Dream of the Walled City Hardcover – Import, 1 September 2000

"Dream of the Walled City", by Lisa Huang Fleischman, is a historical fiction novel that centers on the life experiences of the Liang family in mainland China during 1890-1949. The book is narrated by Liang Jade Virtue (i.e., her family name is `Liang' and her personal name is `Jade Virtue') who was born in 1890 in the province of Hunan, in the ancient walled city of Changsha. Jade Virtue has an older brother named Li Shi, and a younger sister named Graceful Virtue.Although the members of the Liang family (and their extended family) are fictional, their story is told against the backdrop of historically factual events: e.g., (a) the deposition/abdication of the boy Emperor Pu Yi; (b) the election of Dr. Sun Yat-sen as president of the Chinese Republic (1911); (c) the victory of the Nationalist revolution (Kuomintang) under Chiang Kai-shek; (d) the invasion of China by Japan; (e) the flight of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang to Taiwan; (f) the victory of the Communist Party under Mao Tse-tung. In addition to the aforementioned historical characters, many others are discussed (or at least mentioned) in historical context. Among these are Yang Chang Chi (Mao's respected teacher), Yang Kai-Hui (Yang Chang Chi's daughter who married Mao and was eventually executed); Deng Xiao Ping, Xiang Jin Yu, et al.This book also exposes the reader to numerous ancient aspects of Chinese culture that were in effect during this period. For example, one of the most repugnant practices was foot-binding (it was common practice to bind the feet of little girls). By the time the girl reached womanhood, typically her feet would be about three inches in size and quite painful. Marriages were typically arranged by the parents. Babies were delivered by midwives. Opium was the drug of choice. Superstitions prevailed.Dream of the Walled City is an extremely interesting, highly informative, well-written historical fiction novel about China. It is one of the best books that I've read in several years.

I was caught by this novel in its exotic, formal, intimate first sentence: "This person speaking is Jade Virtue." I got the feeling of a story to be told face to face, a personal narrative of a life lived in the turmoil of great events.The narrator of this story, Jade Virtue, is a woman born in the Hunanese city of Changsha (the Walled City of the title) in 1890, during imperial China's final gasp. The narrative follows her life for the next 60 years to 1949 when Mao Zedong proclaims the People's Republic from Tienanmen Square. The story focuses on the mundane as closely as on historical as we read about her imprisonment in the home of her first husband, an opium addict, and his bitter parents as a three thousand-year-old culture disintegrates around her. She eventually is freed, through a combination of circumstance and self-will, only to find that the ground underneath her, an unmarried upper-class woman in a society violently throwing off its upper classes as it heaves itself into the twentieth century, may not be steady ever again.Her shoulders brush against history as she meets and befriends some of its major players, including the young Mao Zedong and Cai Hesen. (Don't look for a romantic portrait of the "Chairman as a Young Man" here; he passes through the story, remarkably only because of his name, and moves on.) She forms a life-long friendship with a woman whose life, personally and politically, takes a very different route than her own. Along the way, she finds love and self-respect, and her own transformation becomes a metaphor for China's. Okay, it's not that simple, thank heavens. But you get the idea.The writing is clean and luxurious without being the least pretentious or "arch." Some of the book's set-pieces -- Jade Virtue's imprisonment and escape from a local warlord, for example -- successfully draw a picture of private life during a time of unprecedented upheaval.The novel is reportedly inspired by the real life story of the author's grandmother. Thus, this book's task, to stand as guardian to memory and to history, could have been very perilous for a first novelist. Lisa Huang Fleischman meets the challenge with grace and a talent for painting with words that is a pleasure to encounterin any novel, first or otherwise. I highly recommend this book.

Attention getter from the start! Loved the in-depth detail of life in that era and attention to traditions - GET IT!

Dan. Dan.