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jamierose's review
I should probably start off by saying this is way outside of my usual genre. I do enjoy historical fiction from time to time, but this was verging on literary in its style and I didn't get on with it at all - in fact I DNF'd it at roughly halfway (326 pages).
I found it a very densely written book, with long sentences, long paragrahs, long passages of description without break. Unfortuantely, though there were clearly some interesting things happening around the characters, they were described with the same detachment as the settings or the history interludes. To be fair, much of the description was very lyrically and beautifully written, but there was so much of it became unbeliveably wearing. I couldn't engage with any of the characters because we were so often told what they thought, felt and did by the authorly voice of authority rather than really experiencing how they were affected by the events surrounding them. When actual dialogue was involved, they had distinct, vivid voices - but it was such a small portion of their time on page, it wasn't enough to shift the tone of the overall book.
And despite this, it was clear the characters and their entanglements are suppose to be the focus of the book. The politics, the civil war and espionage all serve a a backdrop to two sets of entangled lives - a set of rather unpleasant ex-pat socialites and their various - often tawdry - affairs, and a set of young Chinese men and women with varying degrees of association to the revolutionary cause. The connections between the two groups are set up early on and their lives bounce off each other from time to time, but by the stage I gave up there was no clear sense of the stories coming together.
I also found it very irritating the way 'extra' points of view sould sometimes be dropped into the story. People who aren't major players in either storyline would have one or two brief snatches of narrative attention which as far as I could see served the author's convenience rather than the story.
So in summary: Ugh. If you're a fan of this style of historical fiction, don't let my experience put you off. But if you're used to a more immediate, engaged style of writing, or if you're looking for something a bit different, or even if you've been sucked in by a pretty cover and clever blurb (guilty!) - you have been warned.
Oh, also, the writing is tiny in this edition. Those you could easily add another hundred or so pages to these 710 if they were printed like most books. And I read big books with small print all the time.
I found it a very densely written book, with long sentences, long paragrahs, long passages of description without break. Unfortuantely, though there were clearly some interesting things happening around the characters, they were described with the same detachment as the settings or the history interludes. To be fair, much of the description was very lyrically and beautifully written, but there was so much of it became unbeliveably wearing. I couldn't engage with any of the characters because we were so often told what they thought, felt and did by the authorly voice of authority rather than really experiencing how they were affected by the events surrounding them. When actual dialogue was involved, they had distinct, vivid voices - but it was such a small portion of their time on page, it wasn't enough to shift the tone of the overall book.
And despite this, it was clear the characters and their entanglements are suppose to be the focus of the book. The politics, the civil war and espionage all serve a a backdrop to two sets of entangled lives - a set of rather unpleasant ex-pat socialites and their various - often tawdry - affairs, and a set of young Chinese men and women with varying degrees of association to the revolutionary cause. The connections between the two groups are set up early on and their lives bounce off each other from time to time, but by the stage I gave up there was no clear sense of the stories coming together.
I also found it very irritating the way 'extra' points of view sould sometimes be dropped into the story. People who aren't major players in either storyline would have one or two brief snatches of narrative attention which as far as I could see served the author's convenience rather than the story.
So in summary: Ugh. If you're a fan of this style of historical fiction, don't let my experience put you off. But if you're used to a more immediate, engaged style of writing, or if you're looking for something a bit different, or even if you've been sucked in by a pretty cover and clever blurb (guilty!) - you have been warned.
Oh, also, the writing is tiny in this edition. Those you could easily add another hundred or so pages to these 710 if they were printed like most books. And I read big books with small print all the time.
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