What We've Been Reading

I'm way behind on book reports, but have read some wonderful books on China over the last few months and will share a brief review of each so you can add them to you Wish Lists.

China Road by Rob Gifford

A self-confessed NPR junkie, I bought the book after hearing Rob Gifford discuss it on the Diane Rheme show. That I had listened to his original reports on NPR as he crossed China in preparation for the book piqued my interest, but his conversation with Diane at a time when I was preparing to move to Shanghai myself sent me to the bookstore that very day.

At the end of his time living in Beijing and covering China for NPR, Gifford elected to make a cross-country trip as his farewell to the nation. Reviews in China have said that he talked to peasants and many of the interesting people in China, rather than spending all of his time with the newly rich and the expatriates. His conversations with people were enlightening and personal, making the Chinese seem not so different from ourselves. His tangents on Confucianism, Mao and the future of quickly-growing China are all thought provoking, placing the current Chinese scenario in its context. But they are also well placed among well written prose and good-old story telling. When I finshed the book, I felt as if I had just sat down to dinner with Rob and listened to him tell me his stories and his opinions. I liked it so much, I chose to read it again. This is rare in my library. For those at all interested in China, China Road is a must read.

The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck

I give Rob Gifford credit for describing the peasants of rural China as ordinary people to whom a westerner could relate. But I must give credit where credit is due. The Good Earth earned Pearl S. Buck her fabulous, and well-deserved reputation for writing about peasants in China, living lives far different from those in the United States. And yet reading this book, I could understand how they felt and how they made the choices they did. I could place myself into those vastly different lives and get a glimpse of life as a peasant in rural China at the turn of the century. Good story? Check. Good writing? Check. And I don't read for symbolism, although I know this book is chock full of it. But just that I could identify with someone whose life so vastly differed from mine felt good, and I (along with the Nobel Institute) give Pearl S. Buck loads of credit for that.

River Town by Peter Hessler

I'm only just into this book. Hessler wrote a memoire of his time as a Peace Corps volunteer in one of China's lesser known but still very large cities, far west in Sichuan province. His experience was much more extreme than ours - he and his compatriate were the only two foreigners in their town and were left entirely on their own to speak English and figure out how to maneuver their newly Chinese lives. As far as I am in the book, I am identifying with his struggles with pollution, noise and the learning to speak and understand Chinese. And my challenges pale in comparison to those he faced, which is comforting. Hessler is a good writer, painting a compelling and certainly factual picture of China in the mid-90s, and I find it interesting to note the changes and similarities between both his time period and mine, and his city and mine. If you love a good memoire, good travel writing, or just good writing, I highly recommend River Town.