Book Review

[kenjari]

Becoming Madame Mao
by Anchee Min

I've wanted to read this book ever since seeing John Adams' opera Nixon in China this past March, but it took this long for the library to finally have it available. A fictionalized biography of Madame Mao Jiang-Ching (the wife of Chariman Mao), it allows Anchee Min to explore the motivations of both Madame and Chairman Mao. It's written in a very unusual style: frequent shifts between first and third person, and short sentences that gave the prose a breathless quality. I'm not sure I liked this style all that much, but it was certainly an effective way to treat the material.
The novel concentrates more on exploring Jiang-Ching's inner character than on providing historical context and details. The novel presents her as a complex person capable of both sincere feeling and ruthless manipulation in her dealings with others, of both being a heroine and playing the part of a heroine.

Comments

[anacrucis.livejournal.com]

the bouncing kitten face is holding it's severed toungue up to it's mouth and then waving it in the air.

This disturbs me.

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

I think it's supposed to be a cup of tea (or coffee, I suppose). But yeah, I can see your point. And now I can't get it out of my head.

[anacrucis.livejournal.com]

why did they make it pink then? Why not green? Or blue?

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

I guess they wanted it to contrast with the blue kitty. It would have helped if they had extended the border all the way around the cup, though, instead of leaving the left side open.