A review by steveatwaywords
Nanjing: The Burning City by Ethan Young

adventurous dark emotional sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

An ambitious and under-discussed subject suffers from its limited scale/scope. Two Chinese soldiers attempt to escape Japanese-occupied Nanking while encountering a set of horrors. The pacing is fast, the characters chosen realistic and tragic, and yet Young is able to offer us a complexity of motives and choices in these quick and dramatic moments. Don't look for "justice" from history; perhaps only from its telling. And while the storyline focuses (mostly) on the Chinese point of view, to not offer it would only perpetrate the erasure of history pervasive in Western education (by omission) and some Asian education (by political determination). For those unfamiliar with this story, Young kicks the door open but does not enter too far; for those who know, he underscores the human scene rather than statistical one. All in all, the Asian theater of the 1930s is one of the most under-explored: it deserves far more, yet.  
Expand filter menu Content Warnings