Sunday 02 December 2001

I finished Jung Chang's Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China last night. It took me almost a week to finish, a bit of a record given I am a book a night person; I simply could not, nor did I want to gulp as is my usual practice. It is a truly amazing book and I am still reeling, still thinking deeply (for me, anyway), and wanting to share the experience. 

Although it was actually the second time I'd read it all the way through (not counting the times I'd "dipped in") the effect was if anything intensified. I love history, full stop, it is important and special and fascinating. I feel Wild Swans is special, and important, and fascinating, for reasons beyond the usual recording of a particular period of time.

For a start, the narrative voice is so confiding and conversational, almost domestic, which increases both the reader's attachment to the "characters" and intensifies the impact of the experiences and hardships far more than when described either by dry academia or outright hyperbole.

So much of what was going on in China during the Mao years was unknown to the Western World at the time due to China's secrecy and strict isolationist policy, and of course the propaganda machine rivalled that of the USSR. An uncle and aunt of mine visited China in the 1970s, and came back with glowing reports and such enthusiasm for the utopia they were shown ... They in fact wrote a book, which now in hindsight, and with the knowledge and viewpoints of Wild Swans and other reports, is now plain laughable. How gullible those Westerners ... 

There must still be murky areas. 

Although the Mao years are now well documented, taught in schools (I studied an extensive unit on Chinese History in high school), and the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards are well known aspects of that period, it is only the first hand accounts give that punch in the gut. 

Hitler's Germany for example, has been well documented, from many narrative points of view, but it is the personal accounts, whether by Holocaust survivors or resistance or collaborators even, that truly bring the impact and gut reaction to the horror.

As with the USSR though, C20th Chinese history is still shrouded. The years of physical hardship and famine, political propaganda, the state-manipulated and controlled distrust, fear and hatred between neighbours and colleagues, former friends and allies, must surely have crippled the population mentally, emotionally and educationally. The population's sense of initiative and innovation must surely have been lost or severely reduced. 

Having finished Wild Swans I am now keen to read on; to read the next instalment of what has happened since 1978; how the atrocities of Tiananmen Square affected society; what is really happening in China, to the peasants, the ex-officials and "blacks" and "greys", and of course the detainees. If someone out there knows of such a history please let me know. 

But I wish that only Jung Chang herself would write a Wild Swans II ... it is her voice I long to hear.

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