You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Scan barcode
fridge_brilliance's review
3.0
Reading this book was a very frustrating experience: no matter how much interest I have in the subject matter, the author's style constantly threw me out. What drove me up the wall the most were these really extraneous fictionized lyrical digressions about historical characters - I cannot emphasize how much I did not care to read author's speculations about what mood this or that historical figure were in skipped across the avenues of Boston, how much sun shone on their polished shoes and how many secrets did their moustache hide. Another thing that bothered me was that the focus was so haphazardly chosen throughout the book: having read this book I feel like I ended up with less structured knowledge about the history of the Chinese script than I started off with, because so often Jing Tsu would choose a specific branch of its development that just didn't go anywhere, or had only tangenial influence on the state of modern Mandarin. Overall effect - not great at all. I did, however, enjoy the chapters closer to the modern day more than I did her choice for earlier history - it was a pleasant surprise that she included a bit of history concern Hui/muslim Chinese renamed Dungan in the Soviet Russia. 2.5 stars.
veronicacanread's review
Interesting topic, story well-told, a bit dry & has definitely slowed down my reading this month.
bostieslovebooks's review
This book presents a really interesting topic, but the writing is very dry which makes for a slog of a read. It seems like portions of Chinese history were ignored, though I am not competent enough on the topic to say what is actually missing. Still glad that I read it.
hezza's review
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
4.0
Captivating chronology of the separate efforts to modernize the Chinese language from the last Dynasty to the modern day. I really enjoyed following the accounts of the efforts by engineers to devise an elegant system to type characters.
little_sparrow3's review
4.0
This was utterly fascinating. I studied Mandarin Chinese in high school and so knew a little bit about how the written characters were simplified in the mid-1900s, but I never thought about how pinyin came to be (I honestly thought it was always there) or how people sent telegrams or used a typewriter in Chinese. Definitely worth a read if you're a linguistics buff or just like learning about history.
tani's review
4.0
This was really interesting. I had never thought about the challenges that would come with making the Chinese writing system mesh with modern systems, but turns out, it was a rough business.