then, the writing. There is actually a decent amount of plot in this book. There's a possible sexual assault, the Vietnam war, and even the death of a major character, but it gets a bit lost in the writing. So much of the small space in this book is allotted to "evocative" descriptions of the landscape or the way a man holds his brandy snifter. All in incomplete sentences. Like this. Repeatedly.
So, yea, I guess you can tell I didn't like it much. But I finished it.
I give it 2 out of 10.
Next up: #42 Empress by Shan Sa
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