Brilliant, delicately written book set chronicling a group of intertwined Chinese families during and following the time of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The book takes place both in locations in China and in Vancouver.
In part, the book offers a look at the Cultural Revolution from a human, personal point of view. I had no idea it was a violent and destructive as it is portrayed in the book. Thien offers a clear look at the culturally destructive power of this revolution on the arts, educational institutions and cultural traditions of China. (Mao was unusual in that he managed to enact two horrendously destructive movements in his country - the famine that accompanied the Great Leap Forward, and then this Cultural Revolution.) You also get a sense of how these type of movements or catastrophes are actually the shadows of struggles for power and dominance in the political elites of dictatorial or oligarchic societies. Their seeming logic or justification is all afterthought or window dressing for power politics.
Another theme that runs through the book is the power, role and nature of art as a form of resistance and as a support for maintaining personal identity and meaning in mass societies.
Worth checking out more...
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