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mike129's review against another edition
3.0
This novel is great in the way it conveys the cultural revolution of China, but it is hobbled by the absurdity of its many coincidences.
This story of 2 extraordinary half-brothers is engaging, and I enjoyed moving through it and the recent history of China at the time. The book is primarily told in first person narrative form alternating between the two brothers. Their lives rise and fall (for the most part) inversely to one another. That would be coincidence enough, but that they both separately fall in love with the same woman at different times is a bit too much for me.
The book is worth the reader's investment because of the insight it provides non-Chinese readers on a very tumultuous time in China's history. And the story is also very well told -- if you can suspend disbelief.
This story of 2 extraordinary half-brothers is engaging, and I enjoyed moving through it and the recent history of China at the time. The book is primarily told in first person narrative form alternating between the two brothers. Their lives rise and fall (for the most part) inversely to one another. That would be coincidence enough, but that they both separately fall in love with the same woman at different times is a bit too much for me.
The book is worth the reader's investment because of the insight it provides non-Chinese readers on a very tumultuous time in China's history. And the story is also very well told -- if you can suspend disbelief.
charlie_koenig's review against another edition
5.0
Critical Analysis: Brothers by Da Chen
Da Chen in his novel Brothers sows seeds of beauty that flourish and abound in a book filled with memorable hardships and glorious triumphs. Brothers explores the role of social influences in the development of the self, the social comparisons of Shento and Tan –– two estranged brothers who take conflicting sides in China’s Cultural Revolution. Within the Revolution is the timeframe when the shooting at Tiananmen Square takes place; which is dealt within the narrative. This conflict starts at the beginning of their lives when Shento’s mother:
“Gave birth to me meant to end it all, not just her life, but also mine, right at the moment of my sunrise. She was in a hurry to leap off the cliff atop Mount Balan…” (Chen 1).
This young mother commits suicide because her lover General Long will not acknowledge their illegitimate son. This imposed and unwanted suicide by the mother –– of mother and son –– sets into place the forces which will shape Shento’s sense of self and one’s possible self. Some could argue that as early as Shento’s infancy, he called the attention of others and others consciously affect him before he himself consciously affects his identity of self. This image of his “self” is created by others while those images of “self” are then embraced. Shento, much like us, has a self in whom he portrays to others but also has a self which belongs to others and which is shaped by others attributions about him. It can be argued that we have a truer self, in which is the self one would like to be within one’s unique path; which views us as involved, through our social performances, in a continuous purposeful and transitional movement that wanders from belief to disbelief regarding the key aspects of our identity and significance.
The contrast is evident in the description of the birth of Tan. In the reading of the text we learn that Tan attended the best schools, and wore the most expensive clothes.
“I was born the son of General Long and the only grandchild of two influential families in China: the Longs, a banking dynasty, and the Xias, a military powerhouse. The two families were as different night and day” (Chen 5).
The role of self dates back to the early philosophers who concentered their thinking to the nature of the soul. In Buddhist philosophy the self was considered to be the stream of thoughts, which supports the image of ones self. It is in this frame that a fair portion of the book is written in the “Hoped-for Self” frame of mind. Harmony, love, strife, morality, and reason all can be viewed as the elements of the bodily existence which propel people toward particular social systems, which, in turn define the elements of the self. This is exactly what Shento does throughout the story by constantly seeking to be more than he is. This can be seen when Shento sets the pace of the story and his own life when he says:
“I outraced her swollen legs and slipped out of her womb just as she struggled toward the fateful precipice. One was left to wonder why she did it, making herself a myth, leaping off the zenith…” (Chen 1).
This event is the theoretical grounding for understanding how and why Shento, as well as Tan,
become active producers of their own developmental process. Once we understand the relevance of one illegitimate son and one legitimate son, we begin to comprehend the developmental outcomes; which either help or hinder the motivational weight of possible self. Both brothers face difficulty after difficulty, but each time these difficulties each brother rises above and beyond what was placed in front of them. The self and society have no substance apart from each other, but are both the makers of a society. This is exactly what Shento achieves within the text of the novel. This can be seen early in the text when Shento realizes that:
“He lived! Should I contact the great general and seek his aid in releasing me from this hellhole? Ding Long had ascended to the highest rank of supremacy. All he had to do was send the order and my life would be forever changed” (Chen 70).
Individual thinkers cannot be truly understood apart from the social and political systems within which these characters live. The variation of each chapter, which is headed by who is telling the narrative, creates a unique discourse. These brothers develop a unique voice as each brother grows into a different path. Each brother exhibits the three main parts of the self: its components, the feelings that are aroused, and the behaviors or responses they prompt. Self-esteem can be viewed, as being created from a supportive relationship between one’s self and one’s conceptualized self.
However, development does not exist in a vacuum. Development of the self and the hoped-for self is conscious and impacted in sociocultural and historical context. Across the text of Chen’s novel one can comprehend the importance of other characters that either help or hinder the development of the self –– within the two main characters. The self is absolutely fundamentally needed to adequately address the motivational factors contributing to any human behavior one wishes to exhibit.
One of the most important “other” characters in Chen’s narrative is that of Sumi. Sumi is caught in a gripping love triangle. Love that is not simply a crush, or a meaningless fling but an overwhelming passion. This passion is, however, may not be exactly as it appears. There appears to be at many levels, through this love, the desire for recognition, the desire of another person when she is clearly the object of two people, and the desire for self. This is very much in thinking to Nietzsche.
“A single individual contains within him a vast confusion of contradictory valuations and consequently of contradictory valuations and consequently of contradictory drives. This is the expression of the diseased condition in man” (Nietzche 147).
The characters sense of “I” is the part of self which acts with reference to others is immediately aware of others’ reactions to the self, and this thinking is along the lines that a person’s sense of me is the reflective self which constantly evaluates and reinvents the “I” sense of self. This sense of self can be seen as being influenced by the common life and purpose of the groups to which they belong within which the self functions. Shento portrays these ideas when he says:
“In pain, I wiped my eyes quickly and stayed low and small like a mountain rat, searching for a hole in the earth where I could hide and survive. But the kicks landed like pelting raindrops. I was defenseless and had little chance…” (Chen 52).
There are three senses of self that is exhibited throughout the text: the conscious, or what a person is aware of during a specific point in time, the preconscious, or information which is beneath the surface of awareness and can be easily retrieved, and finally the unconscious, which is the underlying part of self which contains one’s wishes and expectations. This frame of thinking is a part of Freud’s psychoanalytical theory. This can be seen in the mindset of Sumi when we read:
“I had difficulty touching that dark hole of fear and sadness even now. I had long learned to close the eyes of the mind and face reality –– the life of an abandoned animal within the cage of the orphanage. I learned to swallow all sorrows…” (Chen 276).
Ego, according to Freud, can be compared to one’s current self, while the super ego is constantly responding to external cues and is the moral and ideal “higher ground” to which we aspire. Sumi is the object of desire, and in some instances is reduced to nothing more than an object of desire, as desire is not found in its object, but in the person who is doing the desiring. This can be seen when Sumi, who has her first “chapter” on page 135 says:
“Then you came, an oh, how you emboldened me… I was flooded by your light, your warmth, and the rainbow of you arcing over me, making me safe… I dreamed of a life with you. You, one wheel of a handbarrow. I, the other wheel” (Chen 136).
Sumi’s story is not an easy one to read. There are moments when it seems as if all of her identity comes from the two men who love her. There are instances when Sumi claims her own power, her own identity and her own sense of self. She epitomizes the struggle to balance rationality and irrationality and between conscious awareness and unconscious images and memories. There is a sense of a battle between a self that seeks balance between one’s internal world and the external world, one’s conscious, and unconscious experiences, good and evil, and light and darkness. Sumi attempts to solve the problem of aloneness versus the union with others. This attempt brings about the need to rise above a passive and accidental existence and into the realm of purpose and freedom. Sumi in many ways evolves as a separate “species” as she loses her home in the natural world which requires of her to develop a rootedness, and or a feeling at home in the natural world. She actively relates to the world through a spiritual connectedness resulting in her being whole.
The sense of rhythm within the text helps set the tone in which the self is discovered and is mastered with ease by Chen. Rhythm to Chen is as important as the prose, and the prose reads as poetry. There are no wrong words. The text can be considered a parallel to music: the way a rhythm gives power, to the characters, that cannot be reduced, or described by mere words. This rhythm exists simply because of Chen’s well-made sentences that only transcends time but also genre. Chen’s rhythm is a piece of music that keeps readers turning the page. The structures of the sentences are flawless in their beauty, as well as the balance between narration, descriptions and dialogue.
The position of the narrator can be useful when introducing diversity in the narrative rhythm and Chen does this with the introduction of whom is telling the story at the start of each new chapter. Shifts in the narration can be tricky to achieve seamlessly, but they are a greater tool in enriching the rhythm and tonality of the narrative. Clarity is a high virtue, but so is beauty; and increasingly it is from the varying length and sentence structures that the writer achieves voice, rhythm, emphasis, and even musicality.
Variation works because we naturally vary our speaking rhythm when we are emotionally connected to what we are saying. This is obvious when a character is upset and empathetic, but syntactical variation works well to convey any strong feeling. Rhythmic sentences can sing to us, perhaps even move our emotions to an ancient language, culture and music; which can be, if done correctly, epic. As writers we want to balance our scenes using three elements: dialogue, action and narration. Scenes that weave these elements together engage a reader at an emotional level. One example of this artistry is:
“Shento’s army open fired on the crowd, first randomly, then targeted locations. The dead lay in pools of blood. The living cried, trying to save the dying. Youthful hearts sank with the burden of death as their worst fears were realized… Bullets rained down like an angry storm” (Chen 384).
The scene wouldn’t have had the same impact if the author had woven action and narrative throughout the dialogue. This is a fast paced scene, but Chen shows us that there is so much more to this scene than just the actions. There are repercussions to the actions committed and Chen wants our focus to be on those events as well. As you can see, this passage is very effective without the narrative bogging down the moment. This is writing at its most powerful. Narrative explains, and dialogue says it. Chen chooses words carefully and poetically to produce a compelling story along with the discovery of the Hoped-for Self.
If I have learned one thing from reading Brothers, it is words are just as important to tell the story if not more important than the story. Chen has an ease with painting the scene, the characters, the narration and even the outcome that I would like to achieve in my own writing, and the way that I think about writing.
Works Cited
Chen, Da. Brothers. Ed. Shaye Areheart. 5. New York City: Three Rivers Press, 2007.
Nietzche, Fredrick. The Will to Power. Ed. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Edition Books Edition, 1967.
Da Chen in his novel Brothers sows seeds of beauty that flourish and abound in a book filled with memorable hardships and glorious triumphs. Brothers explores the role of social influences in the development of the self, the social comparisons of Shento and Tan –– two estranged brothers who take conflicting sides in China’s Cultural Revolution. Within the Revolution is the timeframe when the shooting at Tiananmen Square takes place; which is dealt within the narrative. This conflict starts at the beginning of their lives when Shento’s mother:
“Gave birth to me meant to end it all, not just her life, but also mine, right at the moment of my sunrise. She was in a hurry to leap off the cliff atop Mount Balan…” (Chen 1).
This young mother commits suicide because her lover General Long will not acknowledge their illegitimate son. This imposed and unwanted suicide by the mother –– of mother and son –– sets into place the forces which will shape Shento’s sense of self and one’s possible self. Some could argue that as early as Shento’s infancy, he called the attention of others and others consciously affect him before he himself consciously affects his identity of self. This image of his “self” is created by others while those images of “self” are then embraced. Shento, much like us, has a self in whom he portrays to others but also has a self which belongs to others and which is shaped by others attributions about him. It can be argued that we have a truer self, in which is the self one would like to be within one’s unique path; which views us as involved, through our social performances, in a continuous purposeful and transitional movement that wanders from belief to disbelief regarding the key aspects of our identity and significance.
The contrast is evident in the description of the birth of Tan. In the reading of the text we learn that Tan attended the best schools, and wore the most expensive clothes.
“I was born the son of General Long and the only grandchild of two influential families in China: the Longs, a banking dynasty, and the Xias, a military powerhouse. The two families were as different night and day” (Chen 5).
The role of self dates back to the early philosophers who concentered their thinking to the nature of the soul. In Buddhist philosophy the self was considered to be the stream of thoughts, which supports the image of ones self. It is in this frame that a fair portion of the book is written in the “Hoped-for Self” frame of mind. Harmony, love, strife, morality, and reason all can be viewed as the elements of the bodily existence which propel people toward particular social systems, which, in turn define the elements of the self. This is exactly what Shento does throughout the story by constantly seeking to be more than he is. This can be seen when Shento sets the pace of the story and his own life when he says:
“I outraced her swollen legs and slipped out of her womb just as she struggled toward the fateful precipice. One was left to wonder why she did it, making herself a myth, leaping off the zenith…” (Chen 1).
This event is the theoretical grounding for understanding how and why Shento, as well as Tan,
become active producers of their own developmental process. Once we understand the relevance of one illegitimate son and one legitimate son, we begin to comprehend the developmental outcomes; which either help or hinder the motivational weight of possible self. Both brothers face difficulty after difficulty, but each time these difficulties each brother rises above and beyond what was placed in front of them. The self and society have no substance apart from each other, but are both the makers of a society. This is exactly what Shento achieves within the text of the novel. This can be seen early in the text when Shento realizes that:
“He lived! Should I contact the great general and seek his aid in releasing me from this hellhole? Ding Long had ascended to the highest rank of supremacy. All he had to do was send the order and my life would be forever changed” (Chen 70).
Individual thinkers cannot be truly understood apart from the social and political systems within which these characters live. The variation of each chapter, which is headed by who is telling the narrative, creates a unique discourse. These brothers develop a unique voice as each brother grows into a different path. Each brother exhibits the three main parts of the self: its components, the feelings that are aroused, and the behaviors or responses they prompt. Self-esteem can be viewed, as being created from a supportive relationship between one’s self and one’s conceptualized self.
However, development does not exist in a vacuum. Development of the self and the hoped-for self is conscious and impacted in sociocultural and historical context. Across the text of Chen’s novel one can comprehend the importance of other characters that either help or hinder the development of the self –– within the two main characters. The self is absolutely fundamentally needed to adequately address the motivational factors contributing to any human behavior one wishes to exhibit.
One of the most important “other” characters in Chen’s narrative is that of Sumi. Sumi is caught in a gripping love triangle. Love that is not simply a crush, or a meaningless fling but an overwhelming passion. This passion is, however, may not be exactly as it appears. There appears to be at many levels, through this love, the desire for recognition, the desire of another person when she is clearly the object of two people, and the desire for self. This is very much in thinking to Nietzsche.
“A single individual contains within him a vast confusion of contradictory valuations and consequently of contradictory valuations and consequently of contradictory drives. This is the expression of the diseased condition in man” (Nietzche 147).
The characters sense of “I” is the part of self which acts with reference to others is immediately aware of others’ reactions to the self, and this thinking is along the lines that a person’s sense of me is the reflective self which constantly evaluates and reinvents the “I” sense of self. This sense of self can be seen as being influenced by the common life and purpose of the groups to which they belong within which the self functions. Shento portrays these ideas when he says:
“In pain, I wiped my eyes quickly and stayed low and small like a mountain rat, searching for a hole in the earth where I could hide and survive. But the kicks landed like pelting raindrops. I was defenseless and had little chance…” (Chen 52).
There are three senses of self that is exhibited throughout the text: the conscious, or what a person is aware of during a specific point in time, the preconscious, or information which is beneath the surface of awareness and can be easily retrieved, and finally the unconscious, which is the underlying part of self which contains one’s wishes and expectations. This frame of thinking is a part of Freud’s psychoanalytical theory. This can be seen in the mindset of Sumi when we read:
“I had difficulty touching that dark hole of fear and sadness even now. I had long learned to close the eyes of the mind and face reality –– the life of an abandoned animal within the cage of the orphanage. I learned to swallow all sorrows…” (Chen 276).
Ego, according to Freud, can be compared to one’s current self, while the super ego is constantly responding to external cues and is the moral and ideal “higher ground” to which we aspire. Sumi is the object of desire, and in some instances is reduced to nothing more than an object of desire, as desire is not found in its object, but in the person who is doing the desiring. This can be seen when Sumi, who has her first “chapter” on page 135 says:
“Then you came, an oh, how you emboldened me… I was flooded by your light, your warmth, and the rainbow of you arcing over me, making me safe… I dreamed of a life with you. You, one wheel of a handbarrow. I, the other wheel” (Chen 136).
Sumi’s story is not an easy one to read. There are moments when it seems as if all of her identity comes from the two men who love her. There are instances when Sumi claims her own power, her own identity and her own sense of self. She epitomizes the struggle to balance rationality and irrationality and between conscious awareness and unconscious images and memories. There is a sense of a battle between a self that seeks balance between one’s internal world and the external world, one’s conscious, and unconscious experiences, good and evil, and light and darkness. Sumi attempts to solve the problem of aloneness versus the union with others. This attempt brings about the need to rise above a passive and accidental existence and into the realm of purpose and freedom. Sumi in many ways evolves as a separate “species” as she loses her home in the natural world which requires of her to develop a rootedness, and or a feeling at home in the natural world. She actively relates to the world through a spiritual connectedness resulting in her being whole.
The sense of rhythm within the text helps set the tone in which the self is discovered and is mastered with ease by Chen. Rhythm to Chen is as important as the prose, and the prose reads as poetry. There are no wrong words. The text can be considered a parallel to music: the way a rhythm gives power, to the characters, that cannot be reduced, or described by mere words. This rhythm exists simply because of Chen’s well-made sentences that only transcends time but also genre. Chen’s rhythm is a piece of music that keeps readers turning the page. The structures of the sentences are flawless in their beauty, as well as the balance between narration, descriptions and dialogue.
The position of the narrator can be useful when introducing diversity in the narrative rhythm and Chen does this with the introduction of whom is telling the story at the start of each new chapter. Shifts in the narration can be tricky to achieve seamlessly, but they are a greater tool in enriching the rhythm and tonality of the narrative. Clarity is a high virtue, but so is beauty; and increasingly it is from the varying length and sentence structures that the writer achieves voice, rhythm, emphasis, and even musicality.
Variation works because we naturally vary our speaking rhythm when we are emotionally connected to what we are saying. This is obvious when a character is upset and empathetic, but syntactical variation works well to convey any strong feeling. Rhythmic sentences can sing to us, perhaps even move our emotions to an ancient language, culture and music; which can be, if done correctly, epic. As writers we want to balance our scenes using three elements: dialogue, action and narration. Scenes that weave these elements together engage a reader at an emotional level. One example of this artistry is:
“Shento’s army open fired on the crowd, first randomly, then targeted locations. The dead lay in pools of blood. The living cried, trying to save the dying. Youthful hearts sank with the burden of death as their worst fears were realized… Bullets rained down like an angry storm” (Chen 384).
The scene wouldn’t have had the same impact if the author had woven action and narrative throughout the dialogue. This is a fast paced scene, but Chen shows us that there is so much more to this scene than just the actions. There are repercussions to the actions committed and Chen wants our focus to be on those events as well. As you can see, this passage is very effective without the narrative bogging down the moment. This is writing at its most powerful. Narrative explains, and dialogue says it. Chen chooses words carefully and poetically to produce a compelling story along with the discovery of the Hoped-for Self.
If I have learned one thing from reading Brothers, it is words are just as important to tell the story if not more important than the story. Chen has an ease with painting the scene, the characters, the narration and even the outcome that I would like to achieve in my own writing, and the way that I think about writing.
Works Cited
Chen, Da. Brothers. Ed. Shaye Areheart. 5. New York City: Three Rivers Press, 2007.
Nietzche, Fredrick. The Will to Power. Ed. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Edition Books Edition, 1967.
jerihurd's review against another edition
1.0
Ugh! Avoid, avoid, avoid. I couldn't even finish it. Life's too short--though this book will make it seem infinitely longer! I do not understand all the fours and fives! This is the most hackneyed, melodramatic, shallowly written piece of drivel it's been my misfortune to read.
bll1010's review against another edition
4.0
Glad I read this one. I feel like I was reading it for a long time, but I enjoyed it and feel like I learned some things at the same time.
ldoublue616's review against another edition
4.0
Had some of my favorite elements-
historical fiction
family drama
two stories going at once
twists and plot intertwining
Well written with vivid details and memorable characters.
historical fiction
family drama
two stories going at once
twists and plot intertwining
Well written with vivid details and memorable characters.
carolnhamilton's review against another edition
1.0
The story kept moving but the language is wooden, choppy and cliched. The coincidences ridiculous.
cycholibrarian's review against another edition
5.0
I have been fascinated for a very long time by Asia generally and China specifically. I’ve done a lot of reading about Chinese history, especially Chinese history from the end of the empire to today. Oddly enough, I have learned more about the Chinese people and culture from reading novels by Chinese authors than I have from any work of non-fiction. This book fits into this trend perfectly. Brothers tells the story of two half-brothers, fathered by the favorite son of two of the most powerful families in Maoist China. Each brother has the intelligence and the drive to become great and do great things. However, over the course of the Vietnam war, the Cultural Revolution, the death of Mao, and the opening of communist China to the west, the brother who seemed to be the favorite son finds himself brought low, while the bastard son is elevated to the highest levels. Not only does this story illustrate so much of what is wrong with China and so much of what could be right, it also shows how people with the best motives can find themselves in a position of doing horrible things.
jnowal's review against another edition
2.0
I'm almost embarrassed to critique this book, because I felt like I was reading the first noveling effort of a very young author. It had every cliche of both historical fiction and poor storytelling, and about halfway through the book I was reading it only to see how much more ridiculous it would become before the end. All the characters are flat stereotypes, either completely good or fully evil; there's an attempt to explain the Bad Guy's fall, which isn't convincing, and there's an even more improbable suggestion of redemption. The Good Guy, on the other hand, is entirely good - and also rich and intelligent and unbelievably lucky. The woman they both love is also perfect: beautiful, smart, and a bestselling author after her first writing attempt. Everything in the book seems to happen because Da Chen needs it to happen, not because it's the logical outcome of what's gone before, and what were supposed to be plot twists or important revelations felt like weak attempts at surprising the reader.
More inexcusable than weak plot development is the "historical" setting of the book. China in the 1960s through the 1990s is not just the background of the story, oh no - of course, the characters are each intimately involved in pretty much everything that happened during that period. One character is the grandson of Mao's two closest advisors, the other effortlessly becomes "Heng Tu's" right-hand man, and their personal battles are what provoked the Tiananmen Square incident. Okay, sure.
The icing on the cake is Da Chen's frequently peculiar word choices. I don't mind unusual metaphors or creative language, but words like "unforetelling" and "creeked" (a small sample of what I can remember) were odd enough to take me right out of the story while I pondered what they actually meant.
I'm giving this two stars rather than one because I admit it was entertaining. It reminded me of a poorly-written, big-budget Hollywood costume piece, having little to do with history or storytelling but everything to do with its creator's ego and self-indulgent fantasies.
More inexcusable than weak plot development is the "historical" setting of the book. China in the 1960s through the 1990s is not just the background of the story, oh no - of course, the characters are each intimately involved in pretty much everything that happened during that period. One character is the grandson of Mao's two closest advisors, the other effortlessly becomes "Heng Tu's" right-hand man, and their personal battles are what provoked the Tiananmen Square incident. Okay, sure.
The icing on the cake is Da Chen's frequently peculiar word choices. I don't mind unusual metaphors or creative language, but words like "unforetelling" and "creeked" (a small sample of what I can remember) were odd enough to take me right out of the story while I pondered what they actually meant.
I'm giving this two stars rather than one because I admit it was entertaining. It reminded me of a poorly-written, big-budget Hollywood costume piece, having little to do with history or storytelling but everything to do with its creator's ego and self-indulgent fantasies.
psykobilliethekid's review against another edition
4.0
I've finished this book some time ago and just now have some time to write my review.
This was a very interesting book in the end. I won't give anything away, but it was more or less a combination of the War of the Roses and the Prince and the Pauper without the switching of the main characters to their other worlds, all set to the back drop of the end of Mao China and ending with the Tiananmen Square incident and its after effects. It's also a story of love lost, found and turned traitor through the outside influences of family members and government officials.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in Contemporary Chinese history or for someone who loves read the stories of several people, who do not seem to be related at all, finally coming together in the most unexpected of ways.
--------
So far so good. It's a novel about two brothers-one brought up in the high society of late Mao China, and the other a bastard brought up in the jungles near Vietnam. Their only link between each other is their father-a high ranking general in Mao's army.
It's not the typical book of two tales though-it's more like the graphic novels I read where the characters have nothing or near to nothing related to each other, but end up meeting together in a certain way or event in/near the end. Not that I know this will actually happen of course since I'm not finished with the book yet. But it has kept my attention and has become a page turner and like to return to.
This was a very interesting book in the end. I won't give anything away, but it was more or less a combination of the War of the Roses and the Prince and the Pauper without the switching of the main characters to their other worlds, all set to the back drop of the end of Mao China and ending with the Tiananmen Square incident and its after effects. It's also a story of love lost, found and turned traitor through the outside influences of family members and government officials.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in Contemporary Chinese history or for someone who loves read the stories of several people, who do not seem to be related at all, finally coming together in the most unexpected of ways.
--------
So far so good. It's a novel about two brothers-one brought up in the high society of late Mao China, and the other a bastard brought up in the jungles near Vietnam. Their only link between each other is their father-a high ranking general in Mao's army.
It's not the typical book of two tales though-it's more like the graphic novels I read where the characters have nothing or near to nothing related to each other, but end up meeting together in a certain way or event in/near the end. Not that I know this will actually happen of course since I'm not finished with the book yet. But it has kept my attention and has become a page turner and like to return to.