BECOMING MADAME MAO.
Min, Anchee
From Bookfever, IOBA (Volk & Iiams), Ione, CA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
AbeBooks Seller since November 6, 1997
From Bookfever, IOBA (Volk & Iiams), Ione, CA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
AbeBooks Seller since November 6, 1997
About this Item
SIGNED hardcover first edition - First printing. Her highly praised third book, second novel, Russell Banks called this 'brilliant and poetic' while Ha Jin described it as 'audacious but balanced.' INSCRIBED on the title page. 337 pp plus references. Near fine in near fine dust jacket. Seller Inventory # 54884
Bibliographic Details
Title: BECOMING MADAME MAO.
Publisher: Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. dj
Binding: Hardcover
Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
Signed: Signed by Author(s)
Edition: 1st Edition
About this title
Before her stint as Mao's first lady, Jiang Ching, as she was then known, was an actress, a singer, and a star in Communist films. Anchee Min grew up in Red China and watched Jiang Ching from afar; she was fascinated by her for many years, by tales of her independence and strength, and by images of her beauty. In a way, the great villain and demon was a role model for Anchee Min, and her teenage devotion is the engine of her remarkable novel. Moving back and forth between stories of the actress and the evil dictator, Min complicates the Madame Mao of history.
As a girl, Madame Mao narrowly escaped having her feet bound. The book opens with graphic descriptions of this process and of the ensuing infection that freed her. But if her feet were not bound, her spirit was. Reared by a mother who was the last concubine of a rich man, and a father who liked to hit his girls with shovels, Madame Mao as a young girl felt herself doomed: "I see my father hit Mother with a shovel. It happened suddenly. Without warning. I can hardly believe my eyes. He is mad. He calls Mother a slut. Mother's body curls up. My chest swells. He hits her back, front, shouting that he will break her bones." The father then goes on to treat his daughter the same way. Decades later, when Madame Mao manifests deep brutality, Min seems to be saying that what goes around comes around. Flawed by a clumsy structure that vacillates between third and first person arbitrarily, Becoming Madame Mao is nevertheless an immensely interesting work--defiant, morally ambiguous, and difficult to put down. --Emily White
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
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