Zhu Xiao Mei was born in post-war China to middle-class parents. Taught first by her mother , she showed unusual talent and was just 10 yrears old when she began intensive studies at the Beijing Conservatory of Music. In 1966, when she was 17 Mao's Cultural Revolution began and life changed forever. Her family members were scattered and sent to prison or labor camps and three years later, Xiao-Mei was sent to a work camp in Mongolia where she spent the next five years in horrific living conditions. She - like all the others there - were brainwashed and she truly believed she was helping the Revolution by informing on her prison mates, renouncing her family, and submitting to self-criticism, a very important aspect of life in the prison. But still she kept her passion for music, and when the Revolution finally ended, it was her piano and her music that helped her to heal.
She eventually fled to Hong Kong, from there to the US, where she found it very difficult to live and function, although she had a wonderful piano professor. She then went to Paris, where she still lives.
Her philosophy of music is all tied in with her way of living - Taoism is very strong here. I downloaded her recording of the Goldberg Variations and it is truly amazing. She's a very inspirational woman.
I downloaded this book because it was cheap and also as a further study towards our Book Club theme of China from 1885 to the present. I didn't expect it to be so musically inspirational! As a matter of fact, after I read Part One I fooled around with the idea of not continuing, but the remainder of the book was even more interesting.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Monday, July 23, 2012
The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay ✔✔✔✔
Now this one I really enjoyed! I read The Birth House by the same author, so I snatched this one up when I dropped into the library last week.
The Virgin Cure is set in New York City in 1871, and the narrator is Moth, the daughter of a gypsy and a father who early on deserted the family. When she is 12, Moth is "sold" to a Mrs. Wentworth and becomes a lady's maid, which basically means she has to endure regular beatings and humiliations at Mrs. Wentworth's hands. After fleeing the Wentworth mansion, and failing to find her mother, Moth becomes homeless and then is taken to Miss Everett's home and begins training to become a whore.
The Virgin Cure refers to a myth among men of riches at the time who suffered from syphilis and believed that deflowering a virgin would cure them. When this happened, the young girl often died a painful death from syphilis herself.
This was a very colorful story - the mansions, vaudeville theatres, the back alleys of New York, the Bowery and all. It's a good recommendation for our Mother-Daughter theme as well - despite the fact that her mother rarely held her, that she exploited her and finally sold her then disappeared herself - Moth truly loves her mother and stays in a terrible situation simply because she doesn't want to disappoint her mother.
The Virgin Cure is set in New York City in 1871, and the narrator is Moth, the daughter of a gypsy and a father who early on deserted the family. When she is 12, Moth is "sold" to a Mrs. Wentworth and becomes a lady's maid, which basically means she has to endure regular beatings and humiliations at Mrs. Wentworth's hands. After fleeing the Wentworth mansion, and failing to find her mother, Moth becomes homeless and then is taken to Miss Everett's home and begins training to become a whore.
The Virgin Cure refers to a myth among men of riches at the time who suffered from syphilis and believed that deflowering a virgin would cure them. When this happened, the young girl often died a painful death from syphilis herself.
This was a very colorful story - the mansions, vaudeville theatres, the back alleys of New York, the Bowery and all. It's a good recommendation for our Mother-Daughter theme as well - despite the fact that her mother rarely held her, that she exploited her and finally sold her then disappeared herself - Moth truly loves her mother and stays in a terrible situation simply because she doesn't want to disappoint her mother.
Hangman's Blind by Cassandra Clark ✔✔
I downloaded this title to my Kindle because it was a mystery about a medieval nun named Hildegard - sounded interesting. There's a fair amount of description about life in those times - castles, convents,abbeys, small villages,festivals, jousts and all - and that was quite interesting, and the mystery itself was intruiging enough to keep me reading, although I really wasn't terribly taken with the novel on the whole. As I write this, I'm not even sure who the murderer was, and I don't care!
Monday, July 9, 2012
Dreams of Joy by Lisa See ✔✔✔✔
I copied this summary from Book Browse
Lisa See continues the story of sisters Pearl and May from Shanghai Girls, and Pearl's strong-willed nineteen-year-old daughter, Joy.
Reeling from newly uncovered family secrets, and anger at her mother and aunt for keeping them from her, Joy runs away to Shanghai in early 1957 to find her birth father - the artist Z.G. Li, with whom both May and Pearl were once in love. Dazzled by him, and blinded by idealism and defiance, Joy throws herself into the New Society of Red China, heedless of the dangers in the communist regime.
Devastated by Joy's flight and terrified for her safety, Pearl is determined to save her daughter, no matter the personal cost. From the crowded city to remote villages, Pearl confronts old demons and almost insurmountable challenges as she follows Joy, hoping for reconciliation. Yet even as Joy's and Pearl's separate journeys converge, one of the most tragic episodes in China's history threatens their very lives.
Acclaimed for her richly drawn characters and vivid storytelling, Lisa See once again renders a family challenged by tragedy and time, yet ultimately united by the resilience of love.
I found this a little slow-going at first, and somewhat unbelievable - we're not told why Joy suddenly flies to Hong Kong to eventually enter Red China, only that there has been a big upset between Pearl and May, at which time Joy discovers that May is her real mother, not Pearl, who is in fact her aunt. Upon arriving in Shanghai, it takes Joy all of 30 minutes to find Z.G.! Certainly Joy is quite idealistic - a typical 19 year old who has a high opinion of herself and refuses to listen to common sense, but we see as the novel moves on why she was presented this way in the beginning.
Her experiences at the Green Dragon commune are horrific - the constant loudspeakers spouting out propoganda, the communal living and social interaction. Oh, I forgot to mention when Joy arrives in Shanghai the immigration officer throws out her bras - they are considered a Western abomination!
Then there's Mao's Great Leap Forward, how everything has to be "faster, bigger, better" than the enemies', specifically the USA, and how this results in a terrible famine where the families at the commune are restricted to 1/4 of one person's ration to feed the whole family, how they eat leaves, roots, rats, mice anything to stay alive and of course many of them die terrible deaths.
Lisa See writes well and thoroughly and I ended up learning a lot from this novel. Our Book Club theme for September is China from 1885 to the present, and this will certainly be part of that discussion.
Lisa See continues the story of sisters Pearl and May from Shanghai Girls, and Pearl's strong-willed nineteen-year-old daughter, Joy.
Reeling from newly uncovered family secrets, and anger at her mother and aunt for keeping them from her, Joy runs away to Shanghai in early 1957 to find her birth father - the artist Z.G. Li, with whom both May and Pearl were once in love. Dazzled by him, and blinded by idealism and defiance, Joy throws herself into the New Society of Red China, heedless of the dangers in the communist regime.
Devastated by Joy's flight and terrified for her safety, Pearl is determined to save her daughter, no matter the personal cost. From the crowded city to remote villages, Pearl confronts old demons and almost insurmountable challenges as she follows Joy, hoping for reconciliation. Yet even as Joy's and Pearl's separate journeys converge, one of the most tragic episodes in China's history threatens their very lives.
Acclaimed for her richly drawn characters and vivid storytelling, Lisa See once again renders a family challenged by tragedy and time, yet ultimately united by the resilience of love.
I found this a little slow-going at first, and somewhat unbelievable - we're not told why Joy suddenly flies to Hong Kong to eventually enter Red China, only that there has been a big upset between Pearl and May, at which time Joy discovers that May is her real mother, not Pearl, who is in fact her aunt. Upon arriving in Shanghai, it takes Joy all of 30 minutes to find Z.G.! Certainly Joy is quite idealistic - a typical 19 year old who has a high opinion of herself and refuses to listen to common sense, but we see as the novel moves on why she was presented this way in the beginning.
Her experiences at the Green Dragon commune are horrific - the constant loudspeakers spouting out propoganda, the communal living and social interaction. Oh, I forgot to mention when Joy arrives in Shanghai the immigration officer throws out her bras - they are considered a Western abomination!
Then there's Mao's Great Leap Forward, how everything has to be "faster, bigger, better" than the enemies', specifically the USA, and how this results in a terrible famine where the families at the commune are restricted to 1/4 of one person's ration to feed the whole family, how they eat leaves, roots, rats, mice anything to stay alive and of course many of them die terrible deaths.
Lisa See writes well and thoroughly and I ended up learning a lot from this novel. Our Book Club theme for September is China from 1885 to the present, and this will certainly be part of that discussion.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn ✔✔✔
Gillian Flynn's latest novel was mentioned on one of Sheila Rogers' programs, and I searched her name in the library and found this title, her first crime novel. I read it in three days - in between finishing off the Elvis bio, which I found hard reading for any great length of time.
It ends up this book may well serve as an interesting possibility for discussion when we have the Mother-Daughter theme next year. Camille, who writes for a little-known Chicago paper, is sent back to her small home town in the south to investigate the possibility of a serial murderer: two young girls have been murdered a year apart, but found in similar circumstances - their teeth had been pulled out after death. Camille's mother, Adora, is a central character in the book, and not likeable at all, and neither is Camille's young step-sister, Amma, who is only 13 buts acts like she's 25. Camille herself has her own problems as a result of her lifelong alienation from her mother - she never knew her father, she lost her younger sister Marian to illness, and she has been a lifelong cutter - at this point she's not cutting any more simply because there's nowhere else to cut, but she does write all over herself!
Weird, but an easy enough read - I prefer the more old-fashioned bullets or knives for murder weapons, and there's a lot of drug stuff going on, but hey- that's the world today. And the word "computer" is never even mentioned!!
It ends up this book may well serve as an interesting possibility for discussion when we have the Mother-Daughter theme next year. Camille, who writes for a little-known Chicago paper, is sent back to her small home town in the south to investigate the possibility of a serial murderer: two young girls have been murdered a year apart, but found in similar circumstances - their teeth had been pulled out after death. Camille's mother, Adora, is a central character in the book, and not likeable at all, and neither is Camille's young step-sister, Amma, who is only 13 buts acts like she's 25. Camille herself has her own problems as a result of her lifelong alienation from her mother - she never knew her father, she lost her younger sister Marian to illness, and she has been a lifelong cutter - at this point she's not cutting any more simply because there's nowhere else to cut, but she does write all over herself!
Weird, but an easy enough read - I prefer the more old-fashioned bullets or knives for murder weapons, and there's a lot of drug stuff going on, but hey- that's the world today. And the word "computer" is never even mentioned!!
Baby,Let's Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women who Loved Him by Alanna Nash ✔✔✔
Another Elvis bio! He's such an interesting character, and after reading the Guralnick books last year, I found this in the Coles Store on Queen St. E, but didn't buy it till this past spring - I've never seen it anywhere else.
The Guralnick books concentrated more on Elvis'career, although certainly his many girlfriends were mentioned, but this book focuses on his relationships - all of them - and there were thousands! All of them stem from his obsessive relationship with his mother, and even more so after she died, although his losing his older twin at birth certainly had a major impact,too. He was particularly drawn to girls with dark hair - like Gladys - and seemed to be eternally searching for her replacement. In his final years, which are quite hard to read about, he even reverted to baby talk, fetal positions, and play-acting in which he would be the baby and his girlfriends the mother.
I didn't like Elvis as much in this book for sure, and I didn't like many of the women who basically gave up their lives - they had to! - for him. Ann-Margret appears to have been the love of his life, the marriage with Priscilla was over even before they actually married, although they remained good friends right to the end, and Colonel Parker was an asshole who manipulated and controlled Elvis to feed his own gambling habit. Even when Elvis was gravely ill towards the end of his life, and the Colonel saw how ill he was, he just barked out orders to the "entourage" to get him better fast because he had a show coming up.
This was another long bio - over 600 pages - but I think I'm done reading about Elvis now!
The Guralnick books concentrated more on Elvis'career, although certainly his many girlfriends were mentioned, but this book focuses on his relationships - all of them - and there were thousands! All of them stem from his obsessive relationship with his mother, and even more so after she died, although his losing his older twin at birth certainly had a major impact,too. He was particularly drawn to girls with dark hair - like Gladys - and seemed to be eternally searching for her replacement. In his final years, which are quite hard to read about, he even reverted to baby talk, fetal positions, and play-acting in which he would be the baby and his girlfriends the mother.
I didn't like Elvis as much in this book for sure, and I didn't like many of the women who basically gave up their lives - they had to! - for him. Ann-Margret appears to have been the love of his life, the marriage with Priscilla was over even before they actually married, although they remained good friends right to the end, and Colonel Parker was an asshole who manipulated and controlled Elvis to feed his own gambling habit. Even when Elvis was gravely ill towards the end of his life, and the Colonel saw how ill he was, he just barked out orders to the "entourage" to get him better fast because he had a show coming up.
This was another long bio - over 600 pages - but I think I'm done reading about Elvis now!
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