Hello Bookclubbers,
Welcome to our newest members, we are all really glad to have some new perspectives, book-choosers and hosts. Please post comments to this blog by clicking on the pink comments link at the end of this text. If you send me your email, I can have the blog notify you automatically anytime someone posts a comment.
Enjoy Kristin's pick, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jun Chang
Amazon Readers Review:In Wild Swans 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. Chang's grandmother was a warlord's concubine. Her gently raised mother struggled with hardships in the early days of Mao's revolution and rose, like her husband, to a prominent position in the Communist Party before being denounced during the Cultural Revolution. Chang herself marched, worked, and breathed for Mao until doubt crept in over the excesses of his policies and purges. 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. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Price:
$10.88 This book looks like a long one, but good one; get reading!
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10 comments:
I got my book today, it is def. a long one, tiny type on thin pages. lol. But it looks good. There is a whole section of pictures in the middle which is really cool.
Have any of you started this, let me know what you think so far. I like the story but its a little slow moving and very dense. I have been reading a little everyday and am on page 100.
OK, I have talked to a several people and everyone seems to have started and is enjoying the book. Right around page 100, I just felt like I had so far to go and was already having a hard keeping track of who is who. But I am now at about page 150 and the story line has picked up for me considerably and I think as the book continues the time it spans will lessen, making it a little easier to follow.
I think I mentioned this when we discussed The Wolf at the Table but an interesting observation about myself (which is, I am sure, down-right fascinating to all of you:)) Is that I seem to read fiction with complete faith and fact with complete skepticism. So, I do find myself thinking, that the mom probably did have an affair with the dude in the jail cell. or that so-and-so wanst really as brave as she says etc, etc. I actually find it a little distracting, so I am trying to pretend its fiction, so I can actually believe the story. lol.
I am with you on trying to believe the story. I am enjoying it but I question the depth of detail that she knows regarding her parents' lives. I am about 150 pages in and I am now at the point of looking forward to picking it up.
Well, I am obviously not as far along as you since I haven't read about the affair. I will have to pick up the pace.
I agree about the amount of details she knows about her parents and grandparents. It does make me wonder how much is fabricated.
No, there was no affair! lol. I just thought there was. I dont have my book in front of me, but who was the guy in jail that her mother kept going to visit even after she married her father? He was a Kumontag (ok, I know that isnt spelled right) guy. I am at like page 250 and I have to say a little research on wikipedia helped alot, now I understand the Great Leap forward and the Cultural Revolution as being two different phenomenons during Mao's reign. The Cultural Revoluation was basically Mao's desperate effort to maintain power. I still think she sees her parents as being better than they were, it seems to me they were just like everyone else, being dragged along during difficult times.
She really believes in her parents and does not seem to have any resentment for the way they treated the children when they were little. I also get the feeling at times that she is bragging about how important and impressive her parents were and their lives compared to some of the others. It appears out of place compared to the communist beliefs and makes me think that the story is not completely accurate.
I did get a laugh when the Chinese kids in school were told about life in the western world and how poor the American children were, starving and having to work to feed themselves and their parents - we are talking about the USA in the 1960's!
Testing... I just changed my name AGAIN from Sammy to Lesley. Sorry!
OK, I am going to confess it here first. I didn't finish the book. But...I did skip ahead and read the end. lol. That sort of counts right?
This month we had our longest string of comments yet. I am a little disappointed to find out Sammy and Lesley are the same person...but still. Next month will be even better:)
OK, I am going to confess it here first. I didn't finish the book. But...I did skip ahead and read the end. lol. That sort of counts right?
This month we had our longest string of comments yet. I am a little disappointed to find out Sammy and Lesley are the same person...but still. Next month will be even better:)
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