P.V. LeForge's Reviews > Pearl of China

As a teenager in China during the Cultural Revolution, author Anchee Min was asked to denounce the so-called "American cultural imperialist" Pearl Buck. Years later, in the U. S., she had the opportunity of reading Buck's work and was ashamed that she had been forced to write against someone who obviously knew China and its people so well. Pearl of China is her paean to Buck, and as such is a touching reminder of a writer who, despite winning the Nobel Prize in 1938, is mostly dismissed by this generation's readers and critics.

The book, however, is ill-conceived as a novel. Min's attempt to to encompass almost all of Chinese history from 1900 to 1980 simply simply can't be done in less than 500 pages. It is even more of a tricky business if you have a single, first-person narrator who not only witnesses the triumphs and excesses of Mao Zedong's China, but who also is Pearl Buck's best friend.

Anchee Min is at her best when describing the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, as she does in Wild Ginger and her memoir Red Azalea, and she gives new insights here. But the narrative cage she puts herself in allows her to reward our reading with little else. Her characters are never fully developed simply because she does not spend enough time on them. Many of the more exciting scenes, such as where Buck and her family are almost shot by a Warlord and his band of Red Guards, are pure fiction. In fact, despite the title, the character of Pearl Buck seems almost thrown in, as she appears in less than half the novel. It is as if the rest of the story got away with Min and she could find no good way to juxtapose the Chinese history lesson with the homage to Buck.

I'm not sure that Min has written her best novel yet, but I am sure than this is not it. Recommended only for fans of Min and anyone who wants to read everything on the Chinese Cultural Revolution. I would have given maybe 2.3 stars for effort, but am forced by the rules to round it down to 2.