A curious insider work, so self-engrossed that it neglects to impart a larger picture.
An extremely close—indeed, hermetically sealed—second-hand look inside 17th-century China.
This intimate study by Spence (History/Yale; Treason by the Book, 2001, etc.) involves the life and work of aristocratic Chinese scholar Zhang Dai, from the prosperous east coast town of Shaoxing. Zhang found his life’s mission in recording the history of the stylish Ming dynasty, which had been in place 229 years by the time he was born in 1597 but would be eclipsed by Manchu invaders in 1644. At the same time that the dynasty was enjoying its apogee in intellectual, philosophical and aesthetic developments, Zhang’s family was moving from the country to the city, enjoying pleasures of the lantern arts, music clubs, cock-fighting and brothel hopping, among others. Hailing from a line of scholars, Zhang did not pass his provincial exams, but devoted himself to a life of reading and pleasures. By 1616 he had married Lady Liu, by whom he had many children. His first works were a list of compact biographical studies, Profiles of Righteous and Honorable People Through the Ages and Ice Mountain, an operatic play that dramatized the rise and fall of the eunuch Wei Zhongxian, who had taken over the reigns of Ming rule under Tianqi. Following insurrection by Manchu troops, Beijing was seized and Zhang’s family scattered. In hungry exile, he wrote his rueful Dream Recollections, drawing solace from Chinese poet Tao Qian and biographies of his family members. The final end of the Ming dynasty enabled Zhang to complete The Stone Casket and its sequel, which brought him some renown later in life. The problem here is that his life is recorded second-hand, as a paraphrase largely drained of energy. Spence might have served the reader better by giving an accessible translation of Zhang’s own aphoristic words.
A curious insider work, so self-engrossed that it neglects to impart a larger picture.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-670-06357-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2007
IN THE NEWS
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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