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girl_in_glasses's review against another edition
2.0
I couldn't quite bring myself to finish this book because it felt too much like a thesis, which in actuality, I believe it was. However, the topic was amazing and incredibly tense. It's piqued my interesting into learning more about footbinding, even though it's painful to read.
teaviant13's review against another edition
2.0
I don't know. I don't feel like I got what I was looking for. I wanted a thorough examination of footbinding and this was a not well edited wandering through chinese culture.
dreamofbookspines's review against another edition
3.0
Someone else said this reads like a dissertation and is thus too boring but, being an academic, I don't think that's the author's problem: instead, I think it's good old fashioned lack of editing. This book is packed with excellent information, well documented stuff on a phenomenon that is difficult to find info about beyond the stylized/theatrical versions of it. This is a combination of women's accounts of their experiences with footbinding, presented in combination with dramaturgical representations of it from famous/period pieces.
It is a bit dry at points, and sometimes it's difficult to follow the narrative (or perhaps the problem is that there isn't one). I still enjoyed it. Having a good book on footbinding was something I'd been looking for after reading (and loving!) Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. See's novel seemed to be a rather accurate representation of the experience of footbinding, a sense I had before reading Ping's work. Now, after having finished Ping's book, I feel I got a more thorough understanding of the (surprisingly long) history of footbinding in China, both actual women's accounts of their experiences as well as stylized theatrical narratives about it (mostly, but not always, filtered through the lens of the male gaze).
This book was a pleasure to read until the (ridiculously long) chapter on psychoanalysis. Then it was like pulling teeth. Full disclosure: I do not like psychoanalysis. I think it's an invention of western white imperialist patriarchy and should've died out with Freud. A book about women and women's culture should simply NOT HAVE SO MANY PENISES. If I wanted penises in my literature, I'd read pretty much any classic book. Skip the chapter on psycho-craptastic-analysis, and the book improves by about 400%.
It is a bit dry at points, and sometimes it's difficult to follow the narrative (or perhaps the problem is that there isn't one). I still enjoyed it. Having a good book on footbinding was something I'd been looking for after reading (and loving!) Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. See's novel seemed to be a rather accurate representation of the experience of footbinding, a sense I had before reading Ping's work. Now, after having finished Ping's book, I feel I got a more thorough understanding of the (surprisingly long) history of footbinding in China, both actual women's accounts of their experiences as well as stylized theatrical narratives about it (mostly, but not always, filtered through the lens of the male gaze).
This book was a pleasure to read until the (ridiculously long) chapter on psychoanalysis. Then it was like pulling teeth. Full disclosure: I do not like psychoanalysis. I think it's an invention of western white imperialist patriarchy and should've died out with Freud. A book about women and women's culture should simply NOT HAVE SO MANY PENISES. If I wanted penises in my literature, I'd read pretty much any classic book. Skip the chapter on psycho-craptastic-analysis, and the book improves by about 400%.
aoutrance's review
3.0
This would have been a good deal drier if the author hadn't added in many references to older literature and anecdotes by a variety of women, which I heartily enjoyed. However toward the middle I felt as if the author was meandering when it came to the main thesis, as it were. There's a chapter entitled "Edible Beauty" - it basically outlined the hedonistic lifestyle of the emperor and the upper class in Hangzhou. If you read only that section out of the whole book, you would not have known Aching For Beauty was about footbinding.
Men are gross, no matter what country they're from. I think Wang's idea that women "bonded together" over this issue is true. However, it was more of a reaction to shared suffering rather than women becoming part of a "beauty culture".
Men are gross, no matter what country they're from. I think Wang's idea that women "bonded together" over this issue is true. However, it was more of a reaction to shared suffering rather than women becoming part of a "beauty culture".
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