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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
An amazing insight into a culture and piece of world history I sadly know very little about. Shu Wen's amazing journey across the Tibetan plateau evokes a strong sense of spirituality and love for a beautiful and mysterious part of the world. Sky Burial has affirmed that if there's one place I want to go before I die, it's Tibet.
A short little book that really quickly tells the lives of women and nomadic life in Tibet along with a wonderful love story. Beautiful in it's succinct descriptions of life & survival in the huge outdoors.
Whoa.
I knew nothing about this book going in, except for the evocative title. This is the story of Shu Wen, a young Chinese doctor whose husband Kejun disappears in Tibet in the 1950s after barely 100 days of marriage, and goes searching for him. The journey takes over thirty years, and the story follows Wen as she joins a nomadic Tibetan family in remote Qinghai, making losing and re-encountering friends years later. There is a strange quality to the passage of time, as something that exists differently in the clockless map-less plains; season turns into season, punctuated by happenstance visits to extraordinary Tibetan celebrations. Wen seems to change and age as a person revolving a single white-hot identity core: she needs to find Kejun, a fact more salient and permanent to her being han her career or national and ethnocultural background or even her family. This is what is meant by a love story; there are no meet-cutes, relationship developments or conflicts. This is a story about love and what it can turn a person into. The translated prose is simple and straightforward and lets the setting and story sing.
This is a Chinese understanding of Tibet, one of few published in English and carrying an immense amount of cultural and political baggage. I am so far from an expert on this history that I almost didn't write a review, because I genuinely don't know the extent to which this story is true or fiction, or perhaps more importantly intended genuinely or as propaganda (or even as both). It doesn't flinch from portraying aspects of Tibetan society that seem raw and brutal, from the vast wealth inequality and the temporal claim of monastaries over poor families' material wealth in livestock, sons and spiritual protection, to staggering (and in my opinion, which may have entirely not been the author's inteniton but I think it was, beautiful and kin-acknowledging ) traditions like the titular sky burial. I think your mileage may vary in how you perceive these elements. I found them fascinating and compelling, as if Wen (and/or Xinran) found in them some primal inexplicatable truth; they are spiritual facts only experienceable in Tibet and Qinghai during a certain time that has now passed. If anything, this book is guilty of a romanticization (I really want to say orientalization, but I'm not sure that makes any sense) of Tibet and a downplaying of Chinese colonization during the thirty plus years of the story in favor of a narrative of peace; on the other hand, Xinran seems to push back against the narratives her characters present of China as a benevolent occupying force, or a stable, civilized society back in Suzhou. Shu Wen is uncomfortable with political discussion and almost runs away from the first Chinese she meets after decades in Qinghai. South Tibet is shown as falling within China's orbit, and Qinghai is fragile; manor houses burn down so they don't fall to the Chinese, spirits move restlessly. It almost seems like Xinran pushes as hard as she can against an invisible censor, which still somehow misses the book's potentially revolutionary core. (I can imagine a lot of folks might disagree with my reading here, and that's very valid! I don't know if I'll agree with it tomorrow either).
Finally, it is unclear to what extent this is a work of fiction or non-fiction. The narrative reads very much like a non-fiction story, complete with framing device of Xinran looking for Shu Wen a decade letter, only to find she - like many characters in her story - has vanished. It isn't clear to me that there is evidence she was ever real, and the entire story and frame could be an elaborate and very clever metafiction, but there's also no real indication Shu Wen *isn't real*, and the story takes on a fey blurry bleakness, a pseudo-postmodern quality but without ever lampshading artifice (an ambiguity which i think has annoyed some readers). Is the fiction label in the US printing designed to protect against claims of imperfect memory and fleshing out of the story (many of the conversations for instance have to be fictional, since they are nearly fifty years old, but then again, Shu Wen has a "diary" which may have recorded them ( a political treatise scribbled with colored stones over decades until she finally acquires a pencil).
This is a deceptively simple book. I really enjoyed reading it, because of the compelling story and the morally confounding fact of the book's own existence, the tantalizing glimpses of possibly real, possibly imaginary worlds and people now lost to the great sweep of the century. If even the bones of Shu Wen's story are real, it is mind-blowing; if it is all a trick, it's still a brilliant one.
I knew nothing about this book going in, except for the evocative title. This is the story of Shu Wen, a young Chinese doctor whose husband Kejun disappears in Tibet in the 1950s after barely 100 days of marriage, and goes searching for him. The journey takes over thirty years, and the story follows Wen as she joins a nomadic Tibetan family in remote Qinghai, making losing and re-encountering friends years later. There is a strange quality to the passage of time, as something that exists differently in the clockless map-less plains; season turns into season, punctuated by happenstance visits to extraordinary Tibetan celebrations. Wen seems to change and age as a person revolving a single white-hot identity core: she needs to find Kejun, a fact more salient and permanent to her being han her career or national and ethnocultural background or even her family. This is what is meant by a love story; there are no meet-cutes, relationship developments or conflicts. This is a story about love and what it can turn a person into. The translated prose is simple and straightforward and lets the setting and story sing.
This is a Chinese understanding of Tibet, one of few published in English and carrying an immense amount of cultural and political baggage. I am so far from an expert on this history that I almost didn't write a review, because I genuinely don't know the extent to which this story is true or fiction, or perhaps more importantly intended genuinely or as propaganda (or even as both). It doesn't flinch from portraying aspects of Tibetan society that seem raw and brutal, from the vast wealth inequality and the temporal claim of monastaries over poor families' material wealth in livestock, sons and spiritual protection, to staggering (and in my opinion, which may have entirely not been the author's inteniton but I think it was, beautiful and kin-acknowledging ) traditions like the titular sky burial. I think your mileage may vary in how you perceive these elements. I found them fascinating and compelling, as if Wen (and/or Xinran) found in them some primal inexplicatable truth; they are spiritual facts only experienceable in Tibet and Qinghai during a certain time that has now passed. If anything, this book is guilty of a romanticization (I really want to say orientalization, but I'm not sure that makes any sense) of Tibet and a downplaying of Chinese colonization during the thirty plus years of the story in favor of a narrative of peace; on the other hand, Xinran seems to push back against the narratives her characters present of China as a benevolent occupying force, or a stable, civilized society back in Suzhou. Shu Wen is uncomfortable with political discussion and almost runs away from the first Chinese she meets after decades in Qinghai. South Tibet is shown as falling within China's orbit, and Qinghai is fragile; manor houses burn down so they don't fall to the Chinese, spirits move restlessly. It almost seems like Xinran pushes as hard as she can against an invisible censor, which still somehow misses the book's potentially revolutionary core. (I can imagine a lot of folks might disagree with my reading here, and that's very valid! I don't know if I'll agree with it tomorrow either).
Finally, it is unclear to what extent this is a work of fiction or non-fiction. The narrative reads very much like a non-fiction story, complete with framing device of Xinran looking for Shu Wen a decade letter, only to find she - like many characters in her story - has vanished. It isn't clear to me that there is evidence she was ever real, and the entire story and frame could be an elaborate and very clever metafiction, but there's also no real indication Shu Wen *isn't real*, and the story takes on a fey blurry bleakness, a pseudo-postmodern quality but without ever lampshading artifice (an ambiguity which i think has annoyed some readers). Is the fiction label in the US printing designed to protect against claims of imperfect memory and fleshing out of the story (many of the conversations for instance have to be fictional, since they are nearly fifty years old, but then again, Shu Wen has a "diary" which may have recorded them ( a political treatise scribbled with colored stones over decades until she finally acquires a pencil).
This is a deceptively simple book. I really enjoyed reading it, because of the compelling story and the morally confounding fact of the book's own existence, the tantalizing glimpses of possibly real, possibly imaginary worlds and people now lost to the great sweep of the century. If even the bones of Shu Wen's story are real, it is mind-blowing; if it is all a trick, it's still a brilliant one.
What a truly amazing story. In Sky Burial, Xinran tells the story of Shu Wen, following an intense two-day interview with her. Shu Wen's almost unbelievable story began in China, in 1958. She'd just married the love of her life, when he's enlisted as an army doctor during the war between China and Tibet, just before the Tibetan Revolution of 1959. Wen receives a letter notifying her of Kejun's death, with very little detail. Heartbroken and dissatisfied with the information provided to her, Wen goes on an insanely brave journey to Tibet to find out what happened to Kejun. After joining the army as a doctor, Wen's regiment is repeatedly attacked by Tibetan nomads. On their travels, they come across Zhouma, who has recently lost her family, home, and partner, and Wen and her become very close. Wen and Zhouma become separated from the Chinese soldiers and are lucky enough to be found and cared for by some nomads. They end up spending decades with the nomads, becoming part of the family, moving with them season by season, and learning their way of life.
I won't go into the ending but Wen does find out what happened to Kejun and it's a really beautiful and heartbreaking story. I can't believe how brave Wen was and how many strange coincidences made up her story, like her meeting Zhouma, who was also searching for her lost partner, was a huge coincidence.
I only have two criticisms of the book 1) I wouldn't have minded a few footnotes to explain some of the historical Chinese and Tibetan events mentioned and 2) I wanted it to be longer! Wen spent decades with the nomads and then travelling around Tibet, I would have loved more detail about Tibet. Perhaps part of this was because she only had two days speaking with Shu Wen and didn't want to make up too much of the story to fill in the gaps.
I won't go into the ending but Wen does find out what happened to Kejun and it's a really beautiful and heartbreaking story. I can't believe how brave Wen was and how many strange coincidences made up her story, like her meeting Zhouma, who was also searching for her lost partner, was a huge coincidence.
I only have two criticisms of the book 1) I wouldn't have minded a few footnotes to explain some of the historical Chinese and Tibetan events mentioned and 2) I wanted it to be longer! Wen spent decades with the nomads and then travelling around Tibet, I would have loved more detail about Tibet. Perhaps part of this was because she only had two days speaking with Shu Wen and didn't want to make up too much of the story to fill in the gaps.
I'm not quite sure if this is fiction or non-fiction. It's probably a mix of the two. At any rate, I enjoyed it for the glimpse it gave me of life in Tibet during the 1950s and after. Also of the interaction between the Tibetans and the Chinese. It's not the best book ever, but worth a read.
There's a severe ambiguity regarding whether this book is a work of fiction or non. journalism and talk show hosting was Xinran's field for some time, so it may be fitting that there's such unstable theorizing regarding the source and/or tip that first inspired the author to try her hand at the sort of historical novelization I'd previously encountered in [b:Cane River|5167|Cane River|Lalita Tademy|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1442965580s/5167.jpg|2028071]. Unlike CR, Xinran takes on a more simplistic, one person timeline over the stretch of 30 or so years, but pound for pound she offers more engaging, or at least less overworked, information about a unique bridging between China and Tibet during a time period whose records are still deluged with mystifying decisions and obscured brutality. Normally I'd strip the institutionally questioned label of nonfiction then and there, but my experiences with literature have been filled with the marginalization of voices in accordance to those who have lived with the wrong skin color and those who who have gotten a certificate of academia with the right skin color, so until mass media starts sucking the white cock of "Memoirs of a Geisha", I'll see this text as nonfiction. All that that decision requires is to believe the word of a woman of color who doesn't write in English, and as slight a task as that may seem, the fact that [b:Wild Swans|1848|Wild Swans Three Daughters of China|Jung Chang|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1440643710s/1848.jpg|2969000] shows upon the 1001 BBYD list sums up the attitude of the Powers That Be at large.
The bloody history of China and Tibet means this work must be taken as introduction with a grain of salt. Shu Wen's coincidental isolation meant conveniently not having to tackle the Cultural Revolution, amongst other things, and barring the decades of enforced cultural transformation via initial absolute linguistic solitude, the narrative is largely peaceful. Brief extremes of tragedy occur, but they are matched by borderline miraculous reconciliations and closures, events that are hard to believe in this information inundated, digital age of mine. Then again, I could simply just chalk up the fortuitous meetings and retrievals of vital info to the strength of the spiritual community riddling through the Tibetan people and landscape, where those covering miles of seeming emptiness have recourse to long distance messaging via the power of their shared beliefs. Gendered dichotomies stifled the narrative thread somewhat, but I'm a fan of leaving Tibetans to Tibetans to figure that out while worrying more about the imperialist settler state that is my own country. Other than that, the most pithy descriptor I can offer with regards to this story is balanced, almost the point of mythical, fable style morality lessons, but not as cloying or repetitively familiar. I certainly learned a great deal and wasn't ever bored while doing so, and the respect for Tibetan and Chinese running through the narrative was a welcome change from the sort of trash normalized in my part of the world.
This work is the sort of easy come, easy go that I rarely encounter these days, especially when coupled to a subject that I'm more familiar with via rumors than accredited writing. I've seen reviews knocking Xinran's prose, but considering how respectful she was of everything, barring some idealization of a few of the Tibetan characters (remember, it's Shu Wen's perspective, so lack of denouncement of the Cultural Revolution would be out of place) in contrast to the usual white boy travelogue, I'll take sedately credible knowledge transference over sensationalizing purple prose any day. Xinran has a number of other works to her name, and I may be persuaded to pick up more of them, although the "East-West" title that plagues her work is suspicious to say the least. I don't want to be facetious and say that I may pick up more simply for the sake of future A-Z author challenges, but there are worse authors to choose for such an endeavor.
The bloody history of China and Tibet means this work must be taken as introduction with a grain of salt. Shu Wen's coincidental isolation meant conveniently not having to tackle the Cultural Revolution, amongst other things, and barring the decades of enforced cultural transformation via initial absolute linguistic solitude, the narrative is largely peaceful. Brief extremes of tragedy occur, but they are matched by borderline miraculous reconciliations and closures, events that are hard to believe in this information inundated, digital age of mine. Then again, I could simply just chalk up the fortuitous meetings and retrievals of vital info to the strength of the spiritual community riddling through the Tibetan people and landscape, where those covering miles of seeming emptiness have recourse to long distance messaging via the power of their shared beliefs. Gendered dichotomies stifled the narrative thread somewhat, but I'm a fan of leaving Tibetans to Tibetans to figure that out while worrying more about the imperialist settler state that is my own country. Other than that, the most pithy descriptor I can offer with regards to this story is balanced, almost the point of mythical, fable style morality lessons, but not as cloying or repetitively familiar. I certainly learned a great deal and wasn't ever bored while doing so, and the respect for Tibetan and Chinese running through the narrative was a welcome change from the sort of trash normalized in my part of the world.
This work is the sort of easy come, easy go that I rarely encounter these days, especially when coupled to a subject that I'm more familiar with via rumors than accredited writing. I've seen reviews knocking Xinran's prose, but considering how respectful she was of everything, barring some idealization of a few of the Tibetan characters (remember, it's Shu Wen's perspective, so lack of denouncement of the Cultural Revolution would be out of place) in contrast to the usual white boy travelogue, I'll take sedately credible knowledge transference over sensationalizing purple prose any day. Xinran has a number of other works to her name, and I may be persuaded to pick up more of them, although the "East-West" title that plagues her work is suspicious to say the least. I don't want to be facetious and say that I may pick up more simply for the sake of future A-Z author challenges, but there are worse authors to choose for such an endeavor.
Un grande amore è un grande amore, anche nella Cina di Mao, ed è motore sufficiente perché la protagonista, dopo aver appreso la notizia della presunta morte dell'amato marito aggregato come medico all'esercito cinese in Tibet, decida di seguirne le orme, essendo lei stessa medico. Ma in un posto selvaggio, desolato, e con una identità forte come il Tibet, lei finirà per perdere in parte la sua identità.
Il libro è ben scritto e scorre bene, nonostante ciò non riesce mai a coinvolgere nel profondo. Il mutamento morale della protagonista, da donna della "Nuova" Cina a fervente buddista, sembra più dettato da una sorta di abitudine che da una vera influenza morale, senza contare che l'atteggiamento politico nei confronti dell'invasione cinese del Tibet è molto da "piedi in due scarpe".
Il libro è ben scritto e scorre bene, nonostante ciò non riesce mai a coinvolgere nel profondo. Il mutamento morale della protagonista, da donna della "Nuova" Cina a fervente buddista, sembra più dettato da una sorta di abitudine che da una vera influenza morale, senza contare che l'atteggiamento politico nei confronti dell'invasione cinese del Tibet è molto da "piedi in due scarpe".
Meh.
This has been described as a spiritual journey on the part of the protagonist, in which case, I missed that part.
It has also been described as an epic love story, which to me is just sappy.
OK, so we start the story where the protagonist lives in China, marries her soul mate and 3 weeks later he joins the Chinese army to go to help liberate Tibet. This is in the late 1950s. She gets word that he has been killed but - oh no - but she gets no details. Undaunted, and unable to believe this news, she joins another army unit (she's a doctor) and heads off to Tibet to find "the truth" behind his death.
Her unit gets picked off by Tibetans who aren't exactly embracing the Chinese "liberators" and she and another woman in the unit find themselves stranded. They were even thrown off the horse they were riding while they were following a narrow mountain ledge - and fortunately due to the angle the horse used to throw them off, the women survived but the horse committed suicide. So there's that.
Near death, the 2 women get rescued by a Tibetan family who are nomadic and who nurse them back to health and eventually basically adopt them. Our protagonist is still determined to find her missing/dead husband.
But oh no, the other woman gets kidnapped by some local bad guys and carried away. However, this is an undetermined amount of time after their rescue - I think it was a number of years.
Time passes. How much time? Thirty years! Thirty years our protagonist lives with this family travelling around Tibet as they follow the seasons herding in the countryside. And that part to me was startling. Thirty years she's travelling around with them? Interestingly in that time only one member of the family dies and that's fairly early on.
At first of course she cannot communicate with them because of the language barrier. The other woman, the one who gets kidnapped, can speak the language of the family so can translate for our protagonist. This makes her kidnapping really a bummer because in that time, our protagonist hasn't learned anything of the language. Then she describes that she can't learn their language because basically they don't talk - all of their tasks are done through tacit understanding so she is further isolated. Come on. For YEARS they don't communicate sufficiently for her to learn the language? Oh, but somewhere along the line, we find she has learned the language and can communicate. How that happened is a mystery.
But first she has to find the other woman who was kidnapped and prioritizes that over finding her husband. That seems to take a few years. The time frame in this book is a bit fuzzy. And she succeeds in finding her. Now she can continue the search for her husband.
She does learn about Tibetan culture, which disabuses her of her negative stereotypes of Tibet. It is these depictions that make the book worthwhile. The description of the culture and the spirituality of the Tibetans - I just kind of missed the part of her awakening spirituality. To me, she was always the outsider, simply observing. And that to me is the major drawback to this book.
Our protagonist also cries a lot. She bursts into tears so often I got tired of hearing about it. Oh, and she does find out what happened to her husband, returns to China, finds out she's missed a lot and then the book ends.
meh.
This has been described as a spiritual journey on the part of the protagonist, in which case, I missed that part.
It has also been described as an epic love story, which to me is just sappy.
OK, so we start the story where the protagonist lives in China, marries her soul mate and 3 weeks later he joins the Chinese army to go to help liberate Tibet. This is in the late 1950s. She gets word that he has been killed but - oh no - but she gets no details. Undaunted, and unable to believe this news, she joins another army unit (she's a doctor) and heads off to Tibet to find "the truth" behind his death.
Her unit gets picked off by Tibetans who aren't exactly embracing the Chinese "liberators" and she and another woman in the unit find themselves stranded. They were even thrown off the horse they were riding while they were following a narrow mountain ledge - and fortunately due to the angle the horse used to throw them off, the women survived but the horse committed suicide. So there's that.
Near death, the 2 women get rescued by a Tibetan family who are nomadic and who nurse them back to health and eventually basically adopt them. Our protagonist is still determined to find her missing/dead husband.
But oh no, the other woman gets kidnapped by some local bad guys and carried away. However, this is an undetermined amount of time after their rescue - I think it was a number of years.
Time passes. How much time? Thirty years! Thirty years our protagonist lives with this family travelling around Tibet as they follow the seasons herding in the countryside. And that part to me was startling. Thirty years she's travelling around with them? Interestingly in that time only one member of the family dies and that's fairly early on.
At first of course she cannot communicate with them because of the language barrier. The other woman, the one who gets kidnapped, can speak the language of the family so can translate for our protagonist. This makes her kidnapping really a bummer because in that time, our protagonist hasn't learned anything of the language. Then she describes that she can't learn their language because basically they don't talk - all of their tasks are done through tacit understanding so she is further isolated. Come on. For YEARS they don't communicate sufficiently for her to learn the language? Oh, but somewhere along the line, we find she has learned the language and can communicate. How that happened is a mystery.
But first she has to find the other woman who was kidnapped and prioritizes that over finding her husband. That seems to take a few years. The time frame in this book is a bit fuzzy. And she succeeds in finding her. Now she can continue the search for her husband.
She does learn about Tibetan culture, which disabuses her of her negative stereotypes of Tibet. It is these depictions that make the book worthwhile. The description of the culture and the spirituality of the Tibetans - I just kind of missed the part of her awakening spirituality. To me, she was always the outsider, simply observing. And that to me is the major drawback to this book.
Our protagonist also cries a lot. She bursts into tears so often I got tired of hearing about it. Oh, and she does find out what happened to her husband, returns to China, finds out she's missed a lot and then the book ends.
meh.
I am currently living in China and so this book definitely grabbed my attention when I saw it sitting on my friend's bookshelf. I had wanted to save it for when I was actually in Tibet but that looks like it won't be happening so I brought it with me on my trip to Xi'an this last week.
I am happy that I read it while living in China. I did feel a bit of a connection to the story. Granted, I am not living in 1950s China or Tibet but there are still locations, food, and mannerisms that I completely understand after living here for awhile.
I'm still on the fence about whether or not I actually liked this book. It was a very easy read and I flew through it but I still don't know if I like it. It is unclear whether this story is fact or fiction--if it's fact, then it is an incredible story but if it is fiction, then it could have been a lot better.
I did not like the character of Shu Wen. I found her annoying, passive, and all around unlikable. None of the other characters really leapt out at me, either. I am the type of person that loves good, solid characters; if they are based off of real people, then that's sad.
I had a hard time feeling bad for Shu Wen as she complained about not feeling accepted by the Tibetan people, how they stared, how they talked about her, and how she always felt like an outsider... That is how it is being a Westerner living in China today. You are always an outsider, people are always staring and talking about you as you walk by... For that, I did not feel bad for her at all--welcome to what everyone else experiences!!
I did, however, enjoy seeing life in Tibet--the family life, the terrain, the rituals, and of course the sky burial.
I feel like this book had potential to be something great but it fell very flat...
I am happy that I read it while living in China. I did feel a bit of a connection to the story. Granted, I am not living in 1950s China or Tibet but there are still locations, food, and mannerisms that I completely understand after living here for awhile.
I'm still on the fence about whether or not I actually liked this book. It was a very easy read and I flew through it but I still don't know if I like it. It is unclear whether this story is fact or fiction--if it's fact, then it is an incredible story but if it is fiction, then it could have been a lot better.
I did not like the character of Shu Wen. I found her annoying, passive, and all around unlikable. None of the other characters really leapt out at me, either. I am the type of person that loves good, solid characters; if they are based off of real people, then that's sad.
I had a hard time feeling bad for Shu Wen as she complained about not feeling accepted by the Tibetan people, how they stared, how they talked about her, and how she always felt like an outsider... That is how it is being a Westerner living in China today. You are always an outsider, people are always staring and talking about you as you walk by... For that, I did not feel bad for her at all--welcome to what everyone else experiences!!
I did, however, enjoy seeing life in Tibet--the family life, the terrain, the rituals, and of course the sky burial.
I feel like this book had potential to be something great but it fell very flat...