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Product Reviews:
Wild Ginger: A Novel |
Rating: 4 (out of 5)
Summary: pretty intense
Comments: intense book and well written.
At 1st, it seemed a bit extreme, however after talking to my family (we're Chinese), it was pretty sad to hear that the daily events mentioned in this book are true. My parents and their brothers/sisters experienced an painful life in China.
I rated this book a4because I feel like Anchee Min could have done a better job making transitions between chapters. Though it is like many Chinese movies when an underlying romantic situation occurs; a man and a woman could be enemies fighting each other1second and in the next, they are in love. You feel like you've missed something like how on earth their relationship evolved...
Still a great book; I highly endorse this for eone, especially high schoolers, who usually do not receive a detailed historical education of Asia during the communist years. |
Rating: 4 (out of 5)
Summary: Insightful look at a crazy time
Comments: If you've not come across Anchee Min yet in your China reading, she really is an author to add to your list. Her memoir, Red Azalea, was named1of the New York Times' Notable Books of 1994 and was an international bestseller. Her novels Becoming Madame Mao and Empress Orchid were also chart toppers that received critical acclaim. Her2other novels, Katherine and Wild Ginger, enjoyed excellent reviews and impressive foreign sales. Stay tuned for her new book The Last Empress, which concerns the life of the Qing Dynasty's Ci Xi, and is due out in March 2007.
Min was born in Shanghai in 1957. She joined the Red Guards, and at17 she was sent to a labor collective. While in the countryside, a talent scout for Madame Mao's Shanghai film studio offered her a new career as a movie actress. She lept at the chance to escape the back breaking work, starvation, and brutalization of the Maoist farm, only to experience a different version of purgatory within the film studio. She has lived in the United States since 1984. almost all of her literary work reflects her experiences with communism.
With regard to Wild Ginger, the book gives a reality-based view of the stress personal relationships suffered during the tumultuous years of China's Cultural Revolution. In this story, a young, working-class girl named Maple meets the brave and devoted Maoist, Wild Ginger, who makes it her mission in life to prove that she is worthy of the Communist Party despite her "bad" background. In the warped reality of those days, Wild Ginger denounces her mother for marrying a French man and thus causing her such trauma in life.
Ginger and Maple bond at school in resistance to a girl named Hot Pepper's bullying. When they require greater power to withstand her attacks, the girls call on Maple's old friend, the handsome and smart Evergreen. Ginger and Evergreen share a mutual goal of winning the upcoming Mao quotation contest. Though competitors, in true communist spirit, they decide to help each other study. Before long, the2fall in love--a serious problem in Mao-land. After Ginger performs an act of heroism she finally wins the respect of the Party, a coveted handshake with Mao himself, and a place in the Party. however the old saying "be careful of what you want--you might get it" applies here. Party membership in Ginger's case requires her to devote her life to Maoism in the same way that monks devote themselves to Buddhism--by remaining devoted to the cause without the distraction of marriage or romantic love. Ginger struggles to keep from acting on her feelings for Evergreen, and being together torments them both. Finally Maple and Evergreen betray Ginger by forming a relationship that springs from their mutual deep love of Ginger.
As a party member, taking revenge on Evergreen and Maple is easy. However, Hot Pepper gets involved in Ginger's plot to punish Evergreen and Maple because of her own ulterior motive, causing disaster for each of the book' s main characters. In the end, the Cultural Revolution has had tragic consequences even for life's almost all vital aspect--human relationships. The story is quite unsettling, because although it's fiction, the destruction of love, friendship, and family ties was all too real for many people during those topsy-turvy days. The book could just as easily be true.
Despite the depressing subject matter, Wild Ginger is a well written page-turner. It reads quickly and remains hard to put down.
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Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: A Masterpiece
Comments: An intense and intimate look into the life of a woman who grew up in a troubled time.
A terrifying mix of The great Earth and 1984.
A poor book says little with many words.
A great book says much with few words.
Wild Ginger is a great book.
There is no attempt to dazzle the reader with flowery prose or complexity. It is sparse and simple. There is just the minimum of description - yet, you grow to know the characters and know them intimately.
well done. Beautiful and thought provoking. |
Rating: 3 (out of 5)
Summary: Nice however not great
Comments: I read Empress Orchid and loved it. That led me to the other books by this author. This was much lighter in content, however interesting. The characters were vivid and memorable. It was a great book, however not to the standard of Empress Orchard. |
Rating: 3 (out of 5)
Summary: Friendship and the Cultural Revolution
Comments: Anchee Min's WILD GINGER is an intimate look at the friendship between2contrasting young girls growing amidst the drastic changes taking place in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution.
A story of friendship whose chains were destroyed by partisan beliefs, Maple and Wild Ginger wrestle between the principles of Maoism and the natural urges that bind them to the even more painful process of growing up. Disturbing and heartbreaking, the narrative may tend to wallow in predictable sentimentalism. however by the sheer power of the sociopolitical circumstances that test the love of these2girls for each other ... and the young man who came in between them, Anchee Min supplies an insight into the China often discussed in history books however with greater pain from the eyes of the youngsters who lived through its almost all crucial period of cultural evolution. |
