A Captivating Read
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This book tells 150 years history of China through the personal lives of 3 generations of women from one family.
Wild Swans is a beautifully written book, that is desperately sad, desperately hopeful and shocking. The plight of these 3 women captures the reader and transports them to different periods in China's history. The 3 women and the people around them come to life through Changs beautiful way with words.
I have come away from this book with a greater understanding of China and Mao's absolute rule. The power, control and violence Mao inflicted on the Chinese people is horrific. 10's of millions of innocent people died under his rule and this book heroically describes the terror and fear the Chinese faced every day.
If you only read one book this year, make it Wild Swans.
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A Story of Courage and Tyranny
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Wild Swans is a candid and harrowing account of three remarkable Chinese women -grandmother, mother and daughter- but also gives us a very good picture of what China was like from the turn of the Century to the 1980's
We learn about the ancient culture of the Chinese which included much that was beautiful and some that seems cruel. We learn of the hope of so many Chinese that the overthrow of the Kuomintang would lead to a' just social order' but how it soon became clear that the worst excesses of the Kuomintang and those of Imperial China before that paled into insignificance compared to the hell on earth created by Mao's Chinese Communist Party
One is left aghast that a system can destroy even the most basic human instincts of decency and compassion while turning people into inhumane monsters totally possessed -as if by a demon - by a cruel and totally destructive system
It sends shivers down one's spine to realise that 'The Great Helmsman' Mao Ze Dong -who ranks with Hitler and Stalin as among the most evil men of the 20th century-had his image worn on T-shirts by 'progressive' students and youth in the west and these same young 'champions of equality' hung large pictures of Mao in their dormitory rooms .This at the same time as millions of Chinese were being slaughtered and physically and psychologically maimed on the orders of Mao and his Chinese Communist Party -as described in this book.
Today many in the West laud the economic 'reforms' towards a type of totalitarian 'capitalist' system but fail to remember that human rights have not improved at all and China is still a hideous and inhuman hell for hundreds of millions of its inhabitants. And the world turns a blind eye and wards Beijing the 2008 Olympic While we a re left asking how much longer the people of China will remain enslaved by their inhumane Communist masters. How Long?
But the book is also about the strength of the human spirit , about wonderful people-especially the three remarkable women who are the central characters of this book- as well as the cruel ones
It is a story of love and hate, strength and weakness , the beautiful and the ugly
But more than anything it is about how the human spirit can never in the end be crushed by cruelty, evil and tyranny
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The stuff of nightmares
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Jung Chang's autobiographical story of three generations of women living through China's tumultuous 20th century is fascinating and terrifying. Given that it is a subjective account of the key events in modern Chinese history, 'Wild Swans' provides a compelling and informative narrative that brings to life complex socio-historic transformations in ways that a straight historical account could not.
'Wild Swans' is most interesting when it deals with Jung Chang's firsthand experiences during Chairman Mao's cultural revolution, where a climate of paranoia and political denouncement caused society to practically implode. It seems almost beyond comprehension how Mao could have held such God-like power over his people when the very communist principals he espoused seemed to contradict such form of deification as undignified. Even more extraordinary is how he succeeded in maintaining his grip on power without the assistance of a KGB-type secret police, but by turning the people against each other. By making himself a god, he subtly provoked his populace to fight vendettas in his name while remaining aloof and almost mythical. In effect he presided over a kind of controlled civil war, only reigning in the violence when he perceived his own position to be under threat.
While not particularly literary - it doesn't need to be - Jung Chang keeps the style relatively factual for an autobiography. But the facts speak horrifically for themselves, with individuals competing for the largely imagined grace of Mao driven to acts of extreme cruelty and humiliation. While 'Wild Swans' often shows a dispiritingly brutal side of people when put in particular conditions, the acts of bravery, kindness and incredible physical and emotional endurance allow a little faith in human nature to persist. Absolutely essential reading.
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Brilliant!
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I have found this book really interesting in it's description of life in China over 100 years. I will most certainly read it again.
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Hard reading but worth it
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I bought this book with a view to reading more diverse literature than the "chick lit" that i am used to . . .and i wasnt disappointed. The only reason i dont give this book 5 stars is that i found it very heavy and difficult to read in places. However, the way that Jung Chang draws on her family history and writes in so much detail is amazing and i found the book both enlightening and a fantastic read. I have recommended it to anyone looking for a good book to get their teeth into. Excellent and well worth the money i paid for it!
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