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Review: Down Under, Bill Bryson

There are more things in Australia that can kill you than anywhere else, so how could Bill Bryson ever keep away from writing a travel memoir about the country?  In his travels from coast to coast and several places in between, Bryson both entertains and informs us about a place that, for its size and place in the world, we know surprisingly little about.

Bill Bryson is a delightful writer and I almost wish I’d discovered him sooner!  Down Under is my first proper travel book by him and I can’t tell you how eager I am to read more.  It’s true that I know very little about Australia, so much of the information he shared was completely new to me.  In my job, I’ve done some writing about Australia, but mainly about tourism; it was fascinating to have the historical perspective given to me so I could set it aside my knowledge of the country’s more hospitable places.

My favorite parts of the memoir were generally when he was exploring the middle, largely uninhabitable parts of the country.  It’s hard to believe just how many expeditions were launched there – and equally hard to believe that the Australians haven’t managed to spread across such a vast amount of land.  Yet with Bryson writing, I could feel the dust and the heat and I am pretty sure I now know why no one really wants to live there; not only is it far from every amenity but there’s truly no purpose to eking a life out in such difficult conditions.

I like that Bryson seems to travel in the same way that I do; I’d struggle to really identify with someone who does things I’d never experience.  As it is, Australia is expensive, and I won’t go there for years if ever, so I could almost feel like I was experiencing things through his eyes.  He chats with people, visits monuments that I’d visit, and at the same time shares the fascinating history and culture of the country.  I can’t imagine a better honorary tour guide.  I wouldn’t have minded some pictures, but he writes well enough that I could picture the locations in my head – or just look online, as I did several times – easily enough.

What truly disturbed me overall was the treatment of native Australians – a problem that lies more with the Australian government than with Bryson.  I was appalled to learn about the Stolen Generations and even more saddened to discover that many Aboriginal Australians drift through life, missing out on schools and jobs or any parts of modern life.  It’s even sadder to hear the way that white Australians have simply given up and don’t know what to do about it.  I almost wish Bryson had brought this more to the forefront of the book, rather than asking about it occasionally and being stymied, but I’m not sure what else he could have done, especially not if he aimed to keep the tone of the rest of the book light and funny as he did.

Anyway, I thought Down Under was an excellent read.  It certainly helped me get a broader picture of Australia and educated me in some senses at the same time.  I can’t wait to read more by Bill Bryson.

In the US, this book is titled In a Sunburned Country. I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.

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Review: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Jean-Dominique Bauby

Jean-Dominique Bauby was an active, robust family man and editor of French Elle when at the age of forty-three he was brought low by a rare stroke of the brain stem.  After his stroke, he remained in a coma for months, and when he woke he suffered from locked in syndrome.  This is a condition when a person’s thought processes are still intact and fully functioning, but his or her body is unable to communicate those thoughts.  In Bauby’s case, he could still blink an eyelid to share his thoughts, but to be honest, that’s close enough.  Before his death, Bauby dictated this, his memoir, letter by letter with blinks.

This is a heartbreaking book and I don’t know how to review it.  It can’t really be a review, because how can you review such a thing?  It’s impossible not to feel for this man who had his life stolen from him so dramatically and so quickly.  He describes how, just before his accident, he was caring for his elderly father, who could no longer leave his flat, comparing how he was being shaved to the way he shaved his father.  They both expected the elder man to die first – neither realised then just how fragile life could be.

Bauby distills his life into a series of minutiae that none of us ever think of; how happy he’d be if he could just swallow his saliva or be able to tell whether his limbs are hot or cold.  The huge effect that an indifferent nurse can have – whether they’ll ignore his frantic eyeblinks or try to work out what he wants, whether it’s just the television on or a more serious problem.  The last day of his normal life has taken on a surreal significance, of course; he takes us through it step by step.

What I think amazed me most about the book was that he maintained his good humor, his compassion, and all the best of his human spirit.  He’s understandably a little bitter, but he never turns the memoir into an outlet for complaints; all of his observations are tinged with humor.  Most of all what struck me was his determined efforts to get better.  It seems that brain stems do occasionally heal, but do so at a snail’s pace.  He was working on making noises with his mouth again.  Devastatingly, the poor man died two days after this book was published, and all his goals herein left me with a sense of both sadness and wonder, that a man so betrayed by his own body could continue to hope that it would serve him well again one day.

If nothing else, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly will leave you with a lasting appreciation for your own life, for your ability to speak and walk and laugh.  I can’t imagine how heartless you’d have to be to walk out on a frantically blinking patient after reading this book – I’m not a nurse and wouldn’t like to be, but even so it made me think about how I treat others and how I’d like to be treated.  This is such a worthy, if sad, book, which should be read by all.

I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.

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Review: The Boy Who Loved Books, John Sutherland

John Sutherland grew up fatherless after his father died in an aviation accident while training for combat in World War II.  (Did you know they allowed a 5% mortality rate in training for war?  No?  I didn’t either.)  He grew up virtually motherless as well, since his mother was determined to live her life as she saw fit, whether that involved living in Argentina, sleeping with American soldiers, or leaving John to relatives on a regular basis.  Throughout his childhood, John sought refuge in one thing, books.  He lived and breathed the classics, ignoring his assigned work for his own personal choices.  When he got older, John also found solace in alcohol, and the two remained standbys for much of his life.

I’m a bit torn about this one.  I think I liked the concept more than the execution.  I love the idea of a memoir about someone’s life in books, and this one promised that books saved Sutherland’s life twice.  I didn’t really get much of that from the book, though, and overall it was much more just a life story than a life story in books.  There are plenty of literary references, sure, and he does mention what he’s reading at times, but I think the entire book was hampered by the fact that I didn’t find John’s life particularly interesting otherwise and, more importantly, I didn’t really like John.

I can’t understand the pain of growing up without a parent, much less the pain of growing up pretty much without either of them, so I can’t speak on personal experience.  I do think it’s understandable that he would struggle emotionally as a result.  But some of his attitudes just failed to match mine so spectacularly that it made it hard for me to relate to him.  As an example, John rarely read books for school on purpose.  He hated assigned reading so, even though he was perfectly capable of understanding assigned texts and doing really well in school, he generally performed poorly on pretty much every exam he was ever given.  This attitude follows him throughout his childhood, even though he must see that his grandparents and even his mother struggle along on a rock bottom basic education.  He has opportunities – his mother pays for him to go to great schools – and he just throws them away.  I’ve never really understood people who do this.

The worst part about it is that he then goes on to become a professor, just because there are so many positions and so few takers!  It seemed wrong to me that someone who mostly disdained school throughout his life can then go on to have the best job in the whole system.  I shouldn’t be so harsh, though, as people can change, and his eventual university education does leave a mark on him.  I could more easily understand his willingness to bury himself in drink, but I was glad when he gave it up.

The other big problem I had was with John’s mother, who I think was the reason in large part he struggled through childhood.  She more or less completely ignores him, pawning him off on relatives and friends, especially when she has a man around.  She pays his way through life but seems hardly ever emotionally invested; it’s clear that John adores her but that seems mostly based around her beauty and her determination to have her own way, even at the expense of his own happiness.  I can see that up to a point, but abandoning your child for three years while you go to live in Argentina?  I don’t see that so much.

What I did enjoy was the historical background and the brilliant depiction of Britain throughout John’s younger years.  He talks about things that were already disappearing, like quiet times fishing with his grandfather, and the history of Colchester (the town he mostly grows up in) and its schools.  He’s undoubtedly a very good writer and I think he could pull off a novel if he tried, especially if he set it in the places he knows best.

The Boy Who Loved Books definitely had issues, but Sutherland is a good writer.  If you can ignore the aspects I had problems with, I think this would be a good choice.

I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.

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Review: The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson grew up in 1950s America, on record as one of the happiest decades in American history (at least for white people – I’m pretty sure they were the only ones surveyed at the time).  And his childhood is equally nostalgic and idyllic, full of boyish fun like locking all the stalls in the bathroom and peeing on Lincoln Logs to see them turn white.  Bryson doesn’t skimp on the harsher issues of the time, though, even though he didn’t experience them, covering the difficult aspects of the fifties like atomic bombs, widespread unhealthy behavior, and unrelenting racism and prejudice.

This was the first book I read by Bill Bryson.  I knew about his popularity, but I still wasn’t really sure what to expect besides a funny memoir.  I definitely got that and then some.  At first, I was a little concerned that the book was going to be all about his childhood, especially when he introduced the joke of the Thunderbolt Kid, and paint an idyllic image that didn’t accurately represent the truth of the period.  He didn’t, though; he recognizes all the problems that the country had even though he depicts his own childhood through the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia.  For example, he idolizes his mother even though he acknowledges the clear difficulties she must have had while working, raising three children, and still being responsible for everything around the house.  He discusses the fact that women were relegated mostly to the home – in a number of states it was actually illegal for a married woman to work.  He cherishes all that she does, but he seems to acknowledge that it must have been much too difficult for her.

Bryson’s life feels very much like small town America even though he actually grew up in a city – Des Moines, Iowa.  Everything is in walking distance – the sweet shop, the three different elaborate movie theaters, his parents’ newspaper offices, and so on.  All the kids hung out outside pretty much all day in the summer in huge groups, something that never seems to happen these days.  My own parents, who are a little bit younger than Bryson, have also commented on this.  It wasn’t really necessary for the kids to be driven anywhere to have fun because they could get pretty much wherever they wanted.  Bryson even had the first job of the typical American kid – he’s a paperboy, in the richest section of town because his father was important at the paper.  From his own experience, it’s hard to be surprised that Americans supposedly reached the peak of happiness in 1957. For the first time, many people could afford things they’d only dreamed about and even some things they hadn’t.

But he also talks about the bad parts of the 50s.  Cigarettes were healthy, atomic and hydrogen bomb explosions had an audience, and additives were injected into food for mostly the first time.  Everything seemed blissful, but the problems that were set to continue affecting Americans up to this day were still happening.  As a kid, though, Bryson thought everyone seemed cheerful about it.  He got along just fine with kids of other races and the problems that the rest of the world experienced passed him by.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid was a very enjoyable memoir that I thought effectively covered both the author’s childhood and the wider issues going on in the country at the time.  It was the perfect mix of personal and national issues with a fantastic touch of humor.  I’m really looking forward to reading more by Bill Bryson.

I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.

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Review: Dreams From My Father, Barack Obama

We all know who Barack Obama is now, but how did he get here?  What motivated him?  From his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia to his rougher college years and on to his time as a community organizer in Chicago, Obama writes eloquently and compellingly about serious issues that we all wish were in the past already, like racism, suffering, and poverty.

Yep, I voted for Barack Obama.  And I’m still quite proud that we, a country still astonishingly full of racism in so many ways, managed to elect a black man to the Presidency.  So ever since then, I’ve been very curious about where he came from and how he got to the point where it was reasonable that he might become President.  Unfortunately this book doesn’t go quite that far and ends right before he heads to law school, so his final motivations remain unclear.  But I think this memoir is valuable for a lot of the things he says but also because it was written before he ever thought to go that far, and as such I think he is somewhat more candid about his life than he would have otherwise been – he mentions drug use numerous times, for example.

I enjoyed how this particular memoir followed a narrative path.  Obama acknowledges in the foreword that he changed the names of people he knew and sometimes melded them together to make for an easier reading experience, which at first I wasn’t sure I liked but I’m sure those people are grateful for it now.  I definitely felt like I was on a journey, from the moment he realized that he looked different from his mother and grandparents for the first time, to the idolization of his father, to his eventual success and work on behalf of poor black communities in Chicago. I was impressed by how well the memoir was organized and written; it’s also a bit more academic and thoughtful in structure than I would imagine most memoirs written by political figures to be.  He doesn’t talk much about his truly personal life – he almost never mentions relationships with women – and I appreciated that a lot.

I was also surprised by how clearly I recognized his narrative voice.  I was impressed by how he could reflect on his own experiences and apply them to the wider world – how he was confused as a black teenager and in some way identifies with the teens of Chicago but also recognizes that he was more privileged than them.  He can acknowledge the faults of his family members even as it’s obvious how deeply he loved them.  I was surprisingly depressed by his experiences in Chicago and saddened by the situation that poor black families found themselves in, with little kids living in houses full of asbestos and public officials lying about its presence.  And I was astonished at the stigma that a mixed race couple experienced when he was in his twenties.  I have never understood such discrimination and it truly makes me sad when love is dismissed by society because it doesn’t look like the norm.

I truly believe that even people who are the opposite side of the political divide will gain value from this book.  It’s not political at all – which is why I chose this one and not his other book – and it is a surprisingly compelling story of a confused boy growing into a man who wants to help people.  His life story is fascinating and I was particularly intrigued by the parts of the book set in Kenya and Indonesia, two places I’d never really thought about in depth.  Obama’s outsider understanding of these cultures helped mark them out for me and gave me a lot to think about.  I am very glad I read Dreams From My Father and I’ve only touched on a few of the many parts of this book that made me think – it’s a valuable memoir that I fully enjoyed reading.

I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library. They like Barack Obama in the UK.

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Review: Talking about Jane Austen in Baghdad, Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit

Bee Rowlatt is a BBC journalist looking for an Iraqi woman to interview.  She’s married to a journalist, has two little girls, and leads a fairly normal life in London.  May Witwit is an English professor living in Iraq, teaching things like freedom and democracy to female students who have never had those privileges.  When Bee gets into contact with May, they start emailing each other and soon develop an incredibly close relationship.  As the danger to May escalates, Bee’s worry overcomes her and the friends hatch a plan to get May and her husband out of Baghdad for good.

I loved this book in so many different ways.  It was eye-opening, poignant, and just flat out amazing.  I’m not even sure I can effectively review it – I kind of just want everyone to read it right this minute.

The book is not really a memoir, it’s just a record of every email sent between Bee and May over the course of two years, during which they meet, grow close enough to call one another sisters, and desperately try to get May out of her life-threatening situation.  It’s also not at all about Jane Austen, but I didn’t particularly care.  May is an English professor and that’s about as far as it goes – but the title isn’t what is important here.

At first it was the differences between their lives that struck me – both are intelligent women with incredibly vivid personalities, but location has its effects.  Bee’s biggest problems are that her girls frustrate her and she has fights with her husband occasionally, especially when he goes on work trips for weeks.  She has laundry to do, meals to cook, and works part-time. Her life was so familiar to me, which put it in even more vivid contrast with May’s life.

May is at risk every single day.  Bombs drop next door to her house, her friends and colleagues are killed, and her life is personally threatened.  She could die at any moment and Bee often expresses the worry that she might just never hear from May again.  Because her husband is a Sunni and their marriage has ostracized them from their families, she has to support them both.  In times of danger, he simply can’t leave the house.  The obstacles that prevent them from even emigrating to a neighboring country are absolutely immense and often ridiculous.  May actually laments that things were more organized when Saddam was in control, which I just couldn’t believe.

There was some political comment in the book, of course – May hates the Americans’ presence and feels they’ve made her life worse, which made me so sad, but I could unfortunately see her point.  I think anyone would hate the people who brought danger and war to their doorstep, no matter how well-meaning.  The asylum issue was mentioned again and as usual the women establish that it’s virtually impossible to attain asylum in the UK, especially because you have to get there to do it and they won’t let you in if you’re actually claiming asylum.  They go the academia route instead and try to get May out with a student visa so she can do her PhD.

I just loved the relationship that developed between the two women – it felt so real to me.  They also sometimes talk on the phone or send text messages, which left unfortunate little gaps in the narrative.  I was greedy for all of their contact, really.  It was incredible to read about two women with entirely different life experiences just connecting.  I feel like this sort of story can go a long way towards reminding us that we’re all people, no matter what religion or skin color – it genuinely doesn’t matter, and I wish that it didn’t in reality to so many.

I think what I can’t sum up so easily is that Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad moved me incredibly.  I was cheering for May the whole way and at times I could easily have broken into tears.  Their story was just amazing and I hope that more people read it and learn that the differences between us aren’t really so immense after all.

I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.

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Review: Chinese Cinderella, Adeline Yen Mah

Adeline’s mother died when she was a baby.  As the fifth child, with three brothers and a sister, she was always going to be teased, but when she was a year old her father remarried a woman who had it out for her predecessor’s children.  Adeline’s stepmother was half French, automatically placing her above the rest of her Chinese family.  While Adeline and her four older siblings wore old clothes, ate cheap food, and weren’t allowed to see any of their friends outside of school, her stepmother’s children were pampered and treated with endless luxuries.  They walked to school while their younger siblings were given money for the tram or driven to the most exclusive schools available.  Adeline yearned to escape and distinguished herself at school, but her life often seemed like the worst misery possible.

This memoir was absolutely heartbreaking.  I just could not believe anyone could treat a little girl so badly.  It’s obvious that Adeline (her Chinese name is Jun-ling) is a clever child with a huge heart.  She loves her grandparents and her aunt, the only people who treat her well, with an earnest devotion that I wished she could have applied to her parents.  Instead, her stepmother convinces her father that his older children deserve nothing but the worst – subsistence food, hideous clothes, unflattering but cheap haircuts.  They are mocked in school and at home alike.

I was amazed that Adeline could retain her sense of self despite all of the abuse.  She has no self-esteem, but she is a good person and as such she makes friends.  Eventually, people flock to her, leading to one of the saddest scenes in the book.  It wouldn’t have been so bad even if the siblings that shared a mother with her had compassion, but they are either innately cruel, venting their unhappiness on their little sister, or seek her stepmother’s approval and then continue to mock her.

Adeline’s story is intertwined with the history and culture of China.  It’s often obvious that this is a middle grade book and that the history is slightly simplified for the child’s mind, but it lends flavor to the story and Adeline’s surroundings.  The book would really be perfect for a middle grade reader eager to learn more about the wider world – I know I learned virtually nothing of twentieth century China in school.  There is a follow-up for young adult readers which I have already requested from the library and am very eager to read.

Chinese Cinderella was a fast, simple but absolutely heartbreaking read.  It’s a memoir that will have you cheering for Adeline and hoping that she finally earns happiness in the end.

I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.

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Read-a-Thon Mini Reviews: On the Edge and Wishful Drinking

I fully intended to write full reviews for these books, but time has gone away from me!  I thought mini-reviews would be easier and then I’d have less chance of forgetting what I actually read.

Wishful DrinkingWishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher

In this memoir, Carrie Fisher takes the opportunity to humorously reflect on what she remembers of her life since she got electroshock therapy.  The famous actress talks about such topics as her parents’ many marriages and her movie experiences with pictures to illustrate her life.

I mostly chose this book because I’ve always been a huge Star Wars fan.  I knew Carrie Fisher has had quite a challenging life, so I thought it would make for interesting reading besides the Star Wars memories.  Unfortunately I was disappointed on both fronts.  She mentions very little about Star Wars and she treats her whole life as a joke.  I could definitely tell the book was first a stand-up routine, but it wasn’t really funny in writing.  A couple of jokes caught me, but for the most part I could tell it was meant to be funny but wasn’t working.

On the bright side, the book was short and it took me less than two hours to read, making it a good Read-a-Thon choice from a totals perspective!

On the EdgeOn the Edge, Ilona Andrews

Rose Drayton lives on the Edge, between the magic world (The Weird) and the nonmagic world (The Broken).  Edgers can easily travel between the worlds – Rose works in the Broken – but don’t feel at home in either.  Because Rose’s magic is far stronger than it should be, she’s been pursued as a marriage prospect for years.  All she wants is to stay home and take care of her little brothers.  The world’s not going to leave her alone, though, because one day Declan Camarine, a noble from the Weird, walks straight into her life and refuses to leave.  When strange things start attacking people in the Edge, Rose has to get past her dislike of Declan and work with him to save her home.

Ilona Andrews, really the pseudonym of a husband and wife pair of writers, continues to put out awesome books.  This one is definitely not an exception.  It’s more romantic than the Kate Daniels series (not like I mind!) and is quite self-contained, so I’m not sure whether not it will be developed into a series.  I really liked the two boys, Georgie and Jack, and the different ways they, Rose, and Declan all had magic.  If there is another book in the series, I hope we can spend more time in the Weird!

I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed one of these books and purchased the other.

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Review: Cherries in Winter, Suzan Colon

When the economic downturn hit in 2008, Suzan Colon prepared for disaster – and rightly so.  Writers are among the least essential employees, and she was shortly laid off from her lucrative job at a popular magazine.  While her husband managed to keep his job, Suzan decided to start saving money by cooking more food from scratch.  So she got her grandmother Matilda’s recipe book from her mother, and with it started to unearth a store of memories.  Among Matilda’s recipes are Suzan’s recollections on her own hard times and many recounted stories from her family’s history from the late nineteenth century to the present.

I had a big problem with about a third of this book.  Namely, I couldn’t relate to the author.  I might be a bit harsh, but I’m not sure someone who had a six-figure job, continues to do freelance work, and has a year’s worth of savings is really the person to listen to about hard times.  Sure, she can no longer justify $40 on having her eyebrows tweezed and can’t shop at the high-end organic grocery store in the center of Manhattan, but then I was thinking, who can justify these things?  And could I deal with her unhappiness that she had to switch to a cheaper face moisturiser when I can’t justify buying any?  Cut backs are necessary for her, but she’s not missing out on anything essential, and it’s clear her husband thinks her reaction is a little over-the-top. I shared his feelings, especially when he spends $70 on groceries for one home-cooked dinner and she worries when he doesn’t eat half a banana.  I know what it’s like to worry about money, but half a banana?  Suffice it to say, if you actually are poor, this is probably not a book for you.  I was left wondering if she had to fill in the pieces to justify writing a book.  After all, she needed the extra income.

It might work better for someone in Suzan’s income bracket.  I’m probably being unfair, in that she never really complains. She is a fairly even narrator and she maintains a lot of joy in her life.  I just think it all rubbed me the wrong way, because there are plenty of people in the US (and far more over the world) who are actually starving, who have no health insurance, no home, and can’t figure out where the money for the bills is going to come from.  At least she donates to charity.

On the other hand, however, I really liked her family’s stories, and I did find them inspirational.  For example, her great-grandmother once came home with a collection of vases, a little splurge to make her feel better in a hard time when her family mostly ate applesauce and bread, and those vases are still around.  (Seriously, how can you compare the author’s attempts at cooking meaty meals from scratch with applesauce and bread for a week?  See my point?)  I loved her grandmother’s story, too; she was a typist who rose through the ranks and became a talented writer, if she never published, after nearly starving as a girl when she was forced to work to feed her entire family.  And the way her grandparents moved to Florida on $100 and made it work was great.  I liked the message, which was to sometimes justify little unnecessary expenses to help get you through the hard times, although again, this is just not possible for some people.  This is a book for the upper middle class, no question.

Is it worth reading for that?  Probably not.  There are plenty of memoirs dealing with hard times and I don’t know that this one really did much for me.  The recipes weren’t really anything to write home about, and to be honest, I’m not sure they would save that much money if you’re already cooking from scratch.  I mean, one of them is for spaghetti with a jar of pasta sauce.  I save money by making my *own* pasta sauce, which is healthier, cheaper, and tastes better than a store-bought jar.  I’m sure that one was more for effect, but I just didn’t really need to read about rich people who are less rich now and whose cut back circumstances are more luxurious than my life on a good day.

So, in short, Cherries in Winter was not the book for me.  But plenty of people seem to like it, so it might be the book for you.

I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the publisher for review.

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Review: The Long March, Sun Shuyun

Communist China’s Long March is famed throughout the country.  Children, like the author Sun Shuyun, are taught the story over and over again in school and there are plays and films about it.  The author decides to do her own version of the Long March, following in the footsteps of the Red Army and visiting the few remaining veterans along the route, with some diversions for research purposes.  Through her journey, she attempts to uncover the truth of what these people endured, and of the Long March itself.

Recently, and somewhat unexpectedly, I have become very interested in China, and this book seemed like a good choice to continue with non-fiction.  And it was; I liked it and I learned a surprising amount about The Long March.  The author’s experience on her own Long March took a definite backseat to her exploration of the experiences of those she met and her explanations of the historical background.  I was pleased with that because this could easily have become about how difficult the trip was for the author, given that it was, but she often emphasized the fact that if she was struggling, how much harder must it have been walking the whole time with threadbare clothes, no food, and no help?

I was most interested in the veterans’ stories, and how even though almost all of them endured horrifying hardships and were later targeted during the Cultural Revolution, most of them were still devoted Communists.  I found this hard to believe, given all they suffered in the name of communism, and did wonder if they were genuine, but it’s impossible not to admire their devotion, courage, and resilience, so it’s hard to come out of the book without feeling the same.  I felt like each of them were individuals and their stories were each fascinating and sometimes just horrifying.  The women’s stories in particular were so affecting and hard to read.

What came out clearly was how difficult the Long March was, and the author did find a kind of truth in comparing the words of the survivors with official records.  As she says, definitive answers are hard because documentation was destroyed, and Mao’s version of the Long March has become Chinese history.  This is disturbing to me and I was glad she was driven to reveal some of the truth.  The author’s surprise at her discoveries is palpable throughout the book.  At one point she sees a filmmaker who is also interviewing people about this subject, and he quite blatantly tells her what they’ll have to cut out because it doesn’t fit the official version, even if the stories are true.

Overall, I found The Long March a really fascinating memoir/historical investigation.  I would definitely recommend it to those who are interested in learning more about Chinese history.

I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.

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