Review: Empress Orchid by Anchee Min

Title: Empress Orchid
Author: Anchee Min
Publisher: Mariner Books
Published: 2005
Pages: 368

Rating: 8 out of 10

Empress Orchid, which combines the stories of a powerful empire crumbling and a powerful empress rising, transported me back in time to 1852 China, and provided sharp insight into the life of Empress Dowager Cixi.

Orchid is just an ordinary girl in China, dreading her upcoming arranged marriage, until she makes it into a very selective group of girls who will have a chance to become royal concubines, or perhaps even Empress. After passing, Orchid's life changes forever. She learns that beneath the mask of beauty in the Forbidden City lies treachery and betrayal. As she makes her way in and out of danger, Orchid observes and takes part in the politics of her country, and finds herself rising to power.

This book was absolutely fascinating - one of my favorite books that I have ever read on historical China. I knew little of the infamous empress Cixi, so I came away from this feeling like I had learned much.

Anchee Min describes the setting of the Forbidden City, which is present-day Beijing, in wondrous, lush detail. I felt that I could picture the gardens Orchid walks in, the fat koi in her ponds, the chambers filled with unimaginable wealth. I also felt the dark undertone to such ostentatious beauty as Orchid learns about the complex, unforgiving undercurrent of her new home. Betrayal, deceit, and spies are everywhere.

The customs of the Chinese people at this time were very interesting to me as well. There is a sense of honor to some, arrogance to others, and utter frivolity to others. Min truly gives you a sense of the culture, and she takes the time to explain customs that would no doubt seem confusing or pointless to modern Western readers.

And besides a setting and a culture, the author also weaves strong, memorable characters for us.
There is the emperor, of course, a blatantly proud and spoiled man who has been handed an entire nation when he is so entirely undeserving of such power. He exercises his absolute influence with harsh punishments and decrees, but we see through Orchid's eyes that he is in fact simply a frightened, simple, and altogether weak man. Even though the author did not delve into his story all that much, she did a good job of making the reader both hate and sympathize with him.
Niuhuru (spelled Nuharoo in the book, which is how her name is pronounced) was a character that I also found interesting. She is the beautiful, high born queen, the first chosen of the emperor, and therefore a rank above Orchid. She is stunningly beautiful, and while for most of the story she was a sweet, compassionate, and timid creature, there is a dark side to her as well. For example, a day after she speaks jealously with Orchid, Orchid's beloved cat is murdered. She schemes to take the Emperor away from Orchid, and she even attempts to have Orchid whipped while pregnant, which would most certainly have resulted in the unborn child's death. I wondered how much Niuhuru pretended, and what her nature truly was.
And then there was An-te-hai, Orchid's forever faithful eunuch and personal attendant. His unwavering, selfless loyalty to his mistress is touching and at times heartbreaking, and the relationship between them is a very well written one. They depend on each other, and they love each other. Toward the end, when he tells Orchid about his dreams, we see further into his pain. He was a well written character without having to be mentioned all that much.

There were other strong characters as well, but above them all stands our narrator, Orchid herself. She is a strong, intelligent, and insightful woman who at time seems wiser than all of the other governors and advisers and emperors.
The phases of her life were recounted eloquently - her adjustment to the new wealth of being a royal concubine, her agonizing wait longing to be noticed by her husband, her love and loss of a king, her painful love for her son even after he is taken from her and raised to be everything she despises, and her desperate longing for someone to love her. I felt, by the end of the book, that I knew her. She will not be a character that I will soon forget, and Min's story has inspired me to research Empress Cixi in greater detail.

This is a lovely, epic tale of China, through the eyes of one woman who ruled it.

Highly, highly recommended.

Review: The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham

Title: The Painted Veil
Author: W. Somerset Maugham
Genre: Classics / Literature
First published: 1925

Rating: 6 out of 10

The Painted Veil is the story of Kitty, a beautiful young woman who believes herself to be, without question, the most important person on earth. Her quiet, introvert husband Walter is a mystery to her, and the two of them share a very distant, weak bond. After Walter discovers that his wife is having an affair, he abruptly decides to move to a disease infested village in order to do medical work for the cholera outbreak there. Wrenched from the man that she believes she loves and forced to adjust to a dangerous new culture, Kitty is at a loss. She befriends a group of nuns and helps them with their efforts aiding the sick.

I loved the simplistic tone of this book, which was natural and beautiful, never forced. However, I often got the odd feeling that this made me almost forget that this was all happening in China, instead of England. The feel of the book was very British, which isn't implausible, since Kitty is British and is living in a British area. It just seemed a bit off putting that I pictured the characters in Europe rather than Asia.
I liked the tone of the book, but the lack of a strong setting was a negative point. Of course, Kitty's world changes drastically when she moves from England to China. Her culture shock is mentioned, but Maugham simply tells us this, instead of giving examples of Chinese culture. The rich, exotic setting of Asia as seen by a spoiled, sheltered European girl was one that I was really looking forward to reading in this book, but it simply didn't happen. It would be very easy to have forgotten that any part of this book was ever set in China at all.

But perhaps this was done because the setting was not what was most important about this tale. I would say that the main focus was the character building, which admittedly was quite good.
Our main character, Kitty Fane, is a deplorable, silly, frivolous girl when the story begins, but the reader gradually sees her grow into a wiser, less self centered woman. The author certainly succeeded in making the reader dislike her first character, but not be able to help themselves begin to warn toward her in the second half of the book.
Kitty's husband, Walter, was my favorite character. Perhaps it was because he was so mysterious, or perhaps it was because I kept searching for little clues as to what he was feeling through-out the book, and drawing up possible assumptions. It was quite fun.
Walter is completely unlike Kitty, and this fact combined with his shyness and quiet, reserved nature has created a void between them. Their marriage is shakily built on unspoken thoughts, silence, and puzzlement as Kitty wonders what on earth Walter is thinking. He isn't an easy character to figure out, but I really liked him. He struck me as a sensitive, caring man rather than the stoic tough guy.

Maugham is a meticulous, thoughtful writer, with little details scattered through the story. I loved picking them out and wondering what they meant.
For example, the scene where Waddington introduces Kitty to his Chinese wife. Unnecessary details about her being an exiled princess are thrown in, and while these bits of knowledge nor the scene itself have anything to do with the rest of the book, I think it was added in to show a contrast between Kitty and Walter. Waddington and his lover are worlds apart in differences, and yet they still understand and love each other, which is a stark contrast to Kitty's own marriage.

Surprisingly, I noticed a slight gothic aspect to this story, light enough to just barely be noticed. Occasionally, a character would make an interesting comment or small paragraph of a speech about death, such as on pages 111 or 172. (I wrote down the page numbers while reading, but then returned the book to the library before I wrote this review.) A beautiful line that I remember was life being described as “a little smoke lost in the air.”

Though I cannot really say that a plot not going the way you'd prefer is a fault, the outcome of this book was a disappointment to me. (If you don't want spoilers, you can skip the next paragraph.)

I wanted Kitty to fall in love with Walter so very badly, and although she does develop a friendship and appreciation for him later on, a romance between them never happens. Also, in the end, Kitty gives in and once again sleeps with Charlie Townsend, the man who preyed upon her innocence and naivety prior to her leaving town. I couldn't believe it! After how much stronger and wiser Kitty had become, why would she go back to her old foolishness again? I felt a bit cheated by this, as if I had been misled into thinking that Kitty knew better now. Not only does she give in to Charlie, she does so while his wife is hospitably letting her stay with them, out of the goodness of her heart. It seems that Kitty's changes in character were not permanent.

Review: Sword by Da Chen

Title: Sword
Author: Da Chen
Genre: YA / Historical Fantasy
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: 2008
Pages: 232

Rating - 4 out of 10

On the morning of her birthday, Miu Miu's mother reveals some startling information. Miu Miu's father was killed by the evil emperor, and now it is her job to seek revenge. But wait. Girls aren't allowed to officially vow vengeance. You would think that Miu Miu could just set out on her quest without this "official vow" nonsense, but instead, she spends much time convincing her tiny, irrelevant village that she needs to defeat the emperor. After she is finally on her way, she is able to combat the emperor with her martial arts skills.
What a silly book. I love historical China, but I found the story to hold many pointless, irrelevant details, and go far too quickly, especially at the beginning. An unrealistic story with badly portrayed characters and events.
Not recommended.

End note - After reading this book, I read Da Chen's memoir Sounds of the River. I cannot understand the contrast between these two books, because his memoir is brilliant. Please, go and read that instead of this one.