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I finished the novel The Family by Pa Chin last night. I picked up a copy of it at the book fair. I'd never heard of it, but it looked like a nice Chinese novel written I think in the 1930's. The introduction was priceless, written shortly after the cultural revolution when it had been banned, the author apologized for his lack of pointing out how the elite class exploited the peasants. Even though the book was set in the middle of a city.
The book, like A dream of Red mansions was about the downfall of a great Chinese family. However it was set in China in the 1920's. As the author wrote it was mainly autobiographical drawing on many events he witnessed in his own life. For that it was a very interesting look at what life was like for a struggling elite family under the influence of chaotic times and new ideas.
I enjoyed the first half greatly, the young brother's problems living in a society that wasn't as traditional as it had been, but was more traditional than they wanted, suffering heart broken love affairs and intellectual writings. Then without any warning the city was besieged by soldiers and everyone was in fear of their lives for several weeks. It was very dramatic but then the army forces made peace and things returned to normal.
Unfortunately this is when things took a turn for the worse, the author's character, was a young idealistic third son, enchanted with the new way of learning and disgusted with the old and "backward" traditions of his family. He had fallen in love, so he thought, with one of the families maids and promised himself. However when she was sent as a concubine to an old family friend he did nothing. She instead of going committed suicide, it was very sad and moving. Then the 3rd master got caught up in his writing, the part I was never able to forgive him for, a bare week after her death he said he was the happiest he'd ever been. It made me very angry that her life would be treated so callously by everyone. He seemed to not get any of the ideas he was thinking of, just wanting to be selfish. After that the rest of the book was just kinda dry as more women died and eventually the younger brother ran away. (Though he could only do so with financial support from his older brother he'd been mocking the whole time)
The book had many of the same themes as A dream of red mansions however for whatever reason the author seemed to completely lack the sensitivity for his female characters that book was famous for. This was a book definitely about the males in that household. And really went to show how far they still had to go before their ideas of equality and freedom could be understood and achieved.
The book, like A dream of Red mansions was about the downfall of a great Chinese family. However it was set in China in the 1920's. As the author wrote it was mainly autobiographical drawing on many events he witnessed in his own life. For that it was a very interesting look at what life was like for a struggling elite family under the influence of chaotic times and new ideas.
I enjoyed the first half greatly, the young brother's problems living in a society that wasn't as traditional as it had been, but was more traditional than they wanted, suffering heart broken love affairs and intellectual writings. Then without any warning the city was besieged by soldiers and everyone was in fear of their lives for several weeks. It was very dramatic but then the army forces made peace and things returned to normal.
Unfortunately this is when things took a turn for the worse, the author's character, was a young idealistic third son, enchanted with the new way of learning and disgusted with the old and "backward" traditions of his family. He had fallen in love, so he thought, with one of the families maids and promised himself. However when she was sent as a concubine to an old family friend he did nothing. She instead of going committed suicide, it was very sad and moving. Then the 3rd master got caught up in his writing, the part I was never able to forgive him for, a bare week after her death he said he was the happiest he'd ever been. It made me very angry that her life would be treated so callously by everyone. He seemed to not get any of the ideas he was thinking of, just wanting to be selfish. After that the rest of the book was just kinda dry as more women died and eventually the younger brother ran away. (Though he could only do so with financial support from his older brother he'd been mocking the whole time)
The book had many of the same themes as A dream of red mansions however for whatever reason the author seemed to completely lack the sensitivity for his female characters that book was famous for. This was a book definitely about the males in that household. And really went to show how far they still had to go before their ideas of equality and freedom could be understood and achieved.