laura_179322's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
shonaningyo's review against another edition
5.0
This book was intriguing from start to finish. When I first got it in the mail as required reading for my Ideology of the 20th Century class I thought "Damn, 500+ pages? I don't know if I can do it...". Large books are intimidating to me, no matter how intriguing a story may be.
Once I sat down and read it, the engaging prose appealed to me immediately. It was frank, honest, and yet empathetic to the lives of the author's family. Jung Chang did not incorporate any personal anger or frustration at the inequality and subjugation of the women in her family throughout their lives but simply stated it as objective fact and as the reality of Chinese culture. Because of this, I now hold this author in higher esteem and credibility than if she hadn't.
Because the stories of her mother and grandmother are secondhand, Jung Chang quite artfully did not incorporate any of her personal feelings to their biographies: Whatever feelings or motivations that were relayed to her was included and very little was left for personal interpretation except when reflecting on their actions in the grand scheme of their family's history.
What stands out above everything else is the love, loyalty, and sense of propriety that her family continued to stand by through all of their trials. With all of the suffering, rays of hope and the invaluable force of luck shine through in even the darkest of times. The grandmother's marriage to Dr. Xia was likely the first instance of this; despite the Manchurian traditions that he practiced, Yu-fang and Xia's relationship was one of deep emotional devotion, selflessness, and respect. These values were conveyed to Chang's mother Bao Qin who throughout the book almost never stopped working for the benefit of her children.
Chang's father is one of the most interesting characters I've come across in awhile. A man who was very convicted in his principles to the point of stubbornness for the goals of the Communist Party, yet all the same held the slightly detached, ponderous air of a poet that valued peace and tranquility. At times he was robotic and almost heartless in the eyes of Bao Qin but his love for her had never diminished throughout their marriage but instead had been somehow "forgotten" in the midst of his work for what he believed to be the greatest cause that would not only benefit his family but all of China. His sense of justice and morality was based on equality, which is theoretically what everyone wants until a person is forced to have those rules applied to them.
The source of all their troubles, Mao Tse-Tung and his Maoist policies, was a sight to behold in its logical-yet-illogical, fair-yet-unfairness.
From the beginning of the rise of the Communist Party and its policies I was at first like
and then I was all
but then the ball started to get rolling and I was like
and the whole time Mao's spiels about how the peasants know more about life and shit than people with actual education, I'm just
AND THEN THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION HAPPENED AND AS A HISTORIAN AND LOVER OF LITERATURE I WAS LIKE
Etc. Etc.
Oh and Mme. Mao? Oh don't get me started on that Dragon Lady. Apparently after Mao died she was found guilty of being a bitch (citation needed) and sentenced to life, but she was released because she was dying of throat cancer. She then committed suicide in 1991. Now I'm a vehemently against pressuring someone into committing suicide or telling someone to "kill themselves" but...if someone super shitty does it of their own accord, well...
My only critique or caveat with this story is that I wish that I could have read more about Jung Chang's experiences as a grown woman, like her life abroad. The book was written in 1991 but she said in the Epilogue that she had up until then spent 10 years in Britain. That must have been a culture shock! It would have been very interesting to read some anecdotes or her own personal experiences in such a drastically different world with different values, government, pop culture, people and clothing... Oh well.
Once I sat down and read it, the engaging prose appealed to me immediately. It was frank, honest, and yet empathetic to the lives of the author's family. Jung Chang did not incorporate any personal anger or frustration at the inequality and subjugation of the women in her family throughout their lives but simply stated it as objective fact and as the reality of Chinese culture. Because of this, I now hold this author in higher esteem and credibility than if she hadn't.
Because the stories of her mother and grandmother are secondhand, Jung Chang quite artfully did not incorporate any of her personal feelings to their biographies: Whatever feelings or motivations that were relayed to her was included and very little was left for personal interpretation except when reflecting on their actions in the grand scheme of their family's history.
What stands out above everything else is the love, loyalty, and sense of propriety that her family continued to stand by through all of their trials. With all of the suffering, rays of hope and the invaluable force of luck shine through in even the darkest of times. The grandmother's marriage to Dr. Xia was likely the first instance of this; despite the Manchurian traditions that he practiced, Yu-fang and Xia's relationship was one of deep emotional devotion, selflessness, and respect. These values were conveyed to Chang's mother Bao Qin who throughout the book almost never stopped working for the benefit of her children.
Chang's father is one of the most interesting characters I've come across in awhile. A man who was very convicted in his principles to the point of stubbornness for the goals of the Communist Party, yet all the same held the slightly detached, ponderous air of a poet that valued peace and tranquility. At times he was robotic and almost heartless in the eyes of Bao Qin but his love for her had never diminished throughout their marriage but instead had been somehow "forgotten" in the midst of his work for what he believed to be the greatest cause that would not only benefit his family but all of China. His sense of justice and morality was based on equality, which is theoretically what everyone wants until a person is forced to have those rules applied to them.
The source of all their troubles, Mao Tse-Tung and his Maoist policies, was a sight to behold in its logical-yet-illogical, fair-yet-unfairness.
From the beginning of the rise of the Communist Party and its policies I was at first like
and then I was all
but then the ball started to get rolling and I was like
and the whole time Mao's spiels about how the peasants know more about life and shit than people with actual education, I'm just
AND THEN THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION HAPPENED AND AS A HISTORIAN AND LOVER OF LITERATURE I WAS LIKE
Etc. Etc.
Oh and Mme. Mao? Oh don't get me started on that Dragon Lady. Apparently after Mao died she was found guilty of being a bitch (citation needed) and sentenced to life, but she was released because she was dying of throat cancer. She then committed suicide in 1991. Now I'm a vehemently against pressuring someone into committing suicide or telling someone to "kill themselves" but...if someone super shitty does it of their own accord, well...
My only critique or caveat with this story is that I wish that I could have read more about Jung Chang's experiences as a grown woman, like her life abroad. The book was written in 1991 but she said in the Epilogue that she had up until then spent 10 years in Britain. That must have been a culture shock! It would have been very interesting to read some anecdotes or her own personal experiences in such a drastically different world with different values, government, pop culture, people and clothing... Oh well.
becsmars's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.75
meririvilla's review against another edition
4.0
Pues supongo que esta es la forma de leer sobre historia que me encanta: una histoia personal que te lleva de la mano por lo que paso durante unos años a la gente normal en el pais.
Empieza con la abuela, quienes vendida por su padre a un militar como concunbine. De alli alza la imagen de su padre, quien sale de la pobreza, y la abuela acaba dando a luz a la madre de la autora. Escapa de los maltratos de la casa llevando a su hija y se resguarda con su hermana hasta la muerte del general. Mas tarde conoce a dr xia, un doctor bien majete pn quien se casa. Los comunistas reemplazan a los Kuotominang despues de la invasion de Korea que les trataba como de segunda clase. Pero sin embargo cuando ellos llegan confiscan la tiendecitay se vuelven peasants.
La madre crece primero en los maltratos de la casa del militar, luego bajo los cambios de gobierno hasta los comunistas. Cuando crece se forma parte de los comunistas y ayuda en ocasiones a ganar contra los kuotominang, finalmente conociendo al pladre de la autora, alguie más alto que ella en cuanto a la jerarquía del partido. Se casan y en los marches para combatir con los kuotamaning la madre sufre un miscarriage y es llevada al hospital. Da aca no me acuerdo lo que pasa pero acaban en un edificio para los oficiales y con cuatro hijos, incluyendo la autora. Los dos padres son targeted durante el cultural recolurion mas tarde, donde resulta en el padre perdiendo un poco la cabeza y siendo tormentado gran parte de su vida. Este acaba muriendo, al final del libro pero si que antes le declarar a su hija como el larrido comunista no era lo que creia que era.
Y al final llegamos a la vida de la autora quien naciendo como la hija de un oficial, sobretodo al principio quiere decir que vive sheltered de las tragedias del Great Leap Forward. Ella es bien educada en la escuela pero esto solo dura hasta el principio de la revolucion cultural cuando los estudiantes se revoltean contra los profesores, gana poder los red guards y las familias de oficiales de los kuatominang son persecuted hasta no mas ver. La obsesion de mao en la poblacion es tan grande, donde su little red book es tratado como la biblia y todo tipo de entretenimiento se prohibe aparte de sus dichos y su librp ylas operas difundidas y recomendados por el mismo. Despues del denunciamento de su padre, sin embargo, su vida se vuleve mucho mas fea y es ostrisosed por toda la gente a su alrededor. Incluso siendo afectada, todavia alaba a mao en su juventud hasta wl punto de llevat un viaje de gran dificultad para verle en tianamen squaredurante unos segundos. Mucha gente encima es mandada al campo para educarse a ser un peasant., incluida la autora donde despues de backbreaking work apenas comen hasta su ida a un hospital. Despues de esto ella coopera como un worker y electricista durante años y finalmente cuando mao se entera de la destruccion causada por sus acciones, retrasa en sus palabras sobre la educacion y acepta el setting up de universidades. Con las conexiones de sus padresllega a estudiar ingles y finalmente se muda a inglaterra para un doctorado despues de cual se queda, y escribe este libro sobre las tres generaciones en su familia que vivieron durante el cambio dramatico de china.
Empieza con la abuela, quienes vendida por su padre a un militar como concunbine. De alli alza la imagen de su padre, quien sale de la pobreza, y la abuela acaba dando a luz a la madre de la autora. Escapa de los maltratos de la casa llevando a su hija y se resguarda con su hermana hasta la muerte del general. Mas tarde conoce a dr xia, un doctor bien majete pn quien se casa. Los comunistas reemplazan a los Kuotominang despues de la invasion de Korea que les trataba como de segunda clase. Pero sin embargo cuando ellos llegan confiscan la tiendecitay se vuelven peasants.
La madre crece primero en los maltratos de la casa del militar, luego bajo los cambios de gobierno hasta los comunistas. Cuando crece se forma parte de los comunistas y ayuda en ocasiones a ganar contra los kuotominang, finalmente conociendo al pladre de la autora, alguie más alto que ella en cuanto a la jerarquía del partido. Se casan y en los marches para combatir con los kuotamaning la madre sufre un miscarriage y es llevada al hospital. Da aca no me acuerdo lo que pasa pero acaban en un edificio para los oficiales y con cuatro hijos, incluyendo la autora. Los dos padres son targeted durante el cultural recolurion mas tarde, donde resulta en el padre perdiendo un poco la cabeza y siendo tormentado gran parte de su vida. Este acaba muriendo, al final del libro pero si que antes le declarar a su hija como el larrido comunista no era lo que creia que era.
Y al final llegamos a la vida de la autora quien naciendo como la hija de un oficial, sobretodo al principio quiere decir que vive sheltered de las tragedias del Great Leap Forward. Ella es bien educada en la escuela pero esto solo dura hasta el principio de la revolucion cultural cuando los estudiantes se revoltean contra los profesores, gana poder los red guards y las familias de oficiales de los kuatominang son persecuted hasta no mas ver. La obsesion de mao en la poblacion es tan grande, donde su little red book es tratado como la biblia y todo tipo de entretenimiento se prohibe aparte de sus dichos y su librp ylas operas difundidas y recomendados por el mismo. Despues del denunciamento de su padre, sin embargo, su vida se vuleve mucho mas fea y es ostrisosed por toda la gente a su alrededor. Incluso siendo afectada, todavia alaba a mao en su juventud hasta wl punto de llevat un viaje de gran dificultad para verle en tianamen squaredurante unos segundos. Mucha gente encima es mandada al campo para educarse a ser un peasant., incluida la autora donde despues de backbreaking work apenas comen hasta su ida a un hospital. Despues de esto ella coopera como un worker y electricista durante años y finalmente cuando mao se entera de la destruccion causada por sus acciones, retrasa en sus palabras sobre la educacion y acepta el setting up de universidades. Con las conexiones de sus padresllega a estudiar ingles y finalmente se muda a inglaterra para un doctorado despues de cual se queda, y escribe este libro sobre las tres generaciones en su familia que vivieron durante el cambio dramatico de china.
sweetbeetle's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.75