Wild Swans Audio CD – Unabridged, 1 May 2015

One of my favourite books, have bought it a few times as gifts to friends

This certainly can't be classed as a light read by any stretch of the imagination and yet it is both hugely interesting and incredibly educational. China is a culture that I have little knowledge of the history and this book is written in such a way to both educate and draw you into the times and cultures depicted. It's a startlingly dark and depressing read at times and yet the writing style never allows you to become bogged down in the undeniably horrific events that have happened to Jung Chang's family - and so many others in China - over the years. Parts of the book almost left me gasping at the sheer inhumanity of humanity and the ways in which neighbour can be set against neighbour and a culture of fear and paranoia permeate every aspect of life.This book depicts a journey in several different ways ; a journey through the generations of three women in China and how the political atmosphere of each period influenced the lives they lived and the journeys they took. It's a journey through the political landscape of China across through a tumultuous period of history and it's an individuals journey of being born into a world where Mao is revered as a God and any criticism is to put yourself in danger of being known as a class enemy. Finally, it's a journey of womanhood through the ages in such a vastly different culture, that changes and evolves, yet still manages to find ways to make individuals lives a misery. The deification of Mao is frightening to behold, not least because it is a true story and the depictions of what is undoubtedly a reign of terror are horrifyingly eye-opening.The bravery of so many individuals within the period rings through the book, as indeed does the eventual disillusionment with Communism and Maoism. The depictions of how family life was warped and twisted in so many ways through propaganda and an insistence that the Party must come first are vivid and yet Jung Chung never allows herself to wallow in pity. Whilst the story closely follows the lives of the three main women across three generations, it is the tale of Jung Chung's father that perhaps hits the hardest and shows the cruelty and random persecution of the Chinese period. Whilst the systematic degradation of women is clear across these three generations, it is in the tale of a moral man living in a land devoid of morality that really strikes hard.Because Jung Chang's father is an infuriating figure at the beginning of the book; when he first marries her mother, he is so indoctrinated and obsessed with the Communist cause that he will cause his family active grief in trying to avoid a charge of nepotism. I winced at how Jung Chang's mother was treated during pregnancy and childbirth and wanted to hit the man for his insensitivity and lack of care. As the tale progresses however, it is his very inflexibility and refusal to bend the rules for anyone that gets him into so much trouble with the Communist rule. He won't stand for corruption and he won't sit silent in fear of the consequences. My heart bled for him and for his family who were taking so much grief because their husband and father was a moral man, trying to live by his own moral code in a world where this was untenable.I found the early book rather dry and almost stilting, but this may be because Jung Chang was talking of events long before her birth. The binding of her grandmother's feet for instance, whilst horrific, didn't have the same emotional impact on me as the later book where she is depicting events that are in her own memory or at least of her parents. I think this is purely due to how close to events Jung Chang was and their emotional relevance to her. If you are struggling with the first few chapters I would definitely recommend sticking with it, because this is a book that is both depressing and inspirational by turns and becomes easier to read, if not to bear, in the sections related to Jung Chang's parents.

This is an epic personal story of life in China over much of the 20th century, told through the stories of three generations of women in one family. The author has lived in Britain since becoming one of the first Chinese students to get a doctorate at a British university since before the communist takeover in 1949. Her grandmother's family came from Manchuria in the extreme north of China, and at the age of 15 in 1924 she was given away as a concubine to one of the warlords vying for control in this part of China in the vacuum created by the overthrow of the last Chinese emperor in 1912. Her mother, the daughter of this union, was one of the early idealistic communists in the years leading up to the 1949 revolution and for the first few heady years of the new regime when there seemed to be a genuine attempt to create a better society and reduce the oppressive and miserable life of the majority of the population, especially in rural areas. The book covers in depth the dramatic and horrific events that followed: the initially promising but quickly aborted attempt at liberalisation that was the Hundred Flowers campaign; the "Great Leap Forward", where much of the country was forced to produce steel to boost industry, to such an extent that agriculture collapsed and famine ensued, in which some 30 million people died, including the author's uncle and great-aunt; then, after a brief period of reform, the appalling "Cultural Revolution", Mao's attempt to create a personal rule, overthrowing much of his own communist apparatus, which dislocated society and economy, destroying much of the country's cultural and historical infrastructure, effectively abolishing education, burning nearly all books, banning films, theatre and sport, seriously blighting the author's teenage years and adult adulthood; and which, despite some relaxation after 1972, didn't fully end until after Mao's death and the overthrow of the Gang of Four, led by his wife, in autumn 1976.Despite this litany of catastrophe, there is hope in the love and closeness of the family, centred here around the three eponymous amazing and strong-minded women. After the death of her warlord "husband", who treated her fairly decently by the standards of the time, the grandmother found happiness married to a much older man; the mother found love with a fellow communist and, despite strains caused by her husband's principled but rigid puritanism, their marriage survived their vicious denunciations by Red Guards and others at the appalling mass meetings, and their imprisonment in labour camps until the early 1970s. The physical and mental strains of years of humiliation and subjection to forced labour and psychological pressures, killed the author's father at the age of only 54 in 1975. In the relatively more relaxed atmosphere of the later 1970s, especially after the restoration to power of Deng Xiaoping, the future paramount leader in the 80s and 90s, the author was able to study abroad and the lives of her mother and other family members, as well as that of hundreds of millions of other Chinese, improved dramatically, albeit within the framework of what remains of course a one party communist state. The afterword recounts in brief the author's life in Britain and the original publication of this book in 1991 (what I have read is the 25th anniversary edition). One thing I would like to have heard a bit more about, though, was how she was able to defect to Britain after gaining her doctorate in 1982. This is a magnificent and absorbing book, with much to say about human nature at its best and worse, and the horrors that blind adherence to an ideology can bring about.

Loved reading this book

This is a must read for anybody interested in the history of the country. A lesson for the world on the dangers of populism and cult of personalities, which has become prevalent after the pandemic. Recommended.