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A review by perfect_leaves
Good Children of the Flower by Hong Ying
2.0
Review excepted from the longer version on my blog:
I was hoping to be able to add another book to my “books about China written by Chinese people” list. Unfortunately, this book was a complete dud. I’m a little leery of speaking about the use of language in Good Children of the Flower because I recognize that I read it in translation [but] I find it extremely hard to believe that such a critically-acclaimed author would turn out such underwhelming prose and overwrought narrative structure. I don't know whether to give her the benefit of the doubt and say the translators ruined the novel or to assume the translators did their best with what was a sub-par piece of writing.
I won’t comment on the actual plot of the novel other than to say the pacing was painfully slow. I fought my instinct to put the book in hopes that my efforts would be rewarded. I was sorely disappointed. Frankly, the story could have been told start-to-finish in about 100 pages. I gather from the novel that Hong Ying wanted to pay tribute to her late mother by highlighting both the suffering her mother endured during the political tumult of the 1900s and the sacrifices she made in an attempt to keep her family alive and together. Without the unnecessary detours into Hong Ying’s life, (every now and then it seems like she is bragging about her numerous awards and ruminating upon the place of marriage in her life, though neither subject holds any importance in the grand scheme of the novel) Good Children of the Flower would be a pretty decent illustration of some of the horrors common people faced during the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. I found myself cringing and on the verge of tears when I read what her mother went through. While some would argue that my mild emotional involvement is a testament to good writing, in this case the tears came because I was disgusted that one human being could be so cruel to another human being, not because the writing was particularly good.
I most likely won’t be reading Good Children of the Flower again, and I certainly won’t recommend it to anyone else. Reading it was such a chore and the end result so poor that I’m glad I received the book for free from NetGalley in exchange for a review. I would be quite upset if I’d wasted my money.
I was hoping to be able to add another book to my “books about China written by Chinese people” list. Unfortunately, this book was a complete dud. I’m a little leery of speaking about the use of language in Good Children of the Flower because I recognize that I read it in translation [but] I find it extremely hard to believe that such a critically-acclaimed author would turn out such underwhelming prose and overwrought narrative structure. I don't know whether to give her the benefit of the doubt and say the translators ruined the novel or to assume the translators did their best with what was a sub-par piece of writing.
I won’t comment on the actual plot of the novel other than to say the pacing was painfully slow. I fought my instinct to put the book in hopes that my efforts would be rewarded. I was sorely disappointed. Frankly, the story could have been told start-to-finish in about 100 pages. I gather from the novel that Hong Ying wanted to pay tribute to her late mother by highlighting both the suffering her mother endured during the political tumult of the 1900s and the sacrifices she made in an attempt to keep her family alive and together. Without the unnecessary detours into Hong Ying’s life, (every now and then it seems like she is bragging about her numerous awards and ruminating upon the place of marriage in her life, though neither subject holds any importance in the grand scheme of the novel) Good Children of the Flower would be a pretty decent illustration of some of the horrors common people faced during the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. I found myself cringing and on the verge of tears when I read what her mother went through. While some would argue that my mild emotional involvement is a testament to good writing, in this case the tears came because I was disgusted that one human being could be so cruel to another human being, not because the writing was particularly good.
I most likely won’t be reading Good Children of the Flower again, and I certainly won’t recommend it to anyone else. Reading it was such a chore and the end result so poor that I’m glad I received the book for free from NetGalley in exchange for a review. I would be quite upset if I’d wasted my money.