Literary Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang

[sun surfer]

This is the MR Literary Club selection for September 2014. Whether you've already read it or would like to, feel free to start or join in the conversation at any time! Guests are also always welcome.


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So, what are your thoughts on it?

[SteveEisenberg]

I didn't vote. I just want to get this out there because in anther thread, where I justifyied big publisher prices as needed to fund research for books such as this, my liking for Chinese history wasn't overly popular.

I do notice than the Kindle US price is about 2 1/2 times that in the UK.

Getting to the actual book I am starting to re-read, some of it you may have to take on faith in Jung Chang (not spiritual faith, just faith than she is reasonably using sources). Is it really certain that Cixi (or whatever her real/original name was) loved her Ministry of Punishments father? I just accept it as plausible and proceed.

[BelleZora]

I'm delighted that you are joining this discussion, Steve.

The book is available on Overdrive where I borrowed a copy.

[desertblues]

hm, I am a bit surprised that the Empress Dowager has won. For some reason I thought Samuel Pepys would win....
But I voted for the Empress, so I am glad. Several years ago I read the book Wild Swans of Jung Chang and was very impressed by her talent, both for historical research and storytelling.

Spoiler:

and I visited Xin Jiang and Being in China last year. Also the Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Confucius Temple and all. That is quite another story though, but it provided me with the 'couleur locale' for these books about Chinese people.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Here is an interesting interview with Jung Chang. It was before she wrote Empress Dowager Cixi so no spoilers.
http://app.dundee.ac.uk/pressoffice/...jung_chang.htm

When I first arrived in the UK, I was the first person from my province, Sichuan, to gone to the West since the Communists took over, more than 30 years before. She skips a beat. 'There are 90 million people in my province.'

[Bookpossum]

Thanks for that link Bookworm_Girl - interesting interview.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I was looking for an interview that would offer more insight into the author's state of mind rather than reviews of the book. She isn't an historian, and I suspect her life experiences growing up in China influence her writing style as well as her research methods and how she approaches her subject.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

She isn't an historian, and I suspect her life experiences growing up in China influence her writing style as well as her research methods and how she approaches her subject.

Her PhD is in linguistics, but I think a great many university history departments might hire her. She's just as much of a historian as the late Fawn Brodie, another self-trained biographer whose books I like and who, if I can say it without too much risk of caning, also got a bit of help from an academic husband:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fawn_M._Brodie

Re Chang's writing style, I wonder if any interviewer has asked her why she writes in English.

[SteveEisenberg]

I just tried checking to see if this is, in Chinese translation, banned by mainland China. It may be too early to tell.

As best as I can determine, it just came out in traditional Chinese (used in Taiwan and Hong Kong) this month:

http://www.taaze.tw/static_act/201409/cixi/index.htm

I can't find an edition in the simplified Chinese used in Singapore and mainland China. Is there anyone here who knows enough Chinese to check?

[Bookworm_Girl]

All I could find on the internet was that she was working on a Chinese translation to be published in Taiwan and Hong Kong. When asked if this book would be her first to be published in Mainland China her response was that she doubts it will be because they won't want to "raise her profile." A less controversial author and it probably would be "fine" as she put it.

[desertblues]

Just started rereading this book. It is rather an exciting read, but an indepth review will have to wait. I have been and am very busy at the moment.

Spoiler:

There are some cultural events these weeks. I assisted at the Open Monuments Day last weekend. This weekend is the commemoration of Operation Market Garden-in which 70 years ago our town Nijmegen played a part-and I helped to design/plan the exhibition of the Collection Second World War of the Regional Archives and present their collection of war- posters which I manage/inventarize etc.

[Bookpossum]

I hope your cultural events go well, desertblues. What an interesting job you have!

I am really enjoying this book. Having studied Chinese history from 1644 to about 1950 at University, I certainly had a negative impression of the Empress Dowager - hanging on to power at all costs, hating foreigners, etc. So this book is very interesting in giving such a different "take" on her. To start with, she must have been quite extraordinary to be able to engineer the coup after the Emperor died and had appointed the eight people who were going to be so disastrous for the Empire.

I'm being rather slow in reading it too - it's Spring here and there's lots of activity among the birds, which I like to get out to see and photograph!

[Bookworm_Girl]

I'm slow in reading too this month. I'm finding the book to be a fascinating read and the writing is well-paced. I know very little about Chinese history so I didn't have any preconceived notions. Therefore it's very educational to me.

[bfisher]

I got off to a good start, but had a lapse for various reasons. Finally got back to Iit and am now at 200 pages in.

[sun surfer]

Started listening to the audiobook a few days ago and I'm enjoying it even more than I was expecting to. The writing style is very vivid and engaging, and the narration by Pik-sen Lim is very good.

My (vivid) lasting mental image of Cixi is from the film The Last Emperor of China, when she was very old and the scene and her styling were very dramatic. Besides that I didn't know much about Cixi except for some general tidbits, so I'm finding it very interesting not only to find out about her but about many aspects of 19th century China, especially among the royals and upper class.

The same film has also made it very easy for me to picture more intimate locations from the Forbidden Palace, such as when the sexual procedures for the emperor were mentioned regarding his bedrooms, and there were similar scenes in similar (the same?) bedrooms in the film. On a side note, I never even knew about this "hunting lodge" where Cixi's husband died!

And on a very side note, listening to the book, I can't help but notice that her name is pronounced very similarly to Cersei from Game of Thrones, and I wonder if she was an inspiration for Martin, as their names and certain aspects of their positions are very similar.

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

...Getting to the actual book I am starting to re-read, some of it you may have to take on faith in Jung Chang (not spiritual faith, just faith than she is reasonably using sources). Is it really certain that Cixi (or whatever her real/original name was) loved her Ministry of Punishments father? I just accept it as plausible and proceed.

I agree with this; there are many small assumptions on the author's part throughout. This sort of thing normally makes me wary in factual non-fiction, but before voting I'd read a sample and didn't find it bothersome. I think her skill at writing an engaging story and her thorough research more than make up for it - or, at least, that's what I think from the part I've gotten through so far anyway.