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Empress
A ravishing historical novel of one of China's most controversial historical figures: its first and only female emperor, Empress Wu, who emerged in the Tang Dynasty and ushered in a golden age.
In seventh–century China, during the great Tang dynasty, a young girl from the humble Wu clan entered the imperial gynaecium, which housed ten thousand concubines. Inside the Forbidden City, she witnessed seductions, plots, murders, and brazen acts of treason. Propelled by a shrewd intelligence, an extraordinary persistence, and a friendship with the imperial heir, she rose through the ranks to become the first Empress of China. On the one hand, she was a political mastermind who quelled insurrections, eased famine, and opened wide the routes of international trade. On the other, she was a passionate patron of the arts who brought Chinese civilization to unsurpassed heights of knowledge, beauty, and sophistication.
And yet, from the moment of her death to the present day, her name has been sullied, her story distorted, and her memoirs obliterated by men taking vengeance on a women who dared become Emperor. For the first time in thirteen centuries, Empress Wu flings open the gates of her Forbidden City and tells her own astonishing tale–revealing a fascinating, complex figure who in many ways remains modern to this day.
In seventh–century China, during the great Tang dynasty, a young girl from the humble Wu clan entered the imperial gynaecium, which housed ten thousand concubines. Inside the Forbidden City, she witnessed seductions, plots, murders, and brazen acts of treason. Propelled by a shrewd intelligence, an extraordinary persistence, and a friendship with the imperial heir, she rose through the ranks to become the first Empress of China. On the one hand, she was a political mastermind who quelled insurrections, eased famine, and opened wide the routes of international trade. On the other, she was a passionate patron of the arts who brought Chinese civilization to unsurpassed heights of knowledge, beauty, and sophistication.
And yet, from the moment of her death to the present day, her name has been sullied, her story distorted, and her memoirs obliterated by men taking vengeance on a women who dared become Emperor. For the first time in thirteen centuries, Empress Wu flings open the gates of her Forbidden City and tells her own astonishing tale–revealing a fascinating, complex figure who in many ways remains modern to this day.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
About the author
Shan Sa
30 books229 followersShan Sa is a French author born in Beijing in 1972. The Girl Who Played Go was the first of her novels to be published outside of France. It won the Goncourt des Lycéens Prize in 2001 and earned critical acclaim worldwide. Her second novel to appear in English translation is "The Empress" (2006).
Shan Sa was born on October 26, 1972 in Beijing to a scholarly family . Her real name is Yan Ni Ni, then she adopted the pseudonym Shan Sa, taken from a poem of Bai Juyi.
Shan Sa was born on October 26, 1972 in Beijing to a scholarly family . Her real name is Yan Ni Ni, then she adopted the pseudonym Shan Sa, taken from a poem of Bai Juyi.
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March 13, 2017
A few reasons why I recommend this book:
-The tale of the one and only female emperor in the history of China.
-A Machiavellian heroine who is determined to create her own destiny, against all odds.
-The forbidden romance between a young crown prince and one of his royal father's widows.
-The gorgeous backdrop of the Tang Dynasty, when the imperial China was at her peak.
-Deadly power struggle within both the harem and the court.
-The complicated family saga of both the Royal Family and the Wu clan, the heroine's family.
-An epic drama involving emperor and his wives, lords and ladies, ministers and nobles, filling with power play and schemes, gossips and scandals, crime and passion, sex and violence and murder.
Characters description:
Emperor Lordly Forebear (deceased): The first emperor of Tang Dynasty, who overthrew the previous Sui Dynasty with the help of his sons and daughter.
Emperor Eternal Ancestor: second emperor of Tang, Heavenlight Wu's first husband and father of Little Phoenix and the other princes. He is widely considered as one of the greatest emperors in Chinese history and a military genius, who secured his throne after he assassinated his two brothers and 10 nephews in a coup.
Emperor Lordly Ancestor/Little Phoenix: The third emperor of Tang and Heavenlight's second husband. As a prince, no one had expected him to inherit the crown but power struggle within both the royal family and the court eventually put him onto a position he hadn't fully been prepared for. He has always been traditionally viewed as a weak-willed and pathetic ruler. However, a closer look would reveal him as, although not as successful as his father, still a capable politician of his own right, before illness affected his health and performance.
Heavenlight Wu/Empress Wu: better known as Wu Zetain in Chinese pop culture and folklore, an orphaned girl from the rural Wu clan, she first served as a low ranking concubine in Emperor Eternal Ancestor's harem, later she was forced to become a nun after the Emperor's death, but through determination and a few twists of fate, she managed to return to the harem as the new Emperor's favorite, which set off a series of chain reactions throughout the empire.
Gentleness: granddaughter of a minister whom was executed for suggesting the Emperor to dethrone Empress Wu. As a girl she was brought to the palace as a slave, her wide knowledge and talents on poetry and literature made the Empress promote her to become her secretary. Her position as one of the Empress's most trusted servants helped her to gain influence in the palace and state affairs as well.
Princess Of Eternal Peace/Moon: Empress Wu's youngest and favored child, one of the most powerful princesses in the history of China. She was a skillful player in the power game before and after her mother's death, and rather scandalously, she was also known for having shared young male lovers with her mother.
A brief outline of Empress Wu's life:
She was a fatherless girl who left her homeland for the gorgeous but dangerous Palace. She failed to gain her first husband's favor but caught the eyes of her stepson. She had gone from being a widow, a nun and then the new Emperor's chief wife. For decades she ruled an empire through her husband and later her sons before she finally crowned herself then ruled for nearly two more decades.
Historians condemned her for being an evil woman who controlled her emperor husband like puppet and murdered her way up to the top. However, she ruled and maintained an empire for much longer than many male emperors had ever managed to, though at the same time she exiled, terrorized and executed countless people for getting in her way--including her kinmens and children. Intelligent, strong willed, disciplined, ambitious, ruthless and for many times downright cruel, Empress Wu was, borrowing my GR friend Jocelyn's words, one heck of a lady.
To be honest, I cannot tell how much of my enjoyment with this book is because of Miss Sa's talent as an author, and how much of it is because of the charm of her source materials: the extraordinary life of Empress Wu. Her story has always been well known throughout the history of China, her dramatic raise to power, her romance with her second husband, her cruelty, her reign as the one and only female emperor and even her scandalous affairs with her male lovers, all of them are, hand down, stuffs of legend.
However, good source materials still needs to be crafted by skillful hands for it to shine. And the more I read Empress, the more I can see the author's effort and her talent does shine through her writing.
Miss Sa mentioned, in an interview at the back of the book, she did three years of research for this book and it took her two more years to finish writing it; and it does show. Not only I found the accuracy in this book amazing and impressive, I am also impressed by Miss Sa's ability to weave different events through generations and different historical figures' life stories together in such a neat, effective manner.
Truth be told, I think the beginning part of the story is the most gripping and the young Heavenlight Wu is a lot easier to be empathized with than her older self. Even Miss Sa mentioned she empathizes with Heavenlight Wu for she had gone through the same shock and suffering Wu must have gone through as a rural girl who went alone from her home village to the empire's capital, like Sa had once experienced moving from the post-Cultural Revolution China to Paris.
Like many other famous and powerful women in history, Empress Wu's life is controversial, and I also appreciate the author's methods of handling the controversies and mysteries of Wu's life (although I don't always agree with her conclusions), such as:
The facts, mysteries and fictions in Empress Wu's life, and how the author handled them:
(1) Fact: Empress Wu's origin name is unknown, so her name isn't Heavenlight like Miss Sa had claimed. After she went to the palace, her first husband bestowed her the name 'Wu Mei', which means 'Wu the Pretty One', after she ascended to the throne, she renamed herself '武曌' (Wu Heavenlight), which actually means 'sun and moon in the Sky, at the same time' in Chinese. Although 'Heavenlight' is very likely not Empress Wu's origin name, but I do think it is an awesome translation for the name of the book's heroine.
(2) Mystery no. 1: a lot of people tend to believe
(3) Mystery no. 2: Did Empress Wu ordered her oldest son to be killed when he became too independent, or did the young crown prince die of nature cause? I found it difficult to think a mother would kill her oldest son like this...but given Empress Wu's personality and the history of the Tang's royal family (a lot, I mean a lot of execution and assassination had gone on within this family), I think the chance is 50-50.
(4) Fictions: Did Empress Wu simply murder her way up to the top and corrupt her second husband with sex and lies? No. Although she did kill quite a large number of people but it took a lot more than cruelty and murder for her to establish herself as a close political alliance to her second husband and manage to stay in power for decades, and this book would show you how.
(5) Mystery no. 3: Did Empress Wu I truly appreciate this part of the story.
(6) Did Heavenlight Wu had sexual relationship with her first husband? Or did she serve him more like a maidservant and a secretary? Miss Sa seems to think Wu didn't serve him sexually but historians do not seem to think so.
(7) However, I am a bit disappointed that Ms. Sa entirely ignores the fact that Heavenlight's mother had an incestuous relationship with one of her grandsons (son of her first born daughter) at old age. Shocking isn't it? But this relationship is so infamous that it gets recorded in the history book of Tang.
Last but not least, the translation is gorgeous too. I learnt that Ms. Sa first wrote this novel in French and the text was later translated into English, and gosh the translation must be one of the best I've seen so far.
Famous quotes:
As to the intriguing Tang Dynasty, here are some photos from The Assassin (2015), a movie loosely based on a Tang's legend:
(link: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...)
(link: http://variety.com/2015/film/news/the...)
(link: http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/film-tv...)
Similar books:
The Queen Of the South, by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
The Twentieth Wife, by Indu Sundaresan
Another book about Empress Wu's life, to balance things out a bit:
Lady Wu, by Lin YuTang
A well written non-fictional series about Tang Dynasy and the ruling of Empress Wu and her husband (in Chinese):
The Shadow Emperor (影子皇帝), #6 book of the series
The Reign of the Celestial Queen (天后臨朝), #7 book of the series
The Empress of Ages (一代女皇), #8 book of the series
-The tale of the one and only female emperor in the history of China.
-A Machiavellian heroine who is determined to create her own destiny, against all odds.
-The forbidden romance between a young crown prince and one of his royal father's widows.
-The gorgeous backdrop of the Tang Dynasty, when the imperial China was at her peak.
-Deadly power struggle within both the harem and the court.
-The complicated family saga of both the Royal Family and the Wu clan, the heroine's family.
-An epic drama involving emperor and his wives, lords and ladies, ministers and nobles, filling with power play and schemes, gossips and scandals, crime and passion, sex and violence and murder.
Characters description:
Emperor Lordly Forebear (deceased): The first emperor of Tang Dynasty, who overthrew the previous Sui Dynasty with the help of his sons and daughter.
Emperor Eternal Ancestor: second emperor of Tang, Heavenlight Wu's first husband and father of Little Phoenix and the other princes. He is widely considered as one of the greatest emperors in Chinese history and a military genius, who secured his throne after he assassinated his two brothers and 10 nephews in a coup.
Emperor Lordly Ancestor/Little Phoenix: The third emperor of Tang and Heavenlight's second husband. As a prince, no one had expected him to inherit the crown but power struggle within both the royal family and the court eventually put him onto a position he hadn't fully been prepared for. He has always been traditionally viewed as a weak-willed and pathetic ruler. However, a closer look would reveal him as, although not as successful as his father, still a capable politician of his own right, before illness affected his health and performance.
Heavenlight Wu/Empress Wu: better known as Wu Zetain in Chinese pop culture and folklore, an orphaned girl from the rural Wu clan, she first served as a low ranking concubine in Emperor Eternal Ancestor's harem, later she was forced to become a nun after the Emperor's death, but through determination and a few twists of fate, she managed to return to the harem as the new Emperor's favorite, which set off a series of chain reactions throughout the empire.
Gentleness: granddaughter of a minister whom was executed for suggesting the Emperor to dethrone Empress Wu. As a girl she was brought to the palace as a slave, her wide knowledge and talents on poetry and literature made the Empress promote her to become her secretary. Her position as one of the Empress's most trusted servants helped her to gain influence in the palace and state affairs as well.
Princess Of Eternal Peace/Moon: Empress Wu's youngest and favored child, one of the most powerful princesses in the history of China. She was a skillful player in the power game before and after her mother's death, and rather scandalously, she was also known for having shared young male lovers with her mother.
A brief outline of Empress Wu's life:
She was a fatherless girl who left her homeland for the gorgeous but dangerous Palace. She failed to gain her first husband's favor but caught the eyes of her stepson. She had gone from being a widow, a nun and then the new Emperor's chief wife. For decades she ruled an empire through her husband and later her sons before she finally crowned herself then ruled for nearly two more decades.
Historians condemned her for being an evil woman who controlled her emperor husband like puppet and murdered her way up to the top. However, she ruled and maintained an empire for much longer than many male emperors had ever managed to, though at the same time she exiled, terrorized and executed countless people for getting in her way--including her kinmens and children. Intelligent, strong willed, disciplined, ambitious, ruthless and for many times downright cruel, Empress Wu was, borrowing my GR friend Jocelyn's words, one heck of a lady.
To be honest, I cannot tell how much of my enjoyment with this book is because of Miss Sa's talent as an author, and how much of it is because of the charm of her source materials: the extraordinary life of Empress Wu. Her story has always been well known throughout the history of China, her dramatic raise to power, her romance with her second husband, her cruelty, her reign as the one and only female emperor and even her scandalous affairs with her male lovers, all of them are, hand down, stuffs of legend.
However, good source materials still needs to be crafted by skillful hands for it to shine. And the more I read Empress, the more I can see the author's effort and her talent does shine through her writing.
Miss Sa mentioned, in an interview at the back of the book, she did three years of research for this book and it took her two more years to finish writing it; and it does show. Not only I found the accuracy in this book amazing and impressive, I am also impressed by Miss Sa's ability to weave different events through generations and different historical figures' life stories together in such a neat, effective manner.
Truth be told, I think the beginning part of the story is the most gripping and the young Heavenlight Wu is a lot easier to be empathized with than her older self. Even Miss Sa mentioned she empathizes with Heavenlight Wu for she had gone through the same shock and suffering Wu must have gone through as a rural girl who went alone from her home village to the empire's capital, like Sa had once experienced moving from the post-Cultural Revolution China to Paris.
Like many other famous and powerful women in history, Empress Wu's life is controversial, and I also appreciate the author's methods of handling the controversies and mysteries of Wu's life (although I don't always agree with her conclusions), such as:
The facts, mysteries and fictions in Empress Wu's life, and how the author handled them:
(1) Fact: Empress Wu's origin name is unknown, so her name isn't Heavenlight like Miss Sa had claimed. After she went to the palace, her first husband bestowed her the name 'Wu Mei', which means 'Wu the Pretty One', after she ascended to the throne, she renamed herself '武曌' (Wu Heavenlight), which actually means 'sun and moon in the Sky, at the same time' in Chinese. Although 'Heavenlight' is very likely not Empress Wu's origin name, but I do think it is an awesome translation for the name of the book's heroine.
(2) Mystery no. 1: a lot of people tend to believe
(3) Mystery no. 2: Did Empress Wu ordered her oldest son to be killed when he became too independent, or did the young crown prince die of nature cause? I found it difficult to think a mother would kill her oldest son like this...but given Empress Wu's personality and the history of the Tang's royal family (a lot, I mean a lot of execution and assassination had gone on within this family), I think the chance is 50-50.
(4) Fictions: Did Empress Wu simply murder her way up to the top and corrupt her second husband with sex and lies? No. Although she did kill quite a large number of people but it took a lot more than cruelty and murder for her to establish herself as a close political alliance to her second husband and manage to stay in power for decades, and this book would show you how.
(5) Mystery no. 3: Did Empress Wu I truly appreciate this part of the story.
(6) Did Heavenlight Wu had sexual relationship with her first husband? Or did she serve him more like a maidservant and a secretary? Miss Sa seems to think Wu didn't serve him sexually but historians do not seem to think so.
(7) However, I am a bit disappointed that Ms. Sa entirely ignores the fact that Heavenlight's mother had an incestuous relationship with one of her grandsons (son of her first born daughter) at old age. Shocking isn't it? But this relationship is so infamous that it gets recorded in the history book of Tang.
Last but not least, the translation is gorgeous too. I learnt that Ms. Sa first wrote this novel in French and the text was later translated into English, and gosh the translation must be one of the best I've seen so far.
Famous quotes:
"In our time women can demonstrate prowess in a thousand ways. Long ago the great Princess Sun of Ping fought for her father, the August Sovereign. At her funeral, His Majesty called for the trumpets and drums to be sounded, an honor reserved for men. My dear, from this day you must dress her as a boy. Give her an education worthy of her own determination."
Mother and Little Sister wept. To console them, I pronounced these words that had been tumbling round my heart for days: "My position at the Palace is our one opportunity. Have confidence in my destiny. Do not weep."
The role of Empress became a full-time occupation.
As to the intriguing Tang Dynasty, here are some photos from The Assassin (2015), a movie loosely based on a Tang's legend:
(link: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...)
(link: http://variety.com/2015/film/news/the...)
(link: http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/film-tv...)
Similar books:
The Queen Of the South, by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
The Twentieth Wife, by Indu Sundaresan
Another book about Empress Wu's life, to balance things out a bit:
Lady Wu, by Lin YuTang
A well written non-fictional series about Tang Dynasy and the ruling of Empress Wu and her husband (in Chinese):
The Shadow Emperor (影子皇帝), #6 book of the series
The Reign of the Celestial Queen (天后臨朝), #7 book of the series
The Empress of Ages (一代女皇), #8 book of the series
June 15, 2013
Ova knjiga je bila najprodavaniji naslov Lagune 2006. godine, što mi je posebno drago (u smislu da mi je urednička procena bila dobra)... Ovo je knjiga za sve one koji vole dobar istorijski egzotični roman... i Kinu... I sve one koji su čitali knjigu "Šljivin cvet u vazi od zlata"... :)
April 27, 2016
I've a penchant for literature written with an eye on the grander scale of things. Most probably it comes with my preoccupation with critiquing the canon, albeit through far less flimsy bases than prose and universality and all that invisible-hand jazz. In return for paying attention to fields that are not required for the common range of English (history, politics, decolonization, gender dichotomy, all that fun stuff people like to pretend are subsidiary instead of the power generators of unquestioned classical status), I get a continuum. An angry, muddled, and heckling continuum, by way of the present forever desiring to never pick apart the past, but knowledge is power. Of course, absolute power corrupts absolutely, but you can complain about my biases when white men make up less than ten percent of the population of various prizes, as befits their portion of the demographic. If you actually want to achieve something, your target is not me.
In the vein of Imperial Woman and Memoirs of Hadrian we have a work that is closer than either in terms of the physiognomy of author and authored. The prose is to my taste, the world is to my wonder, and the life lived in close sensory detail and alienated moral grounds utterly befits the saying that the past is a foreign country. Up until the end point of the narrative, we reside in the head of one who survives via cunning, fertility, lust, health, strategy, bloodthirstiness, and every recourse of a dynastic body and soul. One runs, and builds, and improves, and kills, until finally immortality begs the question of the empire one has built: what tools will you leave behind once you are dead? What have you left to the rulers, what have you left to the populace, and how will the latter mourn when the former have thrown each other to the wolves.
Beware: this is is historical fiction of the Chinese variety whose subject is a woman of infamous degree. Those who do not indulge in historical fact with great pleasure, you may be bored by the ritual regulation and political machination and all that comes with the narrative that rules an
empire. Those who indulge to a great degree, you may be miffed by a smoothing here, a sentimentalizing there, for massacres and incest there was to a great degree. Bear in mind, however, that each and every fact has been touched with gynephobic malice. If you want a culprit for nonfictional debacles, there're your men.
Outside of that, there is the matter of a sexuality touching on a far broader space of field than the young man and the young woman, lesbian pedophilia and female-dominated gerontophilia being two of the more sensational breeds of intercourse. Even farther, there is the realpolitik of the first millennium CE which put both my favorite families, the Tudors and the Borgias, to shame. To shift to more usual literary matters, carrying all that across is the prose. For those of the French linguistic persuasion, the original text is available. While curious as to how that would go, I am satisfied enough with my Anglo transfiguration to pass on making an effort.
Finally, there is the ending, one of those out of body frames that attempts to draw a holism out of a past power speaking to an impermanent present. Enamored with contextual awareness that I am, the last bit bumped this up that last half star. Those of the more objective temperament: you're missing out.
In the vein of Imperial Woman and Memoirs of Hadrian we have a work that is closer than either in terms of the physiognomy of author and authored. The prose is to my taste, the world is to my wonder, and the life lived in close sensory detail and alienated moral grounds utterly befits the saying that the past is a foreign country. Up until the end point of the narrative, we reside in the head of one who survives via cunning, fertility, lust, health, strategy, bloodthirstiness, and every recourse of a dynastic body and soul. One runs, and builds, and improves, and kills, until finally immortality begs the question of the empire one has built: what tools will you leave behind once you are dead? What have you left to the rulers, what have you left to the populace, and how will the latter mourn when the former have thrown each other to the wolves.
Beware: this is is historical fiction of the Chinese variety whose subject is a woman of infamous degree. Those who do not indulge in historical fact with great pleasure, you may be bored by the ritual regulation and political machination and all that comes with the narrative that rules an
empire. Those who indulge to a great degree, you may be miffed by a smoothing here, a sentimentalizing there, for massacres and incest there was to a great degree. Bear in mind, however, that each and every fact has been touched with gynephobic malice. If you want a culprit for nonfictional debacles, there're your men.
Outside of that, there is the matter of a sexuality touching on a far broader space of field than the young man and the young woman, lesbian pedophilia and female-dominated gerontophilia being two of the more sensational breeds of intercourse. Even farther, there is the realpolitik of the first millennium CE which put both my favorite families, the Tudors and the Borgias, to shame. To shift to more usual literary matters, carrying all that across is the prose. For those of the French linguistic persuasion, the original text is available. While curious as to how that would go, I am satisfied enough with my Anglo transfiguration to pass on making an effort.
Finally, there is the ending, one of those out of body frames that attempts to draw a holism out of a past power speaking to an impermanent present. Enamored with contextual awareness that I am, the last bit bumped this up that last half star. Those of the more objective temperament: you're missing out.
July 23, 2013
There's a story behind my reading this book. I am, by habit a reader of 'genre fiction' which means stories about Spaceman Gort and the Flying Death Pygmies of Planet Bimbotron and things like that. At the Barnes and Noble I typically shop for books at, the Spaceman Gort section is crammed far into the back, covered in cobwebs, and filled with a droning voice that tells you how ashamed you should be for reading this drivel.
Perhaps I exaggerate.
On the way to Spaceman Gort and the lovely ladies of Planet Bimbotron, you have to cross a gauntlet of pretentiousness known as the Literature Section, filled with proper works of "Lih-trah-chuh." On one trip through this minefield of horrors, I happened to notice a book by Anne Rice, I think it was Interview with a Vampire. In the Literature section! So apparently if you want to read Heinlein books you have to trudge to the Genre Ghetto, but if you want to read about bisexual mulatto vampires sucking each other (blood, you perv!) on Bourbon Street, the Literature section is for you.
So I was naturally perturbed, and I started wondering what was so gosh darn special about these silly lihtrahchuh books anyway? How could they compete with Heinlein, Norton, Clarke, Lee, Asimov? So I decided I would try for once to actually read Literature. But I wasn't willing to actually move or look around too much, so I was limited to whatever was in arm's reach of Anne Rice.
The snazzy cover immediately drew me towards Empress. Cute asian girl on cover (check). Written by a woman from communist china (check) who emmigrated to France (big check) to make paintings (check) of weird indistinct monochrome blobs (check). The book was original written in French (humongous check) and was...
... historical fiction about the first female Empress of China.
Huh. That actually sounded interesting. So I grabbed the book, tucked it under my meaty arm and headed off. After finishing a genre book or two, I finally turned to Empress with a little trepidation. This was no ordinary reading. No, this was a serious meeting from the ambassador of Planet Literary Snob.
The book definitely has poetic prose, but it doesn't gush as much as say, a Stephen King book where it takes ten pages to describe someone opening a door. The writing style, even translated from another language, is quite beautiful, which I suppose is an important part of literature.
Now the narrative and characterization, the parts that matter most in Spaceman Gort Land. I personally found the characters quite emotive, while some people found them dry. I liked it. The plot moved along at a good pace, and focused on courtly intrigue in the Gynaceum (?) of the Chinese Emperor. Very sumptious, lots of focus on gowns and decoration and the pageantry of it all and scheming schemers.
One thing I found sort of ... dare I say precious? Is it sexist of me to call a female writer from China/France precious? It probably is. Oh well. The Empress described is the ONLY female empress China has ever had. An AMAZING amount of people around her vanish and die in ways that are very convenient to her pursuit of power, and the author does a tremendous tapdancing act to try to pretend she had little if nothing to do with it. All the good things, she did, all the bad things, George Bush did apparently. I find this ... um... highly doubtful. You don't wind up as the only female Empress of China by a weird twist of fate, you get there over the dead bodies of the men and women less ambitious and careful than you.
So I'm not sure how realistic it was, but I very much enjoyed the book even if it was a bit naive at times. Even though there were no robots, flying death pygmies, demon sorcerers, alien invaders, or amazon bimbotronians, I ... dare I say it...? Enjoyed the book! Enough that I keep an eye out for other books by this author.
So I would say the Ambassador from Planet Literature did a good job of representing for her people.
TLDR: If you like courtly intrigue, enjoy Chinese culture, and don't mind books without robots or demons, this is something you would enjoy.
Perhaps I exaggerate.
On the way to Spaceman Gort and the lovely ladies of Planet Bimbotron, you have to cross a gauntlet of pretentiousness known as the Literature Section, filled with proper works of "Lih-trah-chuh." On one trip through this minefield of horrors, I happened to notice a book by Anne Rice, I think it was Interview with a Vampire. In the Literature section! So apparently if you want to read Heinlein books you have to trudge to the Genre Ghetto, but if you want to read about bisexual mulatto vampires sucking each other (blood, you perv!) on Bourbon Street, the Literature section is for you.
So I was naturally perturbed, and I started wondering what was so gosh darn special about these silly lihtrahchuh books anyway? How could they compete with Heinlein, Norton, Clarke, Lee, Asimov? So I decided I would try for once to actually read Literature. But I wasn't willing to actually move or look around too much, so I was limited to whatever was in arm's reach of Anne Rice.
The snazzy cover immediately drew me towards Empress. Cute asian girl on cover (check). Written by a woman from communist china (check) who emmigrated to France (big check) to make paintings (check) of weird indistinct monochrome blobs (check). The book was original written in French (humongous check) and was...
... historical fiction about the first female Empress of China.
Huh. That actually sounded interesting. So I grabbed the book, tucked it under my meaty arm and headed off. After finishing a genre book or two, I finally turned to Empress with a little trepidation. This was no ordinary reading. No, this was a serious meeting from the ambassador of Planet Literary Snob.
The book definitely has poetic prose, but it doesn't gush as much as say, a Stephen King book where it takes ten pages to describe someone opening a door. The writing style, even translated from another language, is quite beautiful, which I suppose is an important part of literature.
Now the narrative and characterization, the parts that matter most in Spaceman Gort Land. I personally found the characters quite emotive, while some people found them dry. I liked it. The plot moved along at a good pace, and focused on courtly intrigue in the Gynaceum (?) of the Chinese Emperor. Very sumptious, lots of focus on gowns and decoration and the pageantry of it all and scheming schemers.
One thing I found sort of ... dare I say precious? Is it sexist of me to call a female writer from China/France precious? It probably is. Oh well. The Empress described is the ONLY female empress China has ever had. An AMAZING amount of people around her vanish and die in ways that are very convenient to her pursuit of power, and the author does a tremendous tapdancing act to try to pretend she had little if nothing to do with it. All the good things, she did, all the bad things, George Bush did apparently. I find this ... um... highly doubtful. You don't wind up as the only female Empress of China by a weird twist of fate, you get there over the dead bodies of the men and women less ambitious and careful than you.
So I'm not sure how realistic it was, but I very much enjoyed the book even if it was a bit naive at times. Even though there were no robots, flying death pygmies, demon sorcerers, alien invaders, or amazon bimbotronians, I ... dare I say it...? Enjoyed the book! Enough that I keep an eye out for other books by this author.
So I would say the Ambassador from Planet Literature did a good job of representing for her people.
TLDR: If you like courtly intrigue, enjoy Chinese culture, and don't mind books without robots or demons, this is something you would enjoy.
February 8, 2009
This book was lushly written, with a meticulous eye for detail, but it was little impersonal and distant for me. Although the twisted politics were interesting, I wasn't engaged at all with any of the characters. It was a bit like being underwater, hearing a conversation from another room.
There was actually far too much detail about certain ceremonies - I started thinking about the paraodic detail in The Princess Bride while I was reading - and not enough information on the people involved. I didn't really have a sense of personality about anyone.
There is also the fact that I have serious issues with the idea that one person can have what amounts to divine power, that a ruler could order anyone in her kingdom to "commit suicide", and her subjects would do it. I found myself reacting very badly to the depictions of the court ranking system, and how those of low rank were treated as if they existed only to serve.
I understand it's a period piece and that those depictions were quite likely accurate, but it's one of those things that makes me very grateful I didn't live in that time and place.
There was actually far too much detail about certain ceremonies - I started thinking about the paraodic detail in The Princess Bride while I was reading - and not enough information on the people involved. I didn't really have a sense of personality about anyone.
There is also the fact that I have serious issues with the idea that one person can have what amounts to divine power, that a ruler could order anyone in her kingdom to "commit suicide", and her subjects would do it. I found myself reacting very badly to the depictions of the court ranking system, and how those of low rank were treated as if they existed only to serve.
I understand it's a period piece and that those depictions were quite likely accurate, but it's one of those things that makes me very grateful I didn't live in that time and place.
December 31, 2007
This book took on a whole new take of Chinese History. It portrayed an important historical figure in a personal and never before seen way. Empress Wu was the first woman emperor to ever take the throne. It was traditionally carried on by heirs of the previous emperor, but during the Tang Dynasty, the emperor lacked the capability to successfully control the nation without the help of Wu Ze Tian (the empress). And when the emperor passes away, the only person that the nation could be entrusted to was Empress Wu.
Throughout the book, the readers can see the difficulty within a woman's life and the life of the three thousand wives that the emperor has. The tales of the forbidden city, the secret rivalry between the wives in trying to gain the emperor's love, and the secret affairs that Empress Wu has after her husbands death.
This book goes in depth with the relationships between the royalty and how all men within the government strive for power and try to do everything they can to become close to the empress.
This story entails the life of one of the most interesting figures in Chinese history through an intimate level and the raging battles and passionate lovers of the Tang Dynasty that not many people have heard of.
Throughout the book, the readers can see the difficulty within a woman's life and the life of the three thousand wives that the emperor has. The tales of the forbidden city, the secret rivalry between the wives in trying to gain the emperor's love, and the secret affairs that Empress Wu has after her husbands death.
This book goes in depth with the relationships between the royalty and how all men within the government strive for power and try to do everything they can to become close to the empress.
This story entails the life of one of the most interesting figures in Chinese history through an intimate level and the raging battles and passionate lovers of the Tang Dynasty that not many people have heard of.
June 4, 2016
“My carriage was already traveling through eternity. I was tiny, alone, and naked. I was moving toward, a god, and an empire.”
There’s something deeply compelling about someone’s rise from obscurity to power, be they evil or good, especially if the obscurity is great and the power is immense. When that rise to power involves a woman who raises herself to a position no woman was ever meant to hold, well, count me in.
This is a fictionalized account of a piece of, apparently often neglected, Chinese history; Empress Wu.
It’s a beautiful novel, told in lush and evocative prose – a prose that is at times a little too poetic and removed from the people it talks about, although very fitting for the type of story it tells. It’s a truly grand and compelling look at Empress Wu, or Heavenlight’s, journey inside the walls of the Forbidden City, as lover to concubines and emperors, as mother of a nation, as an Empress destined to lead her people to prosperity and glory. Shan Sa tells the story with conviction and power, easily portraying the intricate and delicate web the court of any Emperor or Empress is made of, how one false step or moment of distraction can mean your downfall and humiliation. To place oneself on such a seat of power, to rule a nation, means to adopt a style of swift brutality, whether it be just or not.
Empress Wu’s life, her real life, is of course obscured by the passing of time, as well as attempts at covering up her reign and, obviously, the misogyny of historians, past or present. It’s not something I know a lot about, however, so I’ll talk about this specific book instead. But a lot of the things we do know about her life are shrouded in mystery or ambiguity. And the style, the way it was told, added to the sense that you we’re all merely riding on the wings of history, that this life is but a moment of eternity, as well as a moment that will last eternally. And Sa’s constant juxtaposition of death and immortality, of private and public, is necessary and wonderfully done.
Nonetheless, any historical figure with this much power, commanding such a nation and ruling it with such an iron fist, deserves a book such as this. My one wish, and the reason I could never quite get it to 5 stars, is that the prose, despite being beautiful and perfectly fitting, often obscured the character of Empress Wu. I never at any point felt I knew what sort of person she was, what she believed in, what toll it took on her to do the things she had to do, to protect herself, her nation and her family. I understand this might have been a conscious choice. As we know very little of Empress Wu or what she was really like, designing her character based on what scraps we have might have felt dishonest – or maybe it’s to signal that she defies characterization. That she slipped into and out of roles, depending on the situation. Or maybe it’s a style and something was lost in translation. Sadly it made me feel detached from her and her story. I felt as if I was looking at it from afar, and less like I was in the middle of it, because so often the emotions were subdued. Empress Wu felt very little like a real person to me, with real emotions and dreams, and that I regret, but perhaps it was necessary. It’s entirely a question of personal taste, I think. And it did add to the sweeping, consuming feeling of it, as if you were inside a poem, an ancient poem telling the story of things ling forgotten. It was beautiful, but in a detached way.
The somewhat shallow – or rather ambiguous – characterization of Empress Wu, and most other characters too, was as I’ve said a perfect fit for the grandeur, the massive scale of her reign and the superficiality of the court, how everyone hides behind fake pleasantries, and masks, while they plot your downfall, that this novel had to portray.
And Empress is majestic, splendid, lush, relentless and beautiful in all the ways you’d expect it to be. An excellent fictional look at a neglected, but fantastic piece of history, and a wonderful way to get swept away by the winds of history.
It’s a stunning work. You should read it.
There’s something deeply compelling about someone’s rise from obscurity to power, be they evil or good, especially if the obscurity is great and the power is immense. When that rise to power involves a woman who raises herself to a position no woman was ever meant to hold, well, count me in.
This is a fictionalized account of a piece of, apparently often neglected, Chinese history; Empress Wu.
It’s a beautiful novel, told in lush and evocative prose – a prose that is at times a little too poetic and removed from the people it talks about, although very fitting for the type of story it tells. It’s a truly grand and compelling look at Empress Wu, or Heavenlight’s, journey inside the walls of the Forbidden City, as lover to concubines and emperors, as mother of a nation, as an Empress destined to lead her people to prosperity and glory. Shan Sa tells the story with conviction and power, easily portraying the intricate and delicate web the court of any Emperor or Empress is made of, how one false step or moment of distraction can mean your downfall and humiliation. To place oneself on such a seat of power, to rule a nation, means to adopt a style of swift brutality, whether it be just or not.
Empress Wu’s life, her real life, is of course obscured by the passing of time, as well as attempts at covering up her reign and, obviously, the misogyny of historians, past or present. It’s not something I know a lot about, however, so I’ll talk about this specific book instead. But a lot of the things we do know about her life are shrouded in mystery or ambiguity. And the style, the way it was told, added to the sense that you we’re all merely riding on the wings of history, that this life is but a moment of eternity, as well as a moment that will last eternally. And Sa’s constant juxtaposition of death and immortality, of private and public, is necessary and wonderfully done.
Nonetheless, any historical figure with this much power, commanding such a nation and ruling it with such an iron fist, deserves a book such as this. My one wish, and the reason I could never quite get it to 5 stars, is that the prose, despite being beautiful and perfectly fitting, often obscured the character of Empress Wu. I never at any point felt I knew what sort of person she was, what she believed in, what toll it took on her to do the things she had to do, to protect herself, her nation and her family. I understand this might have been a conscious choice. As we know very little of Empress Wu or what she was really like, designing her character based on what scraps we have might have felt dishonest – or maybe it’s to signal that she defies characterization. That she slipped into and out of roles, depending on the situation. Or maybe it’s a style and something was lost in translation. Sadly it made me feel detached from her and her story. I felt as if I was looking at it from afar, and less like I was in the middle of it, because so often the emotions were subdued. Empress Wu felt very little like a real person to me, with real emotions and dreams, and that I regret, but perhaps it was necessary. It’s entirely a question of personal taste, I think. And it did add to the sweeping, consuming feeling of it, as if you were inside a poem, an ancient poem telling the story of things ling forgotten. It was beautiful, but in a detached way.
The somewhat shallow – or rather ambiguous – characterization of Empress Wu, and most other characters too, was as I’ve said a perfect fit for the grandeur, the massive scale of her reign and the superficiality of the court, how everyone hides behind fake pleasantries, and masks, while they plot your downfall, that this novel had to portray.
And Empress is majestic, splendid, lush, relentless and beautiful in all the ways you’d expect it to be. An excellent fictional look at a neglected, but fantastic piece of history, and a wonderful way to get swept away by the winds of history.
It’s a stunning work. You should read it.
August 16, 2010
What an awful book! I am so disappointed, because I read The Girl Who Played Go a few years ago and thought that was fantastic.
The writing in this book is just far too lush and overwrought. It feels like the author put so much effort into crafting each dramatic sentence that she forgot to put in any kind of plot or sympathetic characters. Granted, the main character was a pretty horrific person in her lifetime, so Shan Sa didn't have much to work with there as far as making her likeable. But the writing makes her seem completely flat and emotionless.
Overall, I think there was just too much going on in this book. It probably would have been much better if the book had either been much shorter and focused on just one period of the Heavenlight's life, or much longer to really take time to explore the different events.
Other things I found annoying:
A character would just show up and be referred to as "my friend of 30 years" or something. And yet we have never heard of her before?
A few times the narrator would refer after the fact to some really shocking and pivotal-sounding event. It would be discussed for a paragraph or two and then never mentioned again.
So many things seemed inconsistent to me. For example, on one page the narrator mentioned that the emperor was having sex with young virgins, both boys and girls, because doctors advised it would help his health. And then just a few pages later, she mentions that the doctors had forbidden the emperor to have sex at all. Huh?
The writing in this book is just far too lush and overwrought. It feels like the author put so much effort into crafting each dramatic sentence that she forgot to put in any kind of plot or sympathetic characters. Granted, the main character was a pretty horrific person in her lifetime, so Shan Sa didn't have much to work with there as far as making her likeable. But the writing makes her seem completely flat and emotionless.
Overall, I think there was just too much going on in this book. It probably would have been much better if the book had either been much shorter and focused on just one period of the Heavenlight's life, or much longer to really take time to explore the different events.
Other things I found annoying:
A character would just show up and be referred to as "my friend of 30 years" or something. And yet we have never heard of her before?
A few times the narrator would refer after the fact to some really shocking and pivotal-sounding event. It would be discussed for a paragraph or two and then never mentioned again.
So many things seemed inconsistent to me. For example, on one page the narrator mentioned that the emperor was having sex with young virgins, both boys and girls, because doctors advised it would help his health. And then just a few pages later, she mentions that the doctors had forbidden the emperor to have sex at all. Huh?
October 16, 2021
The ‘great man theory’ of history is out of fashion, and I don’t know how often historical fiction, either, sets out to portray greatness – whatever that is – in the political sphere. In this book I found myself convinced I was in the presence of greatness, a person I want to call great, and to add to that uncommon experience, she’s a woman.
If any of that sounds easy, I don’t think it is. At a point in this book it dawned upon me that in historical fiction, I haven’t met a great woman before – at least in the world of political leadership and statecraft. That may be down to the hf I read, or not. I avoid hf with titles like Empress, Princess, Queen, Consort or Concubine, because I can’t live in the women’s quarters for fun: therefore I don’t know what’s inside those novels, but I do know that this novel – which I nearly didn’t read on title – bulldozed those prejudices of mine, in seconds flat. In here I found quite an awesome human being. And I thought, it isn’t only that the historical subjects are rare (great stateswomen), but in order to create them on the page, you must have to rigorously do your thinking behind your writing. I sensed a rigour of thought behind the presentation of this woman.
From early on Heavenlight (Wu Zetian) gives the impression that her abilities swamp those around her, and moreover, she has a confidence in this. When, later in life, she finds herself more effective in worldly affairs than her emperor husband, she steps up to the job without… cognitive dissonance. She’s never been a hanger-on of others (who happen to be men). This mentality must have been necessary for a woman who makes herself Emperor of China.
As I understand, Wu Zetian was hopelessly traduced and trashed in the historical sources, so that we can’t expect to recover the ‘truth’ about her. What Shan Sa has chosen to do is salvage her with possible interpretations – possible, and positive. The resultant portrait may or may not resemble the historical person, but again I’ll say, is possible, and even just for that is a useful exercise. For myself, in future, I’m going to have a hard time picturing Wu Zetian any other way than the Heavenlight of this novel.
On style. This is told in intense first person; it’s about her and from her; her feelings for others are conveyed, but not so much the others’ existence in themselves. No doubt our subjectivities are as self-centred as this – it isn’t that she struck me as a selfish person. There is a brevity (one large life in 300 pages): in the middle parts I felt this a skimming-over, but in the late parts this brevity worked as an extraction of the essential or the right lines (the author’s a painter). Maybe that was me, getting used to the style. It had enough exclamation marks to play toy soldiers with... I don’t like to complain of such trivialities in translations from the French, but they got hard to ignore. At times I was plunged into the emotional life of this novel; at other times it failed to engage me. Again, I don’t whether that’s me, and I’ll see what happens next time I read this.
I mentioned that I can’t stand to live in the women’s quarters: here the Inner Palace is a prison and an insane asylum, and that meant I was fine. These women are overwrought, but they are seen to be made insane. It’s fair enough.
I’d note the parallels of youth and age in her sex life. As a young girl she suffers an obsession for one of the emperor’s older wives; when she herself is fifty she is once again infatuated with a fourteen-year-old girl. For years she serves as emperor’s wife; in her widowhood she acquires a young man, and he is kept, for her uses, in such a turned-upside-down way, equivalent to how the emperor treated his concubines… that I think Shan Sa is interested in exploring these matters.
I’m a fan of the use of translated names. Zetian is Heavenlight, and so we notice the light themes that coalesce about her. Children of hers are named Splendor, Future, Miracle. It exploits the ironies: Wisdom? uh-uh. Intelligence? a distinct lack of. It adds to the atmosphere and the intelligibility of the world, it tells us about their values. The city Chang’an is Long Peace. Our experience is more real when we know what the names mean, as, obviously, the novel’s inhabitants know.
If any of that sounds easy, I don’t think it is. At a point in this book it dawned upon me that in historical fiction, I haven’t met a great woman before – at least in the world of political leadership and statecraft. That may be down to the hf I read, or not. I avoid hf with titles like Empress, Princess, Queen, Consort or Concubine, because I can’t live in the women’s quarters for fun: therefore I don’t know what’s inside those novels, but I do know that this novel – which I nearly didn’t read on title – bulldozed those prejudices of mine, in seconds flat. In here I found quite an awesome human being. And I thought, it isn’t only that the historical subjects are rare (great stateswomen), but in order to create them on the page, you must have to rigorously do your thinking behind your writing. I sensed a rigour of thought behind the presentation of this woman.
From early on Heavenlight (Wu Zetian) gives the impression that her abilities swamp those around her, and moreover, she has a confidence in this. When, later in life, she finds herself more effective in worldly affairs than her emperor husband, she steps up to the job without… cognitive dissonance. She’s never been a hanger-on of others (who happen to be men). This mentality must have been necessary for a woman who makes herself Emperor of China.
As I understand, Wu Zetian was hopelessly traduced and trashed in the historical sources, so that we can’t expect to recover the ‘truth’ about her. What Shan Sa has chosen to do is salvage her with possible interpretations – possible, and positive. The resultant portrait may or may not resemble the historical person, but again I’ll say, is possible, and even just for that is a useful exercise. For myself, in future, I’m going to have a hard time picturing Wu Zetian any other way than the Heavenlight of this novel.
On style. This is told in intense first person; it’s about her and from her; her feelings for others are conveyed, but not so much the others’ existence in themselves. No doubt our subjectivities are as self-centred as this – it isn’t that she struck me as a selfish person. There is a brevity (one large life in 300 pages): in the middle parts I felt this a skimming-over, but in the late parts this brevity worked as an extraction of the essential or the right lines (the author’s a painter). Maybe that was me, getting used to the style. It had enough exclamation marks to play toy soldiers with... I don’t like to complain of such trivialities in translations from the French, but they got hard to ignore. At times I was plunged into the emotional life of this novel; at other times it failed to engage me. Again, I don’t whether that’s me, and I’ll see what happens next time I read this.
I mentioned that I can’t stand to live in the women’s quarters: here the Inner Palace is a prison and an insane asylum, and that meant I was fine. These women are overwrought, but they are seen to be made insane. It’s fair enough.
I’d note the parallels of youth and age in her sex life. As a young girl she suffers an obsession for one of the emperor’s older wives; when she herself is fifty she is once again infatuated with a fourteen-year-old girl. For years she serves as emperor’s wife; in her widowhood she acquires a young man, and he is kept, for her uses, in such a turned-upside-down way, equivalent to how the emperor treated his concubines… that I think Shan Sa is interested in exploring these matters.
I’m a fan of the use of translated names. Zetian is Heavenlight, and so we notice the light themes that coalesce about her. Children of hers are named Splendor, Future, Miracle. It exploits the ironies: Wisdom? uh-uh. Intelligence? a distinct lack of. It adds to the atmosphere and the intelligibility of the world, it tells us about their values. The city Chang’an is Long Peace. Our experience is more real when we know what the names mean, as, obviously, the novel’s inhabitants know.
October 24, 2017
„Императрицата” е изключителен исторически роман за един безпрецедентен миг. Миг, който започва преди 1300 години в утробата на една майка, където расте единствената жена в историята на Китай, която ще носи титлата „император“, останала известна в аналите като У Дзътиен. Изминавайки дълъг и тежък път до престола, тя съумява да издигне Поднебесната до неподозирани висини във времена, когато жените не са били смятани за нещо повече от предмети.
Всеки опит да се разкаже книгата би дал само бледа представа за една епоха на величие, пищност, слава, победи и неизмерима мащабност на постиженията в културния и архитектурния свят на Древен Китай.
Свят на човешки божества, живеещи в нечовешки условия на липса...
Липсата на любов, човешка топлина, споделеност, разбиране, прошка...
Свят, пълен с убийства, предателства, власт, амбиции, омраза, лицемерие, порочност...
Свят, в който не можеш да имаш доверие на никого, дори и на себе си...
Свят, в който единствените ти приятели са самота и отчаянието...
Свят, в който единственото спасение се оказва смъртта...
„Стоях сама на върха на света. Пред мен и зад мен имаше само пустота и безкрайност.”
Бог ме остави беззаветна в мига, преди да достигна вечността:
Аз съм божурът, обагрен в червено, полюшващото се дърво, шепнещият вятър.
Аз съм стръмният път, който води поклонниците към вратите небесни.
Аз съм думата, вопълът, сълзата.
Аз съм пречистващата огнена рана, болката, която възвисява.
Аз съм смяната на сезоните, кометата, която прекосява небосклона.
Аз съм тъжната усмивка на хората.”
Всеки опит да се разкаже книгата би дал само бледа представа за една епоха на величие, пищност, слава, победи и неизмерима мащабност на постиженията в културния и архитектурния свят на Древен Китай.
Свят на човешки божества, живеещи в нечовешки условия на липса...
Липсата на любов, човешка топлина, споделеност, разбиране, прошка...
Свят, пълен с убийства, предателства, власт, амбиции, омраза, лицемерие, порочност...
Свят, в който не можеш да имаш доверие на никого, дори и на себе си...
Свят, в който единствените ти приятели са самота и отчаянието...
Свят, в който единственото спасение се оказва смъртта...
„Стоях сама на върха на света. Пред мен и зад мен имаше само пустота и безкрайност.”
Бог ме остави беззаветна в мига, преди да достигна вечността:
Аз съм божурът, обагрен в червено, полюшващото се дърво, шепнещият вятър.
Аз съм стръмният път, който води поклонниците към вратите небесни.
Аз съм думата, вопълът, сълзата.
Аз съм пречистващата огнена рана, болката, която възвисява.
Аз съм смяната на сезоните, кометата, която прекосява небосклона.
Аз съм тъжната усмивка на хората.”
February 5, 2019
The Empress is a poetic tale that gives one an in-depth look into the life of Empress Wu. The ruthless tactics used on the throne may shock one, but the author constructs the novel so that one understands the culture of the time. This book can get tedious at times with detail, but the overall story is strong and a person interested in Chinese history will enjoy the vivid descriptions!
January 10, 2018
It was a good book. I don't feel much moved but I always enjoy anything with strong female characters.
June 25, 2010
There's a story behind my reading this book. I am, by habit a reader of 'genre fiction' which means stories about Spaceman Gort and the Flying Death Pygmies of Planet Bimbotron and things like that. At the Barnes and Noble I typically shop for books at, the Spaceman Gort section is crammed far into the back, covered in cobwebs, and filled with a droning voice that tells you how ashamed you should be for reading this drivel.
Perhaps I exaggerate.
On the way to Spaceman Gort and the lovely ladies of Planet Bimbotron, you have to cross a gauntlet of pretentiousness known as the Literature Section, filled with proper works of "Lih-trah-chuh." On one trip through this minefield of horrors, I happened to notice a book by Anne Rice, I think it was Interview with a Vampire. In the Literature section! So apparently if you want to read Heinlein books you have to trudge to the Genre Ghetto, but if you want to read about bisexual mulatto vampires sucking each other (blood, you perv!) on Bourbon Street, the Literature section is for you.
So I was naturally perturbed, and I started wondering what was so gosh darn special about these silly lihtrahchuh books anyway? How could they compete with Heinlein, Norton, Clarke, Lee, Asimov? So I decided I would try for once to actually read Literature. But I wasn't willing to actually move or look around too much, so I was limited to whatever was in arm's reach of Anne Rice.
The snazzy cover immediately drew me towards Empress. Cute asian girl on cover (check). Written by a woman from communist china (check) who emmigrated to France (big check) to make paintings (check) of weird indistinct monochrome blobs (check). The book was original written in French (humongous check) and was...
... historical fiction about the first female Empress of China.
Huh. That actually sounded interesting. So I grabbed the book, tucked it under my meaty arm and headed off. After finishing a genre book or two, I finally turned to Empress with a little trepidation. This was no ordinary reading. No, this was a serious meeting from the ambassador of Planet Literary Snob.
The book definitely has poetic prose, but it doesn't gush as much as say, a Stephen King book where it takes ten pages to describe someone opening a door. The writing style, even translated from another language, is quite beautiful, which I suppose is an important part of literature.
Now the narrative and characterization, the parts that matter most in Spaceman Gort Land. I personally found the characters quite emotive, while some people found them dry. I liked it. The plot moved along at a good pace, and focused on courtly intrigue in the Gynaceum (?) of the Chinese Emperor. Very sumptious, lots of focus on gowns and decoration and the pageantry of it all and scheming schemers.
One thing I found sort of ... dare I say precious? Is it sexist of me to call a female writer from China/France precious? It probably is. Oh well. The Empress described is the ONLY female empress China has ever had. An AMAZING amount of people around her vanish and die in ways that are very convenient to her pursuit of power, and the author does a tremendous tapdancing act to try to pretend she had little if nothing to do with it. All the good things, she did, all the bad things, George Bush did apparently. I find this ... um... highly doubtful. You don't wind up as the only female Empress of China by a weird twist of fate, you get there over the dead bodies of the men and women less ambitious and careful than you.
So I'm not sure how realistic it was, but I very much enjoyed the book even if it was a bit naive at times. Even though there were no robots, flying death pygmies, demon sorcerers, alien invaders, or amazon bimbotronians, I ... dare I say it...? Enjoyed the book! Enough that I keep an eye out for other books by this author.
So I would say the Ambassador from Planet Literature did a good job of representing for her people.
TLDR: If you like courtly intrigue, enjoy Chinese culture, and don't mind books without robots or demons, this is something you would enjoy.
Perhaps I exaggerate.
On the way to Spaceman Gort and the lovely ladies of Planet Bimbotron, you have to cross a gauntlet of pretentiousness known as the Literature Section, filled with proper works of "Lih-trah-chuh." On one trip through this minefield of horrors, I happened to notice a book by Anne Rice, I think it was Interview with a Vampire. In the Literature section! So apparently if you want to read Heinlein books you have to trudge to the Genre Ghetto, but if you want to read about bisexual mulatto vampires sucking each other (blood, you perv!) on Bourbon Street, the Literature section is for you.
So I was naturally perturbed, and I started wondering what was so gosh darn special about these silly lihtrahchuh books anyway? How could they compete with Heinlein, Norton, Clarke, Lee, Asimov? So I decided I would try for once to actually read Literature. But I wasn't willing to actually move or look around too much, so I was limited to whatever was in arm's reach of Anne Rice.
The snazzy cover immediately drew me towards Empress. Cute asian girl on cover (check). Written by a woman from communist china (check) who emmigrated to France (big check) to make paintings (check) of weird indistinct monochrome blobs (check). The book was original written in French (humongous check) and was...
... historical fiction about the first female Empress of China.
Huh. That actually sounded interesting. So I grabbed the book, tucked it under my meaty arm and headed off. After finishing a genre book or two, I finally turned to Empress with a little trepidation. This was no ordinary reading. No, this was a serious meeting from the ambassador of Planet Literary Snob.
The book definitely has poetic prose, but it doesn't gush as much as say, a Stephen King book where it takes ten pages to describe someone opening a door. The writing style, even translated from another language, is quite beautiful, which I suppose is an important part of literature.
Now the narrative and characterization, the parts that matter most in Spaceman Gort Land. I personally found the characters quite emotive, while some people found them dry. I liked it. The plot moved along at a good pace, and focused on courtly intrigue in the Gynaceum (?) of the Chinese Emperor. Very sumptious, lots of focus on gowns and decoration and the pageantry of it all and scheming schemers.
One thing I found sort of ... dare I say precious? Is it sexist of me to call a female writer from China/France precious? It probably is. Oh well. The Empress described is the ONLY female empress China has ever had. An AMAZING amount of people around her vanish and die in ways that are very convenient to her pursuit of power, and the author does a tremendous tapdancing act to try to pretend she had little if nothing to do with it. All the good things, she did, all the bad things, George Bush did apparently. I find this ... um... highly doubtful. You don't wind up as the only female Empress of China by a weird twist of fate, you get there over the dead bodies of the men and women less ambitious and careful than you.
So I'm not sure how realistic it was, but I very much enjoyed the book even if it was a bit naive at times. Even though there were no robots, flying death pygmies, demon sorcerers, alien invaders, or amazon bimbotronians, I ... dare I say it...? Enjoyed the book! Enough that I keep an eye out for other books by this author.
So I would say the Ambassador from Planet Literature did a good job of representing for her people.
TLDR: If you like courtly intrigue, enjoy Chinese culture, and don't mind books without robots or demons, this is something you would enjoy.
October 14, 2017
Setelah membaca buku ini sampai selesai, memang isi buku ini myaris mirip dengan buku Putri Langit karangan Nigel Cawthorne, walau ada perbedaan2 sedikit seperti berikut ini:
- Cahaya Nirwana atau calon Wu Zetian ini dalam buku ini dikatakan diperawani oleh sang Putra Mahkota, tp menurut sumber2 lain yg kubaca, beliau diperawani oleh Kaisar Tang Tai Zong sebagaimana peringkatnya sebagai Selir tingkat Lima. Agak mustahil klo beliau diperawani oleh Putra Mahkota mengingat umur Putra Mahkota jg lebih muda 3 thn.
- Dalam buku ini, dikisahkan bhw Cahaya Nirwana tidak membunuh anak perempuannya utk menimpakan kejahatan ini ke Permaisuri Wang. Bisa masuk logika juga sih karena kematian bayi2 pd zaman itu masih sangat tinggi.. mungkin penyakit, radang infeksi dll yg sulit diketahui pd zaman dulu kala.
- Kemenakan maharani yaitu Keselarasan yg belakangan jd kekasih sang Kaisar, digambarkan dlm buku ini tiba2 meninggal karena mencicipi anggur yg seharusnya diminum oleh maharani. Ini rada susah masuk ke logika saya karena berdasarkan penuturan dr si penulis, tabiat si kemenakan ini sdh pd tingkat menjengkelkan si maharani. Ada benarnya juga rumor yg mengatakan si kemenakan dibunuh diam2 oleh maharani krn mnrt saya juga "rengekan"nya sudah absurd utk org yg sudah diberi kelimpahan oleh maharani.
Di luar cara2 ambisinya utk mencapai tingkat tertinggi kerajaan sbg maharani, aku salut dengan pengabdiannya yg sungguh2 utk mensejahterakan rakyatnya, mengagumi kecerdasannya utk melepaskan diri dari jerat2 yg akan menghancurkannya, seorang reformis dan kreator sejati, pekerja keras dan sangat cakap memilih sendiri pejabat2 di sekeliling dirinya.
Dan mungkin.... di luar kebiasaan2 wanita sepanjang masa, Maharani Wu ini juga mau menikmati hidup dgn bersenang2 bersama para cowok2 muda yg masih segar, Sayangnya tdk semuanya bs berterimakasih dgn baik. Saking piaraannta masih muda dan tidak bisa mengekang hawa nafsu dan sensualitasnya, nyaris saja cowok muda ini membangkitkan amarah cemburu sang Maharani. Ada kalimat yg lucu di halaman 278: Siapa yang sanggup menampik pemikat yang tak bisa diluruskan itu dengan alat vital yang tak pernah kalah? .... hahhahahhahahha....
Karena faktor usialah, Maharani Wu dipaksa utk mengundurkan diri dari takhta dan kualat lah yg terjadi pada para konspirator yg menggulingkan beliau. Semuanya mati konyol. Sang menteri dipenggal, pewaris takhta diracun oleh istrinya, si istri mati sewaktu dikudeta oleh kemenakannya, dan yg terakhir, putri kesayangan Maharani Wu, Chandra, juga meninggal dipaksa bunuh diri sbg senjata makan tuan konspirasi politiknya itu.
- Cahaya Nirwana atau calon Wu Zetian ini dalam buku ini dikatakan diperawani oleh sang Putra Mahkota, tp menurut sumber2 lain yg kubaca, beliau diperawani oleh Kaisar Tang Tai Zong sebagaimana peringkatnya sebagai Selir tingkat Lima. Agak mustahil klo beliau diperawani oleh Putra Mahkota mengingat umur Putra Mahkota jg lebih muda 3 thn.
- Dalam buku ini, dikisahkan bhw Cahaya Nirwana tidak membunuh anak perempuannya utk menimpakan kejahatan ini ke Permaisuri Wang. Bisa masuk logika juga sih karena kematian bayi2 pd zaman itu masih sangat tinggi.. mungkin penyakit, radang infeksi dll yg sulit diketahui pd zaman dulu kala.
- Kemenakan maharani yaitu Keselarasan yg belakangan jd kekasih sang Kaisar, digambarkan dlm buku ini tiba2 meninggal karena mencicipi anggur yg seharusnya diminum oleh maharani. Ini rada susah masuk ke logika saya karena berdasarkan penuturan dr si penulis, tabiat si kemenakan ini sdh pd tingkat menjengkelkan si maharani. Ada benarnya juga rumor yg mengatakan si kemenakan dibunuh diam2 oleh maharani krn mnrt saya juga "rengekan"nya sudah absurd utk org yg sudah diberi kelimpahan oleh maharani.
Di luar cara2 ambisinya utk mencapai tingkat tertinggi kerajaan sbg maharani, aku salut dengan pengabdiannya yg sungguh2 utk mensejahterakan rakyatnya, mengagumi kecerdasannya utk melepaskan diri dari jerat2 yg akan menghancurkannya, seorang reformis dan kreator sejati, pekerja keras dan sangat cakap memilih sendiri pejabat2 di sekeliling dirinya.
Dan mungkin.... di luar kebiasaan2 wanita sepanjang masa, Maharani Wu ini juga mau menikmati hidup dgn bersenang2 bersama para cowok2 muda yg masih segar, Sayangnya tdk semuanya bs berterimakasih dgn baik. Saking piaraannta masih muda dan tidak bisa mengekang hawa nafsu dan sensualitasnya, nyaris saja cowok muda ini membangkitkan amarah cemburu sang Maharani. Ada kalimat yg lucu di halaman 278: Siapa yang sanggup menampik pemikat yang tak bisa diluruskan itu dengan alat vital yang tak pernah kalah? .... hahhahahhahahha....
Karena faktor usialah, Maharani Wu dipaksa utk mengundurkan diri dari takhta dan kualat lah yg terjadi pada para konspirator yg menggulingkan beliau. Semuanya mati konyol. Sang menteri dipenggal, pewaris takhta diracun oleh istrinya, si istri mati sewaktu dikudeta oleh kemenakannya, dan yg terakhir, putri kesayangan Maharani Wu, Chandra, juga meninggal dipaksa bunuh diri sbg senjata makan tuan konspirasi politiknya itu.
April 22, 2013
Aku adalah peony merah merona, pohon berayun, angin berdesir ...
Jujur, saya harus membuka wikipedia untuk mengetahui, sejenis apakah peony itu? Ternyata, akhirnya bertemu makna. Peony adalah sejenis bunga yang sering digunakan oleh bangsa Tiongkok untuk pengobatan. Juga sering menjadi simbol pada seni ornamen. Terbata-bata, saya mencoba mencari benang merah yang menghubungkan antara peony merah merona dengan pribadi Maharani Wu, Sang Kaisar Suci Roda Emas Cahaya Nirwana.
Cahaya Nirwana, lahir dari keluarga rakyat jelata. Meski pada sang ibu mengalir darah kekaisaran, dan sang ayah sempat menjadi salah seorang menteri dari kekaisaran Dinasti Tang, ia tetaplah berasal dari kalangan rendahan. Kemuliaannya terangkat tatkala ia dijadikan sebagai Yang Berbakat--yang berhak menghuni harem kekaisaran, bersama 10.000 selir Kaisar Leluhur Abadi. Sepuluh ribu wanita, harus berebut satu orang lelaki, maka terbayanglah bagaimana rumitnya intrik di harem. Cahaya Nirwana yang masih 'ABG', gagal meraih perhatian Sang Kaisar. Akan tetapi, kegemarannya berkuda, kepintarannya dalam tulis-menulis, akhirnya justru mendudukkan posisinya sebagai salah seorang sekretaris Kaisar. Dan, meski ia masih perawan, statusnya tetaplah Yang Berbakat. Selir Kaisar. Maka, tatkala ia bertemu dengan Phoenix Kecil, putera kaisar, yang 3 tahun lebih muda, ia tak memiliki keinginan apapun selain menempatkan diri sebagai kakak perempuan. Tetapi, tanpa mereka sadari, cinta bersemi di antara Cahaya Nirwana dan Phoenix Kecil.
Kaisar Leluhur Abadi akhirnya meninggal. Para perempuan harem diasingkan ke biara. Termasuk Cahaya Nirwana. Meski Phoenix Kecil meratap, menahan Cahaya Nirwana untuk tak menjadi biksuni, tetap saja Cahaya Nirwana tak berani menantang badai. Akan tetapi, ikatan cinta itu terlalu kuat. Phoenix Kecil yang akhirnya naik tahta menjadi kaisar, menggunakan kekuasaannya untuk menghancurkan mitos-mitos yang menghalangi cinta mereka.
Skandal pertama tercipta. Phoenix menikahi janda ayahnya. Geger yang terjadi, ditutup dengan prestasi cemerlang Cahaya Nirwana yang setahap demi setahap berhasil menaikkan derajatnya. Dari selir kesayangan, naik menjadi maharani, sampai menjadi maharani utama. Kemampuannya dalam ilmu militer, politik, tata pemerintahan--sementara Phoenix Kecil yang lemah dan peragu tak mampu menghasilkan pemikiran yang cemerlang--akhirnya menempatkan Cahaya Nirwana sebagai orang nomor satu di Kekaisaran Dinasti Tang. Otoritasnya memuncak saat suaminya akhirnya meninggal. Cahaya Nirwana ditahbiskan menjadi Kaisar Suci dan bahkan membuat dinasti baru, bukan dari marga Li, tetapi marganya sendiri, Wu.
Prestasi Kaisar Suci adalah membuat Tiongkok meraih zaman keemasan. Akan tetapi, skandal demi skandal, intrik politik, gelimang darah, membuat sosok yang hidup di abad ke-7 ini menjadi tokoh yang sangat kontroversial dalam sejarah Tiongkok. Ia bahkan berani melenyapkan keluarga terdekatnya, anak-anak, adik, kakak, kemenakan--mulai dari sekadar diasingkan, hingga dipenggal kepalanya--demi keberlangsungan tahta. Otoritas yang luar biasa, kediktatoran yang memuakkan, kehidupan pribadinya yang 'menjijikkan', membuat saya bertanya-tanya, sebenarnya, apa yang tersirat dalam lembaran kepribadian wanita bertangan besi yang puluhan tahun memerintah Tiongkok ini?
Inikah tafsir dari kalimat: "Aku adalah peony merah merona, pohon berayun, angin berdesir ..."
Meski dengan segala pahit dan getirnya, Cahaya Nirwana tetaplah penegak sebuah kejayaan bagi semesta rakyat Tiongkok?
Ya, buku setebal 400 halaman yang ditulis Shan Sa ini memang bukan sebuah kisah fiksi. Ini adalah novel sejarah. Saya tengah membaca sebuah kisah yang benar-benar ada di marcapada.
Lepas dari isinya yang sungguh-sungguh 'ekstrim', saya benar-benar terpuaskan dengan diksi Shan Sa yang sangat lembut. Tampaknya, hampir semua kata benar-benar terpilih dengan cermat. Deskripsi yang detil dan indah, membuat saya bergeming. Padahal, jika dilihat sekilas, sungguh capek membaca 400 halaman yang nyaris tanpa dialog--kalaupun ada, biasanya dialog panjang yang sangat filosofis. Saya tenggelam dalam jeratan gaya penuturan yang memesona, seakan tenggelam dalam lukisan kehidupan yang memukau. Naluri berbahasa saya, terpuaskan di novel ini.
Akan tetapi, tentu ada yang mengganggu. Salah satunya penerjemahan nama-nama pelaku dalam bahasa Indonesia. Tokoh-tokoh seperti Cahaya Nirwana, Kelembutan, Harapan, Kesalehan, Katib Keabadian, menurut saya justru menghilangkan cita rasa Tiongkok. 'Kenetralan' Shan Sa untuk tenggelam dalam sosok Cahaya Nirwana, dengan PoV 'AKU' juga membahayakan. Tak ada pesan tersirat bahwa apa yang 'AKU' lakukan itu bertentangan dengan berbagai norma kehidupan. Salah satunya, adalah saat Kaisar Suci akhirnya memutuskan untuk memiliki 2 'selir pria', dengan sebuah legitimasi bahwa ketika kaisar lelaki hidup, biasanya mereka memiliki 10.000 selir di haremnya. Beberapa pandangan Cahaya Nirwana yang mengerikan, tak difilter oleh Shan Sa, membuat saya tak berani merekomendasikan novel ini kepada para pembaca yang belum memiliki ideologi sebuah nilai yang cukup kuat.
O, ya ... bicara dengan buku ini, saya teringat dengan dua buku yang hampir sejenis. Pertama, The Female, tulisan Paul Welman, yang berkisah tentang Theodora, seorang gadis penghibur yang menjadi Kaisar di Byzantium. Lalu, Empress Orchid, tulisan Achee Min, yang berisi kisah tentang Yehonala, alias Ibu Suri Tsu Hsi, mantan selir Kaisar Hsien Feng yang akhirnya juga menjadi orang pertama di pucuk kekuasaan China menjelang keruntuhan Kekaisaran China. Ada garis nasib yang hampir sama antara Maharani Wu, Ratu Theodora dan Maharani Tsu Hsi. Sama-sama mengalami nasib yang buruk, dari seorang selir yang akhirnya merangkak dan karena kekuatan karakternya, berhasil mendominasi suami masing-masing.
Lantas, saya teringat kepada Ratu Shima dari Kalingga, juga Tribhuwana Tungga Dewi, Ibunda dari Hayam Wuruk. Kedua ratu ini, belum digoreskan kisahnya dalam roman modern. Tetapi, berbeda dengan ketiga perempuan di atas, Ratu Shima dan Tribhuwana, memiliki jalan hidup yang lebih smooth, serta diceritakan memiliki kehidupan keluarga yang baik. Tribhuwana bersama suaminya, memerintah negeri Majapahit, sehingga bisa memberikan pondasi yang kuat untuk tercapainya kejayaan Majapahit saat diperintah puteranya. Ratu Shima, dia membuntungi anakanya sendiri hanya gara-gara memindahkan kantong berisi uang yang tergeletak di jalan dengan kakinya.
Entah mengapa, saya lebih bangga dengan kisah Shima dan Tribhuwana dibandingkan dengan aroma kebengisan yang dipancarkan oleh para Empress di atas.
Jujur, saya harus membuka wikipedia untuk mengetahui, sejenis apakah peony itu? Ternyata, akhirnya bertemu makna. Peony adalah sejenis bunga yang sering digunakan oleh bangsa Tiongkok untuk pengobatan. Juga sering menjadi simbol pada seni ornamen. Terbata-bata, saya mencoba mencari benang merah yang menghubungkan antara peony merah merona dengan pribadi Maharani Wu, Sang Kaisar Suci Roda Emas Cahaya Nirwana.
Cahaya Nirwana, lahir dari keluarga rakyat jelata. Meski pada sang ibu mengalir darah kekaisaran, dan sang ayah sempat menjadi salah seorang menteri dari kekaisaran Dinasti Tang, ia tetaplah berasal dari kalangan rendahan. Kemuliaannya terangkat tatkala ia dijadikan sebagai Yang Berbakat--yang berhak menghuni harem kekaisaran, bersama 10.000 selir Kaisar Leluhur Abadi. Sepuluh ribu wanita, harus berebut satu orang lelaki, maka terbayanglah bagaimana rumitnya intrik di harem. Cahaya Nirwana yang masih 'ABG', gagal meraih perhatian Sang Kaisar. Akan tetapi, kegemarannya berkuda, kepintarannya dalam tulis-menulis, akhirnya justru mendudukkan posisinya sebagai salah seorang sekretaris Kaisar. Dan, meski ia masih perawan, statusnya tetaplah Yang Berbakat. Selir Kaisar. Maka, tatkala ia bertemu dengan Phoenix Kecil, putera kaisar, yang 3 tahun lebih muda, ia tak memiliki keinginan apapun selain menempatkan diri sebagai kakak perempuan. Tetapi, tanpa mereka sadari, cinta bersemi di antara Cahaya Nirwana dan Phoenix Kecil.
Kaisar Leluhur Abadi akhirnya meninggal. Para perempuan harem diasingkan ke biara. Termasuk Cahaya Nirwana. Meski Phoenix Kecil meratap, menahan Cahaya Nirwana untuk tak menjadi biksuni, tetap saja Cahaya Nirwana tak berani menantang badai. Akan tetapi, ikatan cinta itu terlalu kuat. Phoenix Kecil yang akhirnya naik tahta menjadi kaisar, menggunakan kekuasaannya untuk menghancurkan mitos-mitos yang menghalangi cinta mereka.
Skandal pertama tercipta. Phoenix menikahi janda ayahnya. Geger yang terjadi, ditutup dengan prestasi cemerlang Cahaya Nirwana yang setahap demi setahap berhasil menaikkan derajatnya. Dari selir kesayangan, naik menjadi maharani, sampai menjadi maharani utama. Kemampuannya dalam ilmu militer, politik, tata pemerintahan--sementara Phoenix Kecil yang lemah dan peragu tak mampu menghasilkan pemikiran yang cemerlang--akhirnya menempatkan Cahaya Nirwana sebagai orang nomor satu di Kekaisaran Dinasti Tang. Otoritasnya memuncak saat suaminya akhirnya meninggal. Cahaya Nirwana ditahbiskan menjadi Kaisar Suci dan bahkan membuat dinasti baru, bukan dari marga Li, tetapi marganya sendiri, Wu.
Prestasi Kaisar Suci adalah membuat Tiongkok meraih zaman keemasan. Akan tetapi, skandal demi skandal, intrik politik, gelimang darah, membuat sosok yang hidup di abad ke-7 ini menjadi tokoh yang sangat kontroversial dalam sejarah Tiongkok. Ia bahkan berani melenyapkan keluarga terdekatnya, anak-anak, adik, kakak, kemenakan--mulai dari sekadar diasingkan, hingga dipenggal kepalanya--demi keberlangsungan tahta. Otoritas yang luar biasa, kediktatoran yang memuakkan, kehidupan pribadinya yang 'menjijikkan', membuat saya bertanya-tanya, sebenarnya, apa yang tersirat dalam lembaran kepribadian wanita bertangan besi yang puluhan tahun memerintah Tiongkok ini?
Inikah tafsir dari kalimat: "Aku adalah peony merah merona, pohon berayun, angin berdesir ..."
Meski dengan segala pahit dan getirnya, Cahaya Nirwana tetaplah penegak sebuah kejayaan bagi semesta rakyat Tiongkok?
Ya, buku setebal 400 halaman yang ditulis Shan Sa ini memang bukan sebuah kisah fiksi. Ini adalah novel sejarah. Saya tengah membaca sebuah kisah yang benar-benar ada di marcapada.
Lepas dari isinya yang sungguh-sungguh 'ekstrim', saya benar-benar terpuaskan dengan diksi Shan Sa yang sangat lembut. Tampaknya, hampir semua kata benar-benar terpilih dengan cermat. Deskripsi yang detil dan indah, membuat saya bergeming. Padahal, jika dilihat sekilas, sungguh capek membaca 400 halaman yang nyaris tanpa dialog--kalaupun ada, biasanya dialog panjang yang sangat filosofis. Saya tenggelam dalam jeratan gaya penuturan yang memesona, seakan tenggelam dalam lukisan kehidupan yang memukau. Naluri berbahasa saya, terpuaskan di novel ini.
Akan tetapi, tentu ada yang mengganggu. Salah satunya penerjemahan nama-nama pelaku dalam bahasa Indonesia. Tokoh-tokoh seperti Cahaya Nirwana, Kelembutan, Harapan, Kesalehan, Katib Keabadian, menurut saya justru menghilangkan cita rasa Tiongkok. 'Kenetralan' Shan Sa untuk tenggelam dalam sosok Cahaya Nirwana, dengan PoV 'AKU' juga membahayakan. Tak ada pesan tersirat bahwa apa yang 'AKU' lakukan itu bertentangan dengan berbagai norma kehidupan. Salah satunya, adalah saat Kaisar Suci akhirnya memutuskan untuk memiliki 2 'selir pria', dengan sebuah legitimasi bahwa ketika kaisar lelaki hidup, biasanya mereka memiliki 10.000 selir di haremnya. Beberapa pandangan Cahaya Nirwana yang mengerikan, tak difilter oleh Shan Sa, membuat saya tak berani merekomendasikan novel ini kepada para pembaca yang belum memiliki ideologi sebuah nilai yang cukup kuat.
O, ya ... bicara dengan buku ini, saya teringat dengan dua buku yang hampir sejenis. Pertama, The Female, tulisan Paul Welman, yang berkisah tentang Theodora, seorang gadis penghibur yang menjadi Kaisar di Byzantium. Lalu, Empress Orchid, tulisan Achee Min, yang berisi kisah tentang Yehonala, alias Ibu Suri Tsu Hsi, mantan selir Kaisar Hsien Feng yang akhirnya juga menjadi orang pertama di pucuk kekuasaan China menjelang keruntuhan Kekaisaran China. Ada garis nasib yang hampir sama antara Maharani Wu, Ratu Theodora dan Maharani Tsu Hsi. Sama-sama mengalami nasib yang buruk, dari seorang selir yang akhirnya merangkak dan karena kekuatan karakternya, berhasil mendominasi suami masing-masing.
Lantas, saya teringat kepada Ratu Shima dari Kalingga, juga Tribhuwana Tungga Dewi, Ibunda dari Hayam Wuruk. Kedua ratu ini, belum digoreskan kisahnya dalam roman modern. Tetapi, berbeda dengan ketiga perempuan di atas, Ratu Shima dan Tribhuwana, memiliki jalan hidup yang lebih smooth, serta diceritakan memiliki kehidupan keluarga yang baik. Tribhuwana bersama suaminya, memerintah negeri Majapahit, sehingga bisa memberikan pondasi yang kuat untuk tercapainya kejayaan Majapahit saat diperintah puteranya. Ratu Shima, dia membuntungi anakanya sendiri hanya gara-gara memindahkan kantong berisi uang yang tergeletak di jalan dengan kakinya.
Entah mengapa, saya lebih bangga dengan kisah Shima dan Tribhuwana dibandingkan dengan aroma kebengisan yang dipancarkan oleh para Empress di atas.
December 22, 2015
i learned a lot reading this book. it was fascinating in my foreign eyes.
but empress Wu was a scary character. you can almost say that no matter how.much she had, she always wanted more, and that's dangerous.
although being historically interesting,the book was also full of drama and at times drag on. too long. and none of the chatacters was actually likable.
Wu was amazing- power driven, smart, calculative, and once in a while showing emotions- emotions that were fake in my eyes. she was a strong woman that was able to find her way in a time where many women didn't have much liberty. but she had no limits, and in a way wasn't capable to love. she corrupted pepole.
if you read it, read it in order to get a glimspe on a part of china's history, to learn about the culture and the customes. don't read it if you are searching for a love story, or a woman who sucsseeds without being corrupted and destroyed by the power she achieved.
the chinese royal house was bloody, full of politics, lies, battles and betrayals.
but what makes this story really good is the ending- the last three pages. at least that's my opinion.
let me tell you what makes me love this book so much. The ending of the book, the final quote:
I am the peony blushing red, the swaying tree, the
whispering wind
I am the steep path leading pilgrims to the gates of heaven
I am in words, in protests, in tears
I am a burn which purifies, a pain with the power to transform
I travel through the seasons,
I shine like a star
I am Man’s melancholy smile
I am the Mountain’s indulgent smile
I am the enigmatic smile of He who turns the Wheel of Eternity
but empress Wu was a scary character. you can almost say that no matter how.much she had, she always wanted more, and that's dangerous.
although being historically interesting,the book was also full of drama and at times drag on. too long. and none of the chatacters was actually likable.
Wu was amazing- power driven, smart, calculative, and once in a while showing emotions- emotions that were fake in my eyes. she was a strong woman that was able to find her way in a time where many women didn't have much liberty. but she had no limits, and in a way wasn't capable to love. she corrupted pepole.
if you read it, read it in order to get a glimspe on a part of china's history, to learn about the culture and the customes. don't read it if you are searching for a love story, or a woman who sucsseeds without being corrupted and destroyed by the power she achieved.
the chinese royal house was bloody, full of politics, lies, battles and betrayals.
but what makes this story really good is the ending- the last three pages. at least that's my opinion.
let me tell you what makes me love this book so much. The ending of the book, the final quote:
I am the peony blushing red, the swaying tree, the
whispering wind
I am the steep path leading pilgrims to the gates of heaven
I am in words, in protests, in tears
I am a burn which purifies, a pain with the power to transform
I travel through the seasons,
I shine like a star
I am Man’s melancholy smile
I am the Mountain’s indulgent smile
I am the enigmatic smile of He who turns the Wheel of Eternity
September 4, 2009
I was unimpressed by this novel. The narrator's voice seemed very authentic, as though she actually wrote it back in AD 680, but unfortunately that meant that it was exceedingly dry, mostly consisting of lists of what was in her many parades, how much gold she used building monuments, who she decided to have exiled or beheaded, etc. The most sexy parts (where characters get seduced and so forth) was sullied by the fact that the narrator seemed to have no emotions.
Actually, the lack of emotion was probably the thing I liked least about this book. Because the author starts it with a seemingly omniscient view from inside the womb, the empress Heavenlight has no room to grow and develop as a character. She just knows everything already. This has the further impact of making it difficult to forgive her for her personal failings (and she has several) because if she knows everything, well then why isn't she perfect?
I think that if I had pulled this book off the shelf in the non-fiction section I would have really enjoyed it as a way of bringing ancient China to life. Unfortunately, I expect more from my novels than this kind of dry timeline.
Actually, the lack of emotion was probably the thing I liked least about this book. Because the author starts it with a seemingly omniscient view from inside the womb, the empress Heavenlight has no room to grow and develop as a character. She just knows everything already. This has the further impact of making it difficult to forgive her for her personal failings (and she has several) because if she knows everything, well then why isn't she perfect?
I think that if I had pulled this book off the shelf in the non-fiction section I would have really enjoyed it as a way of bringing ancient China to life. Unfortunately, I expect more from my novels than this kind of dry timeline.
April 5, 2017
I enjoyed Empress because it plunged me into another world in which Wu Zetian, China’s only female emperor, narrates her life during the Tang dynasty. After the election results on Wednesday, I was in a state of shock; anxious and appalled, I couldn’t concentrate on reading a novel for days. When I finally picked up Empress on Saturday I was drawn into a far-away, detailed setting and was able to forget real life for a while, and for that I’m grateful.
I preferred the beginning of the book over the middle and end. Author Shan Sa does a better job of giving readers an interior view of young Wu Zetian’s yearning and doubts from birth to adolescence up to her first years as a concubine in the royal palace. It’s once Wu Zetian matures and attains power that Sa distances us from the protagonist. Exposition becomes the main content of the novel; major events and happenings, years even, are glossed over within the span of a few sentences. The cost of breadth is depth; in attempting to tell the story of eighty years of a profuse life situated within a profuse epoch of Chinese history, Sa resorts to summary. It is a well-written, pretty summary, lush with ornamental details of clothes, ceremonies, characters, and scenery of 7th century China. Among this lavishness is a disappointing paucity of actual scenes, dialogue, and interior emotion you expect in a first-person narrative.
Of course, there are reasons for this distance. Wu Zetian becomes increasingly calculating, detached, and merciless in order to consolidate and maintain her power. She is inaccessible and unassailable once she attains the office of emperor both to the people around her, and the readers of the book. I can understand that Sa wants to portray that Wu Zetian’s ascent translated into distance and disconnect. I can also understand that Sa wants to present Wu Zetian as narrating even after death and looking back on 80 years of life; very probably, something like breadth achieved through summary but a sparsity of specific scenes or emotions is what you would get if asking an old lady to tell her life story. However, in a novel, it’s an unsatisfying structure that engenders pacing problems. At 350 pages, this book would have been better balanced and paced if it focused on only a few key years of Wu Zetian’s life. Alternatively, if it was about three times as long, if attempting to tackle her whole life. I mean, I don’t usually advocate for a longer book, but the life story of a woman emperor who rose from basically nothing during China’s golden era to ultimate power is actually something that justifies a thousand page novel.
The opulence of Shan Sa’s prose surprised me at first. I started Empress erroneously thinking I was reading a translation of a Chinese novel. This kind of lushness—a surrender to the extravagance of language—is not something I’d yet encountered in Chinese literature, translated or not, and I was wondering if it was time to reevaluate my opinion of Chinese literature and Chinese to English translations. But as it turns out, Sa actually wrote this book in French. When I realized that, everything clicked into place, and I understood why this book didn’t feel like other Chinese literature I’d read before. It explained the peculiar, displaced feeling I had when I tried to imagine the original Chinese that lay beyond the English rendering. At the core of this book's prose is an energy that draws more from a French aesthetic than a Chinese one.
An author who chooses their second language over their mother tongue is an enigma to me. I can’t imagine myself ever having the courage or resolve to make that leap. English is my comfort, my refuge. I stumble in my second languages; I feel they will always reject me on some level, for my clumsiness. I have to wonder what pushes any author to embrace the new and foreign over the familiar and forgiving when mastery of a language is a writer’s foundation. It’s one thing growing up learning other languages, like Nabokov or Kafka, and ultimately selecting one language over the other to write in; it’s entirely something else learning a foreign language as an adult and choosing it over your native one. I have to wonder what impels such a radical decision. It’s curious that the only other author I’ve read that made this same choice, Ha Jin, is also Chinese. I think Jin’s choice might have been more for political reasons; Sa says she saw her future in French.
I suppose I can’t blame the translator for the inconsistency of Chinese proper names and places, the other criticism I have of this book. It’s probably something carried over from Sa’s original inconsistency, sometimes even within the same sentence or paragraph. It felt thoroughly disorderly to me. This book solidified my dislike of the practice of literally translating Chinese names; it’s inelegant and panders to a western audience. For cities, instead of writing Chang’an, Sa translates it literally to “Long Peace”; but doesn’t translate other cities, like Luoyang, i.e. “Northern bank of the Luo River,” probably because that doesn’t sound as exotic. She does this with character names as well. Since there are already footnotes/notes in the book, I think a much better solution would be to keep the pinyin within the narration and explain the meaning, if any, of the name where it doesn’t obtrude as much; she does this for Wu Zetian’s surname Wu, explaining it means “warrior” in the endnotes, but then goes ahead and translates names like “Sheep,” “Pure Intelligence,” and “Future,” but also has “Shen Nan Qiu,” and Empress Wang without explaining their meanings in Chinese anywhere.
But overall, Empress is a solid book and I’d like to read more by Shan Sa sometime. Moreover, I think reading more historical fiction not only set in places other than the US/Western Europe but also translated from other languages is something I need to prioritize.
I preferred the beginning of the book over the middle and end. Author Shan Sa does a better job of giving readers an interior view of young Wu Zetian’s yearning and doubts from birth to adolescence up to her first years as a concubine in the royal palace. It’s once Wu Zetian matures and attains power that Sa distances us from the protagonist. Exposition becomes the main content of the novel; major events and happenings, years even, are glossed over within the span of a few sentences. The cost of breadth is depth; in attempting to tell the story of eighty years of a profuse life situated within a profuse epoch of Chinese history, Sa resorts to summary. It is a well-written, pretty summary, lush with ornamental details of clothes, ceremonies, characters, and scenery of 7th century China. Among this lavishness is a disappointing paucity of actual scenes, dialogue, and interior emotion you expect in a first-person narrative.
Of course, there are reasons for this distance. Wu Zetian becomes increasingly calculating, detached, and merciless in order to consolidate and maintain her power. She is inaccessible and unassailable once she attains the office of emperor both to the people around her, and the readers of the book. I can understand that Sa wants to portray that Wu Zetian’s ascent translated into distance and disconnect. I can also understand that Sa wants to present Wu Zetian as narrating even after death and looking back on 80 years of life; very probably, something like breadth achieved through summary but a sparsity of specific scenes or emotions is what you would get if asking an old lady to tell her life story. However, in a novel, it’s an unsatisfying structure that engenders pacing problems. At 350 pages, this book would have been better balanced and paced if it focused on only a few key years of Wu Zetian’s life. Alternatively, if it was about three times as long, if attempting to tackle her whole life. I mean, I don’t usually advocate for a longer book, but the life story of a woman emperor who rose from basically nothing during China’s golden era to ultimate power is actually something that justifies a thousand page novel.
The opulence of Shan Sa’s prose surprised me at first. I started Empress erroneously thinking I was reading a translation of a Chinese novel. This kind of lushness—a surrender to the extravagance of language—is not something I’d yet encountered in Chinese literature, translated or not, and I was wondering if it was time to reevaluate my opinion of Chinese literature and Chinese to English translations. But as it turns out, Sa actually wrote this book in French. When I realized that, everything clicked into place, and I understood why this book didn’t feel like other Chinese literature I’d read before. It explained the peculiar, displaced feeling I had when I tried to imagine the original Chinese that lay beyond the English rendering. At the core of this book's prose is an energy that draws more from a French aesthetic than a Chinese one.
An author who chooses their second language over their mother tongue is an enigma to me. I can’t imagine myself ever having the courage or resolve to make that leap. English is my comfort, my refuge. I stumble in my second languages; I feel they will always reject me on some level, for my clumsiness. I have to wonder what pushes any author to embrace the new and foreign over the familiar and forgiving when mastery of a language is a writer’s foundation. It’s one thing growing up learning other languages, like Nabokov or Kafka, and ultimately selecting one language over the other to write in; it’s entirely something else learning a foreign language as an adult and choosing it over your native one. I have to wonder what impels such a radical decision. It’s curious that the only other author I’ve read that made this same choice, Ha Jin, is also Chinese. I think Jin’s choice might have been more for political reasons; Sa says she saw her future in French.
I suppose I can’t blame the translator for the inconsistency of Chinese proper names and places, the other criticism I have of this book. It’s probably something carried over from Sa’s original inconsistency, sometimes even within the same sentence or paragraph. It felt thoroughly disorderly to me. This book solidified my dislike of the practice of literally translating Chinese names; it’s inelegant and panders to a western audience. For cities, instead of writing Chang’an, Sa translates it literally to “Long Peace”; but doesn’t translate other cities, like Luoyang, i.e. “Northern bank of the Luo River,” probably because that doesn’t sound as exotic. She does this with character names as well. Since there are already footnotes/notes in the book, I think a much better solution would be to keep the pinyin within the narration and explain the meaning, if any, of the name where it doesn’t obtrude as much; she does this for Wu Zetian’s surname Wu, explaining it means “warrior” in the endnotes, but then goes ahead and translates names like “Sheep,” “Pure Intelligence,” and “Future,” but also has “Shen Nan Qiu,” and Empress Wang without explaining their meanings in Chinese anywhere.
But overall, Empress is a solid book and I’d like to read more by Shan Sa sometime. Moreover, I think reading more historical fiction not only set in places other than the US/Western Europe but also translated from other languages is something I need to prioritize.
July 5, 2017
This was an enigmatic and original piece of work, allowing a historical figure, the Empress Wu to tell her own story, all through her own perspective, including her birth, childhood the many twists and reversals of her climb to power, the bitter clinging to that power and even what happens after her death.
About the first half of the book is about her dogged determination to thrive against all the odds- as a cast down nobody sent to the provinces to live with unsympathetic relatives, she has rice mixed with stones and rotten vegetables to eat. From this inauspicious beginning, she becomes firstly a nonentity in the vast "gynaceum" (similar to a harem) of the emperor, then a lover of someone close to the emperor and so on...social climbing by a combination of intelligence, erudition, courage, horsemanship and of course sex. There is a lot of sex in the book. Emperors have four wives, many concubines and a whole gynaceum of "virgins" as well as the odd young boy dressed as a monk or eunuch. People who are not emperors seem to also take many lovers, generally starting from the age of about 11, with partnerships cutting across age and gender (and occasionally class) and being exploitative rather than mutual (although there is complexity around this and at times opportunity for social advancement, which "Heavenlight" capitalises on at every turn).
The intrigues and sudden reversals happen in a gem enrusted, network of opulent palaces and gardens but also in a bloodbath of betrayal, denouncement, torture and violent death. There is much about this book that is unpleasant and the reader soon sees that Heavenlight is far from an innocent- for all her moral high-ground early on against the schemings of wives and concubines. There seems to be a general air of hypocrisy in her attitudes to people who act similar to her for similar reasons, but in between her outrage we see a world where women's power is very limited and their position extremely precarious (this is also largely true for men, but to a lesser extreme). Most of the thousands of "virgins" in the gynaceum will never marry, bear children and have no real career either. Friendships in their are tainted with rivalry and suspicion (although sexual pairings are rife).
I found the polyamorous and bisexual norm of the book interesting but was a bit disappointed that there was still an implicit normalisation of heterosexuality in the way Wu's (Heavenlight's) toxic affairs with women versus her healing and even age-reversing liasons with men. Another problem for me was the way the book (already replete with very detailed description) slows down to a crawl through lists, descriptions and great deeds (building things, consecrating things) once she ascends to the throne. It was lush, picturesque drifting into inevitable decline and death while nothing much happens.
But there was a lot of insight, into a figure I had never heard of- a sympathetic summing up at the end of the ways she overcame the constraints of gender and the ways she did not manage to. I don't suppose we were meant to love an Empress that was more god than human (the way religion is depicted as "true" for the people in the book was one of its epistemological strengths) but I was interested even when I was repelled by the extreme violence and cruelty and the fairly dark depiction of human nature.
About the first half of the book is about her dogged determination to thrive against all the odds- as a cast down nobody sent to the provinces to live with unsympathetic relatives, she has rice mixed with stones and rotten vegetables to eat. From this inauspicious beginning, she becomes firstly a nonentity in the vast "gynaceum" (similar to a harem) of the emperor, then a lover of someone close to the emperor and so on...social climbing by a combination of intelligence, erudition, courage, horsemanship and of course sex. There is a lot of sex in the book. Emperors have four wives, many concubines and a whole gynaceum of "virgins" as well as the odd young boy dressed as a monk or eunuch. People who are not emperors seem to also take many lovers, generally starting from the age of about 11, with partnerships cutting across age and gender (and occasionally class) and being exploitative rather than mutual (although there is complexity around this and at times opportunity for social advancement, which "Heavenlight" capitalises on at every turn).
The intrigues and sudden reversals happen in a gem enrusted, network of opulent palaces and gardens but also in a bloodbath of betrayal, denouncement, torture and violent death. There is much about this book that is unpleasant and the reader soon sees that Heavenlight is far from an innocent- for all her moral high-ground early on against the schemings of wives and concubines. There seems to be a general air of hypocrisy in her attitudes to people who act similar to her for similar reasons, but in between her outrage we see a world where women's power is very limited and their position extremely precarious (this is also largely true for men, but to a lesser extreme). Most of the thousands of "virgins" in the gynaceum will never marry, bear children and have no real career either. Friendships in their are tainted with rivalry and suspicion (although sexual pairings are rife).
I found the polyamorous and bisexual norm of the book interesting but was a bit disappointed that there was still an implicit normalisation of heterosexuality in the way Wu's (Heavenlight's) toxic affairs with women versus her healing and even age-reversing liasons with men. Another problem for me was the way the book (already replete with very detailed description) slows down to a crawl through lists, descriptions and great deeds (building things, consecrating things) once she ascends to the throne. It was lush, picturesque drifting into inevitable decline and death while nothing much happens.
But there was a lot of insight, into a figure I had never heard of- a sympathetic summing up at the end of the ways she overcame the constraints of gender and the ways she did not manage to. I don't suppose we were meant to love an Empress that was more god than human (the way religion is depicted as "true" for the people in the book was one of its epistemological strengths) but I was interested even when I was repelled by the extreme violence and cruelty and the fairly dark depiction of human nature.
January 25, 2016
Untuk pembaca baru buku-buku HF memang agak mengintimidasi. Tapi setelah mencoba membaca beberapa, bagiku ini adalah salah satu cara untuk membaca buku pelajaran sejarah dengan cara yang fun dan ringan.
Empress Wu adalah satu-satunya Kaisar Wanita di China yang memerintah sejak dinasti Tang. Karena ini pertama kalinya aku membaca tentang riwayat hidup beliau, aku tidak bisa menyebutkan sampai sejauh mana keakuratan data di buku ini. Berbeda dengan buku novel biasa atau sodara muda genre ini (hisrom), karakter di buku HF itu nyata dan benar-benar ada. Kita tidak bisa menilai konsistensi sifat seorang yang nyata di dlm novel karena itu seperti bergosip mengenai karakter seseorang. Jadi di sini aku akan menggambarkan apa yang kudapatkan dari buku ini tentang Empress Wu.
- Dalam jalinan bahasa sastra penuh kalimat puitis, pembaca akan diajak mengikuti perjalanan hidup calon ratu ini semenjak dia di dalam kandungan. Jujur penggambaran novel ini menggunakan POV orang pertama serba tahu yang agak aneh. Janin Wu sudah bisa menggambarkan proses kelahirannya sendiri dan juga proses kematian dan masa setelah kematiannya. Itu agak terasa aneh bagiku.
- Perjalanan hidup Wu kecil yang keras menempanya menjadi wanita yang tangguh, kuat dan ambisius. Kecerdasannya memukau. Aku suka saat Shan Sa menggambarkan sisi lemah dan kelembutan dari ratu yang terkenal sangat kuat ini. Dia di gambarkan cukup manusiawi dengan penggambaran sisi erotismenya yang agak anti mainstream di masa itu. Seks sesama jenis, oral seks, biseks, threesome, gangbang, nenek girang dan "jamu awet muda", incest semua ada di buku ini. Puji Tuhan semua itu digambarkan dalam bahasa puitis yang tetap bisa dibayangkan oleh pembaca berimajinasi aktif.
- Sejarah selalu diceritakan dari sisi pemenang. Beberapa fakta dalam buku ini kadang terasa kejam dan tak adil. Tapi selalu disertai penjelasan alasan kenapa sebuah keputusan dan kekejaman di laksanakan. Sejarah membuka tabir kelam bahwa tidak ada yang polos lugu dalam menjenjangi tangga kekuasaan. Siapkan hati dan otakmu untuk mencerna semua intrik kelas tinggi, dimana siapapun bisa berkhianat.
- Buku ini dan semua nama-nama karakter utama dan para figurannya yang selalu berubah seiring kenaikan pangkat mereka, adalah cobaan buat memori jangka pendekku. Aku berharap selain bagan silsilah, sang penulis berbaik hati membuat glossary sebagai ringkasan nama dan gelar. Sehingga keningku tak berkerut melihat nama : Keselarasan, Kelembutan, Harapan, Keteduhan, Kebajikan, Kesegaran Jasmani, Aura Surgawi dll dll dll.
So far, Ratu Wu adalah wanita cerdas yang sangat kuat. Dalam masa kepimpinannya China mengalami banyak kemajuan pesat. Dia adalah karakter komplek yang sangat menginspirasi. Aku merekomendasi buku ini untuk pembaca pencinta sejarah China, yang tidak keberatan dengan gaya bahasa puitis romantis dan sedikit sensasi erotis.
My Rating :
Star : 3/5
December 10, 2012
I was very excited to see that someone had written a novel about Empress Wu, 武则天 my favourite Chinese historical figure. Empress Wu is the only woman to reign China as an Emperor ruling from 690-705AD as head of her own dynasty. It is my hope to be able to write a popular history book about Wu Zetian. Last year I wrote a very long essay about her use of religion in legitimising her rule and I was thrilled to see that all these events were mentioned in this novel! This book was only the fourth book I've ever read in French. I think being do familiar with the historical subject really helped with my comprehension though there were several times I started to feel a bit lost. I decided I was getting enough to not need to get the English translation to read alongside however now I've finished I definitely want to read the English translation when it comes out in paperback this summer to grasp some of the finer details. Sa definitely seemed to have romanticised Wu a little, though as she was writing to combat the Confucian stereotypes given against her, and it was a novel and not history, I think she didn't take too many liberties. Empress Wu came across as a softer and gentler character, the secret police and the reign of terror were mentioned but not dwelt on. She didn't really appear to be as scheming and clever as I would have thought, and she seemed to have been genuinely in love with both the Emperor and her Buddhist architect. Of course this may have been because the book was written in the first person and the French came across as very beautiful, when I go back and read the English she may appear much more harsh! The book seemed to have been very well researched. I was very excited to read passages that I recognised as being taken directly from recorded speech of Empress Wu in the historical sources. All the major events in her life seemed to be included. Events that are argued about in scholarly works were included, for example its not known if Wu entered a nunnery when she was a girl, or just after the death of her first husband the Emperor Tai Zong. Sa had Wu enter the Buddhist nunnery as a girl, and come across as a lifelong Buddhist, which I thought was a very interesting choice. The book was very enjoyable, it was interesting to see the story played out in a new and different way. The one thing that I felt was lacking a little was the splendour of the Tang dynasty and the richness and diversity of the times. There was not the feeling of opulence of a very grand and diverse court. Again of course this could just have been my trouble with the French, but I felt that it was lacking a little. It was just so nice to read something new about Empress Wu and I can't wait to read it again in English. The more people know about this interesting piece of history the better!
March 21, 2017
Coming soon...
January 31, 2016
To be rated/reviewed closer to this month's book club meeting
I had a very hard time getting through this book and even harder time settling on how to rate/review it. I am reluctant to give one star ratings for a few reasons...but...while I appreciated the author's ambition in telling the story of this controversial woman, and felt that the translation was extremely well-done, this was not the book for me. If I hadn't been the one who nominated it for my book club, I probably would have stopped reading it. As it was, I ended up skimming over certain passages to get to the end. I knew virtually nothing about Empress Wu (China's only female emperor) prior to reading this book and was eager to learn more about her life and this period of history. This fictionalized account of her life is told in the first person, perhaps to humanize a woman who was defamed for daring to seize power and maligned by the history books. It follows Empress Wu from the womb to the grave. The language used is poetic and inventive, and the author clearly did a tremendous amount of research about Empress Wu, the golden age of the Tang dynasty, and life in the palace court. Unfortunately, I could not get past the more intimate personal elements and wished that they had been minimized to focus more on the politics. Maybe those aspects of Empress Wu's life were too interwoven into the politics though and this was unavoidable in telling her story, but I felt that certain scenes were gratuitous and distracted me from learning about this period of time and this woman. Perhaps a nonfiction account would have appealed to me more or I would have had a different reading of this book if I'd known more about Empress Wu prior to reading it. I am still torn about how to describe this book more than a week after having finished it because I'm not sure if my reaction is fair since I knew so little about the subject prior to reading this book. I am left wondering if I'm judging the story based on facts/aspects of Empress Wu's life that the author could not change in order to stay true to the history.
In addition to this being the January book club selection, I used this book for the 2016 Book Riot Read Harder Challenge category of "read a book of historical fiction set before 1900." At least I can say it most definitely helped me to read harder this year!
I had a very hard time getting through this book and even harder time settling on how to rate/review it. I am reluctant to give one star ratings for a few reasons...but...while I appreciated the author's ambition in telling the story of this controversial woman, and felt that the translation was extremely well-done, this was not the book for me. If I hadn't been the one who nominated it for my book club, I probably would have stopped reading it. As it was, I ended up skimming over certain passages to get to the end. I knew virtually nothing about Empress Wu (China's only female emperor) prior to reading this book and was eager to learn more about her life and this period of history. This fictionalized account of her life is told in the first person, perhaps to humanize a woman who was defamed for daring to seize power and maligned by the history books. It follows Empress Wu from the womb to the grave. The language used is poetic and inventive, and the author clearly did a tremendous amount of research about Empress Wu, the golden age of the Tang dynasty, and life in the palace court. Unfortunately, I could not get past the more intimate personal elements and wished that they had been minimized to focus more on the politics. Maybe those aspects of Empress Wu's life were too interwoven into the politics though and this was unavoidable in telling her story, but I felt that certain scenes were gratuitous and distracted me from learning about this period of time and this woman. Perhaps a nonfiction account would have appealed to me more or I would have had a different reading of this book if I'd known more about Empress Wu prior to reading it. I am still torn about how to describe this book more than a week after having finished it because I'm not sure if my reaction is fair since I knew so little about the subject prior to reading this book. I am left wondering if I'm judging the story based on facts/aspects of Empress Wu's life that the author could not change in order to stay true to the history.
In addition to this being the January book club selection, I used this book for the 2016 Book Riot Read Harder Challenge category of "read a book of historical fiction set before 1900." At least I can say it most definitely helped me to read harder this year!
October 14, 2014
When I bought this book years ago, I couldn't make it through the first chapter. I was young (...well, younger) and the abstract concept of womb memories wasn't something I necessarily felt capable of grasping. But I picked it up a long time later and I'm thankful I never got rid of it in my adolescent naivete because this book is a force, in language, in storytelling, in characters; it's a truly lush, decadent and engrossing piece of narrative. I am fascinated by any culture not closely related to my well-trod Western heritage, and the opulent spirituality of ancient China ranks high on my list of "things I wish I could have experienced". This book is immersive, not just in the imagery it invokes, but in an entire way of thinking. It's a somewhat detached, first-person look at what a sharp, cunning and brazen woman had to do in order to rise above the limitations that were in place at the time she occupied The Forbidden City. It's utterly fascinating, and whether it's a truly honest account (we'll never know) of all that took place by and to her, it's even-handed and less biased than you might expect.
January 14, 2008
"Abundance" in 7th Century China. The rigid palace protocol and machinations to gain power were virtually identical. Apparently the French peasants took a page from the Chinese book during the Reign of Terror, as parading heads on sticks was much in vogue during both eras. Other similarities include the outrageous hairstyles and over-the-top dressing. But the randy Bourbon kings had nothing on the emperors of China, who kept as many as 10,000 concubines at one time!
In sum, the underlying theme of the ephemeral abundance of earthly goods versus the internal (eternal?) abundance of spirituality and relationships is the same. To wit:
" . . . I felt ashamed for living in artificial abundance within a fortified city. This Court bathing in its happiness was a miraculous island in an ocean of misery." Marie Antoinette or Empress Wu?
In sum, the underlying theme of the ephemeral abundance of earthly goods versus the internal (eternal?) abundance of spirituality and relationships is the same. To wit:
" . . . I felt ashamed for living in artificial abundance within a fortified city. This Court bathing in its happiness was a miraculous island in an ocean of misery." Marie Antoinette or Empress Wu?
December 31, 2007
The author Shan Sa is a native Chinese woman. She wrote this book in French, and it was then translated into English (and other languages). What amazed me was the beauty of the language Sa used to describe the opulent scenes in an ancient Chinese palace in the 7th century A.D. The historical detail was amazing, including descriptions of life within the palace, rituals and beliefs, day to day life in ancient China, how commoners outside the palace survived, how the government was run, and so on. This book is a masterpiece of stunning language and historical research.
January 3, 2012
Un roman très bien écrit et très agréable à lire.
March 14, 2017
My Review:
Yesterday, I reviewed a book about this same woman, but it was a narrated history book. This book is a historical novel in which you hear the story through the main character's thoughts and words. There was no reference section at the back of this book as there was in Daughter of Heaven, but the author spent three years researching her subject. This included traveling to the area where this all happened. She is an artist and used her artistic talent of visualizing each setting like a painting to frame in each site and make it real in her mind since a lot of these locations are no longer available.
Ms. Sa starts the story from the womb, literally. Unusual, I thought, but really effective. Right from the start, you know this is a woman who must speak for herself, must be heard. She has a mind of her own. As the story goes on, it reveals a woman of passion. Not just sexual passion, but cultural, artistic, beauty and highly intelligent. As a child, her mother was so afraid of her intelligence and questioning ways that she had a wandering monk evaluate her and reassure her mother that there was no evil in the girl. A superstitious time. Still, when the opportunity came, Heavenlight was shipped off to a Buddhist monastery to be the mourning representative for the family. She was only five-years-old and felt abandoned by her family. She was there for several years until her father was made the Governor Delegate of the Province of Jing.
When she was 10-years old the Emperor died and her father died shortly afterward. The Great General Li was the Master of Ceremonies for her father's funeral services. He spent time speaking with Heavenlight and was so impressed with her he told her that he would be in charge of her destiny. After the funeral, Heavenlight, Little Sister, and her mother moved to the Wu village to live with her father's family. They were commoners. Heavenlight's mother was not a commoner and had raised her daughters as ladies. This caused all sorts of friction and outright conflict. Little Sister, in particular, was mistreated as she was the weakest and least able to protect herself from the abuse.
But the general had not forgotten Heavenlight and at the age of 13, Imperial troops came to escort her to the palace to serve in the Forbidden City. She was made a Talented One of the 5th rank, so she now outranked anyone in the Wu family. She made herself a promise to make them pay for all the abuse they had heaped on the three women during their stay there and to bring honor to her mother again. Promises she kept.
She became a part of the harem and learned many things. She was instructed in the arts of sexual health and love. She was a keen observer. She also learned singing, dancing, archery, horse training, and lesbianism. At least the horse training served her well. She became an excellent rider and horse handler. It was an incident with an unruly horse that brought her to the Emperor's attention finally. So she became the Emperor's concubine. She also fell in love with the heir, Little Phoenix, and was his lover. When the Emperor died, all his concubines were sent to a monastery for purification and rebirth, including Heavenlight. Little Phoenix tried to keep her with him as he ascended the throne, but she insisted on going to the monastery where she lived for three years. At the end of three years, Little Phoenix came to the monastery and requested to see her in private. He basically raped her. On the off chance that she was pregnant by him, she was recalled to the palace. She had a son by him, followed by a second son.
So here she is back in the palace and has a lover who is Emperor and an Empress who despises her and is the only thing standing between her and the power she needs to have things her way. Power. What do you think? I think you should get this book in one format or another and read it very soon!
This book was given to me by my daughter, Sarah, in exchange for an honest review. I am not being compensated in any way. All opinions are fully my own.
~ Judi E. Easley for Blue Cat Review
Yesterday, I reviewed a book about this same woman, but it was a narrated history book. This book is a historical novel in which you hear the story through the main character's thoughts and words. There was no reference section at the back of this book as there was in Daughter of Heaven, but the author spent three years researching her subject. This included traveling to the area where this all happened. She is an artist and used her artistic talent of visualizing each setting like a painting to frame in each site and make it real in her mind since a lot of these locations are no longer available.
Ms. Sa starts the story from the womb, literally. Unusual, I thought, but really effective. Right from the start, you know this is a woman who must speak for herself, must be heard. She has a mind of her own. As the story goes on, it reveals a woman of passion. Not just sexual passion, but cultural, artistic, beauty and highly intelligent. As a child, her mother was so afraid of her intelligence and questioning ways that she had a wandering monk evaluate her and reassure her mother that there was no evil in the girl. A superstitious time. Still, when the opportunity came, Heavenlight was shipped off to a Buddhist monastery to be the mourning representative for the family. She was only five-years-old and felt abandoned by her family. She was there for several years until her father was made the Governor Delegate of the Province of Jing.
When she was 10-years old the Emperor died and her father died shortly afterward. The Great General Li was the Master of Ceremonies for her father's funeral services. He spent time speaking with Heavenlight and was so impressed with her he told her that he would be in charge of her destiny. After the funeral, Heavenlight, Little Sister, and her mother moved to the Wu village to live with her father's family. They were commoners. Heavenlight's mother was not a commoner and had raised her daughters as ladies. This caused all sorts of friction and outright conflict. Little Sister, in particular, was mistreated as she was the weakest and least able to protect herself from the abuse.
But the general had not forgotten Heavenlight and at the age of 13, Imperial troops came to escort her to the palace to serve in the Forbidden City. She was made a Talented One of the 5th rank, so she now outranked anyone in the Wu family. She made herself a promise to make them pay for all the abuse they had heaped on the three women during their stay there and to bring honor to her mother again. Promises she kept.
She became a part of the harem and learned many things. She was instructed in the arts of sexual health and love. She was a keen observer. She also learned singing, dancing, archery, horse training, and lesbianism. At least the horse training served her well. She became an excellent rider and horse handler. It was an incident with an unruly horse that brought her to the Emperor's attention finally. So she became the Emperor's concubine. She also fell in love with the heir, Little Phoenix, and was his lover. When the Emperor died, all his concubines were sent to a monastery for purification and rebirth, including Heavenlight. Little Phoenix tried to keep her with him as he ascended the throne, but she insisted on going to the monastery where she lived for three years. At the end of three years, Little Phoenix came to the monastery and requested to see her in private. He basically raped her. On the off chance that she was pregnant by him, she was recalled to the palace. She had a son by him, followed by a second son.
So here she is back in the palace and has a lover who is Emperor and an Empress who despises her and is the only thing standing between her and the power she needs to have things her way. Power. What do you think? I think you should get this book in one format or another and read it very soon!
This book was given to me by my daughter, Sarah, in exchange for an honest review. I am not being compensated in any way. All opinions are fully my own.
~ Judi E. Easley for Blue Cat Review
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 17, 2016
“To other women the choice of clothes was a form of ingenious exhibition, a shameless seduction. To me, dresses were like a breastplate that I put on to set off to war against this life."
Reading this, was like drinking gold. The writing felt luxurious, compelling and very Chinese. I've lived in Hong Kong my entire life, my own mother is Chinese and very rarely have I read a novel that felt real, and unpretentious in employing 'nature' metaphors. These are commonly used in everyday life, but most Western authors tend to overstretch them in attempting to mimic this. Sort of like too much sweetness glutting the stomach. The author's uncanny ability to evoke the sense that you were actually reading this novel in Chinese was deftly done, and fluent.
The only issue I had with the author's style was the way she told, rather than showed sometimes. Nevertheless, a compelling read. The scenery; the time; the customs, were well orchestrated. You truly felt Wu Zetian's frustration and suffocation. The sense of a cluster of scheming hens in the harem of the forbidden city. It felt like a constricting chicken coop, with far too many colourful feathers. But Shan Sa's portrayal of the Machiavellian heroine (or anti-heroine), was well measured. It felt as though the author had plunged her hand into history and actually created a living, breathing, individual. Wu Zetian. Her conflict, but self imposed restraint against her children; her exasperation in her mother; her disappointment in Little Phoenix's malleable will and her wrath. It felt like the novel was silently repeating a quiet mantra that was never spoken: "What of my Wrath?"
April 11, 2011
Oh, dear lord, this was a boring book.
Because the subject is historically significant, I felt obligated to keep reading. What a chore that was. I skimmed, and still had to finally throw in the towel without finishing the last 50 pages or so.
The story of the Empress is told in the first person, from before her birth until, well, I don't really know how it ended, do I? But since she narrated her time in the womb, and her birth, I assume the book ends with her description of her death and funeral, and that she eventually lets us know which of her miserable family members inherited the title of Emperor. I don't care.
The story moves through the years quickly, and we get only sketchy detail on things that are important to me: her personal relationships with her mother, sisters, husband and children, and other key members of the government, and how she influenced the lives of the Chinese people. We do get some detail on her sexual encounters with various men and women. There is a lot of detail about the palaces, dress, and some of the rituals and customs. (That last sentence is why I'm giving it two stars and not one.)
I didn't like any characters in this book. Wait, let me think... I don't want to exaggerate... nope, I'm I sure didn't like any characters in this book.
Glad it's over.
Because the subject is historically significant, I felt obligated to keep reading. What a chore that was. I skimmed, and still had to finally throw in the towel without finishing the last 50 pages or so.
The story of the Empress is told in the first person, from before her birth until, well, I don't really know how it ended, do I? But since she narrated her time in the womb, and her birth, I assume the book ends with her description of her death and funeral, and that she eventually lets us know which of her miserable family members inherited the title of Emperor. I don't care.
The story moves through the years quickly, and we get only sketchy detail on things that are important to me: her personal relationships with her mother, sisters, husband and children, and other key members of the government, and how she influenced the lives of the Chinese people. We do get some detail on her sexual encounters with various men and women. There is a lot of detail about the palaces, dress, and some of the rituals and customs. (That last sentence is why I'm giving it two stars and not one.)
I didn't like any characters in this book. Wait, let me think... I don't want to exaggerate... nope, I'm I sure didn't like any characters in this book.
Glad it's over.
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