Empire Of The Sun
Empire Of The Sun is the story of a little British boy named Jamie who is forced to grow up and become Jim, when he is interred in a prison camp in China by the Japanese during World War Two.
In the camp he runs wild, whilst those around him try and help him as best they can.
The prose is excellent and the imagery evocative of pre-War China and a certain social class at a certain time, and it engaged me from the beginning, but there were other ways in which I was left puzzled by it.
I was surprised when at the back an interview with J. G Ballard revealed that he was not in fact separated from his parents but interred alongside them and that he chose to write this semi-autobiographical novel as if he was not with them because he felt completely estranged from them from their internment onwards. They could no longer take care of him, and were in a position were they held no authority, and so his entire relationship with them crumbled.
Heartbreaking as this is; this then made some sense of what is by far the silliest and most implausible section of the book, when separated from his parents, Jim meanders around Shanghai alone, riding his bike around and living in other people's houses before hooking up with two American seamen. To hear that this part was a fictional element came as no surprise.
The books strength lies in his journey to the camp, and his experiences there and at various stops along the way which, stark and bleak, feel like truth.
The other interesting element here is Jim's apparent disconnect from events, as atrocity unfolds around him Jim seems to become anaesthetised having adjusted to this war and this life that he leads now, were stealing from the starving and from the dead is not just necessary but normal.
In some ways this makes him an unsympathetic character and in others this emphasises the true price of war.
As a whole it was a thought provoking novel, I read it as it was the favourite of an old friend, but I somehow didn't become completely absorbed in it or become wowed by it, in the same way for example that I was wowed by fellow war memoir The Things They Carried.
It is however, a book destined to be, as the series it comes from suggests, a perennial classic.
8/10
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Tuesday, 30 December 2014
Sunday, 7 October 2012
Book #82 The Art Of War by Sun Tzu
The Art Of War
The Art Of War by ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu is a treatise on military strategy. I bought it for a friend of mine years ago, but never read it myself. Then, it was referenced on Breaking Bad and I thought I'd give it a whirl. At only 70 pages long it's a fairly quick read, but it is packed full of truisms that apply even outside of a war if one finds oneself in a contentious situation. I read this on the Kindle but I really think this is one that needs owning as a paperback, because it contains words of philosophical wisdom I'm sure I will come back to again and again. 9/10
The Art Of War by ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu is a treatise on military strategy. I bought it for a friend of mine years ago, but never read it myself. Then, it was referenced on Breaking Bad and I thought I'd give it a whirl. At only 70 pages long it's a fairly quick read, but it is packed full of truisms that apply even outside of a war if one finds oneself in a contentious situation. I read this on the Kindle but I really think this is one that needs owning as a paperback, because it contains words of philosophical wisdom I'm sure I will come back to again and again. 9/10
Friday, 23 December 2011
Book #96 In The Shadow Of The Cypress by Thomas Steinbeck
In The Shadow Of The Cypress
Written by Thomas "son of John" Steinbeck, In The Shadow Of The Cypress is perhaps existing proof that the ability to write is non-hereditary. It is a peculiarly vexing novel and proved a struggle for me from the very outset. The first character we are introduced to is academic Charles Gilbert who is working at a Stanford associated laboratory. He has an Irish friend, Billy O'Flynn who has very close associations to the local Chinese fishing community, and one night he discovers two artifacts under a cypress tree that appear to be of some significance. He shows Gilbert, who tries but does not get very far in his attempts to investigate matters. Gilbert contacts a Chinese academic named Lao Hong whose attempts at interacting with the local Chinese elders also seem rather fruitless.
Both these sections belonging to Gilbert and Hong were for me often incomprehensible, impenetrable and more importantly boring, yet there are interesting shades of post colonial "Orientalism" as defined by Edward Said in his 1978 book throughout the novel, but particularly in its earlier sections. On the UK Amazon, there is but one customer review giving this novel five stars but, look at its companion page on the US site and there is a flurry of one and two star reviews, saying they hated the book found it impossible to read and that many of them gave up early on.
I too found the early sections very difficult, and perhaps if not for the challenge would have given up but, the novel switches at the mid way point and moves its narratives to the present day. Prodigious Stanford academic Luke rediscovers Gilbert's old papers regarding the Chinese artifacts and their significance in terms of historical import, teaming up with Chinese colleague Robert Wu he endeavours to uncover an ancient mystery. It is this latter section which makes the events of the former make sense, but, it's whether you have the patience to sit through page after page of confusing, dull, narrative to get to this point, my guess is many won't.
I actually enjoyed the Luke/Wu partnership, the developments and the sense of majesty in the behaviour of Mr Wu Snr. However as their research ends, Steinbeck Jnr gives us a summation of Wu and Luke's lives post their dramatic discovery, what they went on to do, who they married etc. It's very sudden, horribly done and feels terribly amateur like a school kid concluding their first short story. It has a rather nice epilogue, however.
In conclusion this is half a good book and an interesting theory apparently first espoused by Steinbeck Snr, but I would question whether the payoff in the second half was worth what felt like an unending trudge through the first.
5/10
Written by Thomas "son of John" Steinbeck, In The Shadow Of The Cypress is perhaps existing proof that the ability to write is non-hereditary. It is a peculiarly vexing novel and proved a struggle for me from the very outset. The first character we are introduced to is academic Charles Gilbert who is working at a Stanford associated laboratory. He has an Irish friend, Billy O'Flynn who has very close associations to the local Chinese fishing community, and one night he discovers two artifacts under a cypress tree that appear to be of some significance. He shows Gilbert, who tries but does not get very far in his attempts to investigate matters. Gilbert contacts a Chinese academic named Lao Hong whose attempts at interacting with the local Chinese elders also seem rather fruitless.
Both these sections belonging to Gilbert and Hong were for me often incomprehensible, impenetrable and more importantly boring, yet there are interesting shades of post colonial "Orientalism" as defined by Edward Said in his 1978 book throughout the novel, but particularly in its earlier sections. On the UK Amazon, there is but one customer review giving this novel five stars but, look at its companion page on the US site and there is a flurry of one and two star reviews, saying they hated the book found it impossible to read and that many of them gave up early on.
I too found the early sections very difficult, and perhaps if not for the challenge would have given up but, the novel switches at the mid way point and moves its narratives to the present day. Prodigious Stanford academic Luke rediscovers Gilbert's old papers regarding the Chinese artifacts and their significance in terms of historical import, teaming up with Chinese colleague Robert Wu he endeavours to uncover an ancient mystery. It is this latter section which makes the events of the former make sense, but, it's whether you have the patience to sit through page after page of confusing, dull, narrative to get to this point, my guess is many won't.
I actually enjoyed the Luke/Wu partnership, the developments and the sense of majesty in the behaviour of Mr Wu Snr. However as their research ends, Steinbeck Jnr gives us a summation of Wu and Luke's lives post their dramatic discovery, what they went on to do, who they married etc. It's very sudden, horribly done and feels terribly amateur like a school kid concluding their first short story. It has a rather nice epilogue, however.
In conclusion this is half a good book and an interesting theory apparently first espoused by Steinbeck Snr, but I would question whether the payoff in the second half was worth what felt like an unending trudge through the first.
5/10
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Book #14 The Keys Of The Kingdom by A.J Cronin
The Keys Of The Kingdom
I read an extract of this book last August, preceded to buy the novel that Autumn, took it on holiday in the Winter and never actually read it, so along with a couple of other books, I was determined to "do" it.
Hodder reprinted a series of older books that had maybe been forgotten over time The Keys Of The Kingdom among them, and labelled them 'Great Reads' and several others on the list have aroused my curiosity, so they are probably coming soon to a blog near you. What did I think of this one?
Firstly, the novel misrepresents itself "The Bestselling Novel Set in China..." It's slightly over 400 pages long, the first 200 pages are not set in China and neither are roughly the last 60. Excuse me for being a pedant, but that's a novel where the action goes to China for a bit of it if you ask me.
I preferred the earlier part of the novel, dealing with the childhood of Francis Chisholm the novel's protagonist, who later, due to a combination of circumstances enters the priesthood.
Now this novel was published in 1941, before Vatican II, and behaviour which personally I find normal and commendable in a priest is classed as 'renegade' and 'difficult', and you feel very sorry for Father Chisholm, who against some of the other priests featured feels like the only genuine Christian. He has a well rounded belief system coloured in part by exposure to Protestantism in his youth, atheism among his friends and later the writings of Confucius in China. I don't know whether Cronin did this purposely to please allcomers to the novel.
What makes the novel different from The Vintner's Luck, is while God has a distinctly personal feel in that novel, I felt the tradition, dogma and bigotry of the old church seeping through the pages of this novel, with the exception of Chisholm himself.
But here also, I have issue, Chisholm, particularly in the China segment is presented almost as a saint. He is the ultimate, the perfect priest, but I find to deny him anything much in the way of weakness, vice or sin is somehow to deny him humanity.
Despite this the novel is eminently readable and you don't finding yourself slogging at it willing the end to arrive. In it's earlier section Cronin deals with a crime, that he couldn't have possibly been frank about in his era without risking controversy or censorship, with great skill, so that the reader is fully aware of what has taken place without the gory details being spelled out. I feel that this is the mark of a good writer. However, I was surprised at the seemingly automatic and total forgiveness shown to the culprit, though he is shown to have received divine rather than human retribution.
Overall I think I would give this book a 7/10
I read an extract of this book last August, preceded to buy the novel that Autumn, took it on holiday in the Winter and never actually read it, so along with a couple of other books, I was determined to "do" it.
Hodder reprinted a series of older books that had maybe been forgotten over time The Keys Of The Kingdom among them, and labelled them 'Great Reads' and several others on the list have aroused my curiosity, so they are probably coming soon to a blog near you. What did I think of this one?
Firstly, the novel misrepresents itself "The Bestselling Novel Set in China..." It's slightly over 400 pages long, the first 200 pages are not set in China and neither are roughly the last 60. Excuse me for being a pedant, but that's a novel where the action goes to China for a bit of it if you ask me.
I preferred the earlier part of the novel, dealing with the childhood of Francis Chisholm the novel's protagonist, who later, due to a combination of circumstances enters the priesthood.
Now this novel was published in 1941, before Vatican II, and behaviour which personally I find normal and commendable in a priest is classed as 'renegade' and 'difficult', and you feel very sorry for Father Chisholm, who against some of the other priests featured feels like the only genuine Christian. He has a well rounded belief system coloured in part by exposure to Protestantism in his youth, atheism among his friends and later the writings of Confucius in China. I don't know whether Cronin did this purposely to please allcomers to the novel.
What makes the novel different from The Vintner's Luck, is while God has a distinctly personal feel in that novel, I felt the tradition, dogma and bigotry of the old church seeping through the pages of this novel, with the exception of Chisholm himself.
But here also, I have issue, Chisholm, particularly in the China segment is presented almost as a saint. He is the ultimate, the perfect priest, but I find to deny him anything much in the way of weakness, vice or sin is somehow to deny him humanity.
Despite this the novel is eminently readable and you don't finding yourself slogging at it willing the end to arrive. In it's earlier section Cronin deals with a crime, that he couldn't have possibly been frank about in his era without risking controversy or censorship, with great skill, so that the reader is fully aware of what has taken place without the gory details being spelled out. I feel that this is the mark of a good writer. However, I was surprised at the seemingly automatic and total forgiveness shown to the culprit, though he is shown to have received divine rather than human retribution.
Overall I think I would give this book a 7/10
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