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Wild Swans : Three Daughters of China |  | Author: Jung Chang
Publisher: Flamingo (HarperCollins)
Category: Book
Buy Used: £45.00
Rating:  97 reviews
Media: Paperback
Pages: 696
ASIN: B0006DGTOC
Publication Date: 1991
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Publisher: Flamingo Date of Publication: 1991 Binding: Soft Cover Condition: Good Description: (O281)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 92 more reviews...
A fable for the twentieth century, brimming with pain and sorrow December 4, 2008
Trevor Coote (Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia)
This haunting personal odyssey through the political and social convulsions of twentieth century China should carry a health warning: This book will linger in the mind for months to come. Jung Chang recounts through personal memoirs and memories the turbulent and tragic lives of her grandparents and parents in Manchuria early in the century as the country desperately tries to shake off the brutality of the feudal warlord government. But no sooner had the Kuomintang arrived to unify most of China than the hapless population of Manchuria fell under the nightmare of Japanese occupation. Several years later and the brief and cruel `liberation' by the Russians is followed by the Kuomintang-Communist civil war. During the Japanese occupation many people had sided with the Kuomintang nationalists rather than the Communists as they appeared at the time to be in a better position to kick out the foreign oppressors. However, they were to pay for that allegiance once the Communist Party was in power.
The author was born into the People's Republic of China in Sichuan province. Her parents had been enthusiastic activists and supporters of the Communists but it didn't take long for the great socialist utopia under Mao Zedong to degenerate into an unutterably crass and barbaric regime hell-bent on manipulating, controlling and terrorising the population. Their actions cloaked in totalitarian doublespeak, Party officials invent, hunt down and persecute `class enemies', `counterrevolutionaries', `rightists' and `capitalist-roaders' in an endless cycle of murderous campaigns. Jung's parents, like millions of others, see their fortunes rise and fall with these campaigns at the whim of the Party because of their family's early association with the Kuomintang. They are periodically denounced, threatened, beaten, tormented, paraded, imprisoned and exiled, suffering every humiliation that could be inflicted on an individual. That suffering, told with an astonishing lack of bitterness forms the backdrop to Jung's early life.
As Mao's grip tightens his obsession with demonstrating the superiority of communism over capitalism results in the catastrophic Great Leap Forward when the labour of almost the entire workforce is directed towards producing steel while the countryside implodes resulting in an apocalyptic famine and the deaths of an estimated 30 million people. Incredibly, propaganda blamed this on bad weather and after a slight drop in his popularity Mao begins to engineer his own demonic cult of the personality, his deification coming easily to a culture that had been used to worshipping emperors as quasi-gods. Now Mao was to set about destroying the Party, the last impediment to his total personal power. The battered and impoverished Chinese people, desperately trying to recover from the horror of the Great Leap Forward, now had the Cultural Revolution unleashed upon them. During this collective spell of insanity Mao's Red Guards, consisting largely of schoolchildren and students on the rampage, were whipped into a frenzy to turn upon, humiliate, beat and destroy their teachers and consequently all education. In an attempt to edit the past out of existence, China lost almost its entire written heritage along with its religious and historical sites, statues, temples and old towns, everywhere destroyed. Eventually, with everyone denouncing everyone in order to survive the country had been turned into a `moral wasteland of hatred' and there was nowhere left to go.
This exquisite and powerful book follows the author and her siblings through these terrifying phases and is a compulsive page-turner written in clear, delicate English and brimming with pain and sorrow. I doubt if there has been a more honest and poignant portrayal of daily life under a totalitarian regime, where terror pervades every stratum of society, every family, every thought and deed.
The most amazing history lesson I have ever had!! October 22, 2008
J. Julian (UK)
I've never felt so sad to reach the end of a book in all my life. This book is truely amazing and is well and truely the best book I've ever read! I even had the urge to start reading it all over again as soon as I'd finished.
Wild Swans follows the journey of three generations of women, from the same family, through the tragic history of twentieth century China.
I felt almost ashamed that I wasn't aware of hardly any of China's recent history. I picked the book up as I was doing a charity trek along the Great Wall in August 2008 and felt I should brush up on the history of the country. Although I had read wonderful things about this book I was prepared for a dull history lesson, one that I felt I had to put myself through. Sure it was a history lesson, but a breathtaking, extraordinary, unforgettable one. I struggled to remember that what I was reading was a true story, an account of three peoples' lives!
No one told me this book was banned in China. So in my hand luggage it went, luckily I, and the book, made it there and back safely. I wish I had managed to finish it before I left for China, but when I returned from my trip I was even more eager to learn about the wonderful country I had just visited!
This book is outstanding! It's not possible to put into words how much I enjoyed it. Please, just read it!!
An accessible history October 16, 2008
M. Rooney (Glasgow)
One of the best books I have ever read.
Touching and heartfelt, yet matter of fact and never sentimental. This book is remarkably easy to read, I found it hard to put down. At once, this is the epic story of a family and a country. I could never have believed the amount of knowledge I accumulated from this book. The writing style of Jung Chang made it effortless.
worth it October 15, 2008
OK (Ireland)
Firstly I will admit it's been a few years since I read this and a friend has it now so I can't skim through it to refresh my memory.
The story travels through china before communist rule to the present. Most of the book is in the time of the Mao rule but I found it never really thought of this government as a bad thing, or a good thing. I never got an impression that the author blamed this government for what happened. I think this is one of the best things about this book, you see more the mindset of the people at the time.
As I had said a friend has it now, it got passed around and all of us loved the book. It even gave two the idea of going to China on holiday.
I picked this book up for a fiver because I was a student at the time and found it difficult to justify spending that much money on a book, but it would have been worth it even it I did pay the full price. (and thank you to the person who left it into a 2nd hand book shop)
An emotionally gripping, roller-coaster ride through the lives of three fascinating women October 2, 2008
A. Faulkner (Rochester, England)
This is without doubt one of the best books I've ever read. It is a powerful, gripping story that takes you through act after act of what human beings are capable of doing on this Earth, sometimes in the most brutal fashion.
Based on the lives of three generations of women, it starts in turn of the 20th century China, when the Qing dynasty was starting to crumble and that way of life was coming to an end, taking you through the civil war, Mao coming to power, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution before ending in the 70s when the author leaves for Britain.
This is a "no holding back" story of survival with frequent scenarios detailing the worst and most brutal of human suffering. Reading through makes you realise the many things in this world we take for granted: democracy, security, civil liberties and freedom. It is an epic life story seen through the eyes of three ordinary women. They weren't world leaders or iconic historical figures, but ordinary citizens living their lives in a regime that is regarded with controversy even to this day.
All in all, although it's a book detailing suffering, fear and brutality it is an uplifting story of survival. You can't help but shed a tear for the person who survives, against all the odds, to make a better life for themselves. Like Pandora's box, once opened you'll see all the sins of the world come to fruition but one thing will remain at the end: hope.
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