This is my first time here, so be gentle. :-)
The following book review was written a few months ago, first posted at Tianya. Apoligies if you have read it before and if it bores you.
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¡¡¡¡I had read a lot about Annie Wang (aka ÍõÞ¨) prior to my "encounter" with her novel ¡°Lili, A Novel of Tiananmen¡± in the library this afternoon, and felt obliged to take ¡°her¡± home as a result of my rather ¡°unhealthy¡± reading habit: I like reading books written by Chinese about China in English.
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¡¡¡¡Wang is said to be a Beijing native who has made into the ¡°US mainstream society¡±. She was a prodigy and started writing novels when she was still in her early teens. She went to study in the US in 1993 at 21 and became a contract interpreter for the US State Department upon her graduation. She has recently returned home because of her passion for changes and new excitement.
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¡¡¡¡Lili is her first novel written in English. According to author¡¯s own account, she started writing this novel in 1989 when she was only 16 and it took her 10 years to complete.
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¡¡¡¡Lili tells a story of a young free-spirited Chinese woman¡¯s struggle to survive the social changes in mid and late 1980s. The story starts with Lili¡¯s three months¡¯ stint in a prison (making matchboxes and being re-educated) after a police crackdown on indecent behaviour (the book kept rather vague about this). She is branded a street hooligan and deemed unemployable. Yet Lili refuses to conform. She is determined to be independent and free of social restrains. She makes good use of her many years of musical training and makes a living by playing erhu for foreigners in hotels. On a trip to Inner Mongolia, she meets Roy, an American journalist who speaks fluent Chinese. Roy¡¯s enthusiasm in Chinese culture brings him and Lili close. They eventually end up living together in a rented apartment away from the city to avoid preying eyes and gossips. Through Roy, Lili meets people from all walks of life, artists, thugs, political activists etc. Then in the spring of 1989, Hu¡¯s death sparks the outcry for political changes. Roy, an advocate for democracy and freedom of speech / living, is thrown out of the country. Lili¡¯s friend is shot dead on the eventful day in June. Lili, who survives it all, decides to seek a new beginning by joining Roy in the US.
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¡¡¡¡Although Wang¡¯s command of English is remarkable, I was neither impressed nor inspired by the story, as a matter of fact, I was rather bored by it. It became a real ¡°page turner¡± for me, I found myself skipping paragraphs and paragraphs of predictable narratives and arrived at the last page in no more than three hours.
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¡¡¡¡In my humble opinion, the author is too ambitious and tries wee bit too hard. She wants to please her readers by mixing history, politics, culture and romance together, but it is not at all seamless. On more than one occasion, I found the story hard to read (not because of the style of writing), it simply didn¡¯t flow. The romance between Lili and Roy can be found in any Mills & Boon¡¯s story: wishful thinking at its best.
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¡¡¡¡Given the fact that the book is written with a western audience in mind, thus certain parts of the story read like a typical western media report on China which dwells only on the negative side of the history. It is a book of self loathing.
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¡¡¡¡The characters in the books are by and large flat and caricatures and lack real depth. Lili is beautiful and talented. Although she has a past, it does not seem to matter that much in the end, ¡®cause she is not going to marry a Chinese man, so her past only adds colours to her young life and makes her more exotic and attractive to Roy. Roy, Lili¡¯s saviour, is an upper-middle class Jewish American, kind, loving and enthusiastic just about everything. Although Lili refuses to conforms to the Chinese way of living and thinking, she eventually succumbs herself to the western idealism.
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¡¡¡¡In order to give the book an intellectual depth, the author dotted her story with references to Taoism. Somehow I don¡¯t find such references add any intellectual value.
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¡¡¡¡All in all, despite its ten years of making, Wong¡¯s Lili will fade with time. The book does not offer its readers any new insights, it leaves me with little after-taste to savour.
- Re: [Talking Books] Lili (Book Review)posted on 01/24/2005
Hello, are you bluesea JJ?
Welcome!
Very nice writing. - posted on 01/24/2005
It seems to me an honest review though I haven't read the book yet. And after reading the review I think I'm in no hurry to read it. So if it was in Amazone, I would have clicked "helpful". Thank you.
I wonder if Lili is a book like Shanghai Babe, depicting an opportunist trying to take advantage of everything she can grab from life and want to show the world how extrodinary she is. The aim is to earn fame by shocking the world. Isn't it typical?
Sometimes I hate seeing those "bestselling" books about some Chinese woman with a comlicated story sitting in the book stores. little honesty in there yet full of melodrama. Pulp fictions really. They don't become noble in terms of literature just because they put some labels on or add some half backed ingredients in.
Try to avoid those.
So, can you recommend some good writing in this line? - Re: [Talking Books] Lili (Book Review)posted on 01/25/2005
Organ wrote:Yes.
Hello, are you bluesea JJ?
Welcome!Hi Organ, nice to see you here too.
Very nice writing.Thanks. I don't like my own writings, they bore me. :-) - posted on 01/25/2005
Little: Thank you for finding this review helpful.
Going back to the book, unlike Wei Hui's Shanghai Babe, Wang has put a political spin on her Lili. However Lili's salvation is no different than that of Shanghai Babe. This book is really tedious and offers nothing new. Pulp fiction indeed.
My recent encounter with Chinese writers' books pulished in the West has been one disappointment after another. I don't know how Ha Jin got his Book Prize. I read nearly all his books, they really bored the hell out of me. Hong Ying's recent book "K" was another pulp fiction, pure sexual fantasy.
If I have to recommend a book, Adeline Yen Mah's Falling Leaves is a good read if you have not read it. - posted on 01/27/2005
Thank you, Stargazer.
Totally agree with you about Ha Jin. Seems to me that putting a political spin is a critical factor for success (commecially) as far as some Western publishers are concerned. No wonder we are disappointed.
Have read falling leaves a few years back but my memory of it has faded away. Only left with an impression that the writing is honest.
I quite like Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club but it's about Chinese Americans, not exact the life we are familiar with.
Here is a passage extracted from my essay, which may offer some explianations of why they want to publish pulp fictions by Chinese authers. ( Please forgive me if it is a bore for you.)
"2. Lack of understanding of Chinese culture leads a twisted perception of Chinese life and tales.
The extent of misunderstanding can be indicated by the American Chinese writer Maxine Hong Kinston¡¯s publishing experience. When her The Woman Warrior was published, sometimes background information (e.g. history) had to be put in the middle of the book to help readers understand the story. Also, the writer¡¯s social context had strong influence on the perceptions of the ¡°reviewers and readers¡±. ¡°A New York Times critic notes with approval that Kingston¡¯s name indicated she is married to an American (white), implying her marriage¡¯s significance to her approach to her Chinese American identity. Another reviewer claims his wife is a Chinese Canadian, to strengthen his interpretations of the book¡±. (Elaine H. Kim, 1982: Preface: xvi). Even so, ¡°her depiction of some Chinese women as aggressive and others as docile has confused western readers/reviewers.¡± (Elaine H. Kim, 1982: Preface: xvii). If a novel about life in America written by a American born Chinese in English can cause such cultural indigestion, what can happen to a translated (sometimes badly) Chinese novel? "
- posted on 01/27/2005
Hi Little:
Thank you for your reply. Amy Tan's books often make an enjoyable read, her writings are imaginative and her tales are compelling.
And thank you for sharing your essay with me, I cannot agree with you more that western readers' perception of Chinese life and tales are often twisted by their lack of understanding of our history and social affairs. However I don't think this should create a barrier between the writer and the reader. A good story is a good story, it doesn't matter whether it takes place in China, Japan or the US. A good story should be able to transcend its country of origin and to be understood by the mass. After all, we share the same humanity, no one including us Chinese has failed to appreciate Shakespear or Dickens, so why should our own writers erect a wall to keep its readers out?
- posted on 02/01/2005
Hi there
We are better educated in English literature, compared to Westerners in Chinese literature, genereally speaking. In fact, a section in my essay is dedicated to discuss why this is the case but I really don't want to bore you on this.
HoweverI agree that a good story should enable the reader to join the story, to see the actions and experience the emtions that charactors are engaged, to share the universal experience.
Good writing, should touch the heart of the reader, wherever s/he is from.
It's hard.
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