Aku membca versi Indonesianya, yg diterbitkan Q-Press. Tadinya melihat judulnya aku ingin melihat sebuah potret perempuan. Ternyata setelah aku membacanya, kita disuguhkan berbagai macam potret laki-laki. Laki-laki pecinta, laki-laki kesatria, laki-laki penguasa, laki-laki penyayang, laki-laki penindas.... Buku ini memang bercerita tentang perempuan, namun buku ini menjadi cermin bagi berbagai macam laki-laki

Mired down in the communist revolution. Revolutions usually aren’t that boring. DNF.

I read a biography of Madame Mao called The White Boned Demon when I was in high school. Jiang Qing was still alive when it was written, but you knew her end would not be a happy one.

I remain fascinated by Jiang Qing and her ability to reinvent herself. She has always reminded me a little of Anne Boleyn. She was an arresting personality, but never learned to wield the power that was so close to her grasp.

Anchee Min is one of my favorite authors. She managed to capture Jiang Qing's voice as well as she captured the voice of Orchid, the lady imperial empress of China. I would recommend this book for all those fascinated by Chinese culture and wish to take a journey with Jiang Qing.

Although I liked much about this book, I also found it very disturbing and even frightening. The fact that I read it while I had a serious case of the flu and probably a high temperature might have influenced my reaction. The book is a fictionalized account of the rise of an actress, the girlchild of a last concubine, to the role of the powerful Madame Mao in China. I use the word "role" purposively since this girl Lan Ping (she changes her name 4 times so it is hard to identify her by name) lives life as a series of roles. I loved the writing style - the sentences are short, almost jerky at times, but they give an incredible sense of immediacy to the story - probably part of why I found it so disturbing. The style also very successfully shifts constantly from first person to third person. Since the protagonist is almost always looking at herself as a role, this is particularly effective. At first I was a bit annoyed by the protagonist's breaking into tears at nearly every scene, but that too became clear was simply that she could only play life as a role and she had limited experience in other than overly dramatic roles. What I found disturbing was the all-too vivid portrayal of the politics of China during this period. The fear - actually paranoia, distrust, arbitrariness, and self aggrandizement is terrible to read about. I kept thinking about trying to exist in such an atmosphere. And I kept thinking about the Chinese people and their incredible resilience. How can they have emerged with any happiness or enthusiasm or energy?

Reduced the history of Chinese communism to petty personal quests for influence and the affection of a tyrant. Made me want to learn more about the era.

This story is amazing. Min's Madame Mao comes across as somewhat Eva Perone, somewhat Anne Boleyn, and completely intriguing. This book takes the reader through her youth and ascent into power, the terror involved in holding it, and the fateful descent from power as the tide turns against her. Although these years were spent alongside Mao, Min chronicles how different the experience was for her, as his wife, and how uncertain her future was at all times.

Min carefully and imaginatively brings life to the notorious historical figure, with obvious research and respect for accuracy, but without coming across as dry. Her writing remains as colorful and sensitive as it is in works like "Red Azalea," which serves well in this biographical sketch. We appreciate the liberties she takes because they help to make this complex woman accessible to us. Several anecdotes are especially memorable, such as the future Madame Mao's near brush with foot binding, and her anticipation/contemplation of death.

Although this work does not excuse Madame Mao, it does humanize the "white-boned demon." Through this woman, the reader also becomes acquainted with Mao himself, and the iconic duo seamlessly pop from the pages of history books. They never become likable, as this is not Min's intention, but they do become real. During this journey, the reader is thoroughly exposed to the corruption and atrocity behind China's Cultural Revolution, and this period of history becomes tangible and hideously fascinating to a modern day audience.

This is a bad book: badly written, badly presented and badly edited. Granted that I only read about 15% of the book, but it was already grating on me. In fact, Philippa Gregory writes better stories ... that should say a lot! It's surprising because I remember reading a book by Anchee Min a few years ago and I quite liked it.

The writing jumps from first person to third person every two paragraphs for no ostensible reason. It was confusing to read and very distracting. The writing was extremely shoddy as it also jumped from the present to the past at the same time without warning. The sentences were stilted and brought out no emotions at all. 'She did this. She did that. Then she felt bad. So she did this.' That's not a novel, that's a 8 year old child writing a school essay. There wasn't much conversation either, and where there was some, it was not done properly. The punctuation was out of place. Certainly, not recommended.

kisah "Madam Mao" saat masih kecil, anak seorang selir termuda dari pejabat negara yang hidupnya penuh keluh kesah. si ibu begitu berambisi menjadikan "Madam Mao" sbg gadis yg mempunyai "nilai", kakinya diikat dg lem dan kain panjang berminggu-minggu sehingga terbentuklah segitiga yang menandakan bahwa kaki gadis yg sperti itu akan dinilai tinggi oleh orang dan tdk akan mudah dilecehkan. wiihh.. ga kebayang sakitnya yah :) tp hal itu lah yg kelak, bertahun-tahun kemudian membuat Madam Mao begitu survive.. wis! jd makin penasaran :D

Got lost in its poetic prose. The way Min describes things is genuine and wonderful. She described the sunset horizon as that of watermelon, green grass, topped with orange and bright red sky; described the heroine's state as raddish (couldn't remember the vegetable exactly) pickled in sorrow...wish I had taken down notes.

It could have been a boring biography with all the details, but Anchee Min weaved gems in her story and presented us with a beautiful and sad story.

Love it, love it, love it.
I'm definitely reading it again to steal Anchee Min's talent.

I've been trying to read Jung Chang's Mao recently (it's over 900 pages), and I took a break to read this book. It was definitely a simpler way to get the gist of the story of Mao without all the political details, which I liked. I also liked how the book made smooth switches between first person and third person—I would have thought it would be too confusing to do it that way, but it worked. However, I never felt like I got a good feel for who Jiang Ching really was and what her motivations were, though it was definitely interesting that Anchee Min decided to say that Jiang Ching was playing roles just as she had as an actress.

There was this jump from the first years of their marriage to twenty years later wherein I wasn't sure what had happened. I liked finally understanding (at least according to this book) that the reason for all the radical switches in the revolution was because of Mao's avoidance of whoever was most powerful or popular after he was at the moment. I didn't see Jiang Ching's reasoning for how directing a bunch of operas and movies was going to get her in power and not just to bring attention to herself.

I had to push myself through almost the last 100 pages, and the events therein were very anti-climactic. Yes, these were real events, so making them any more interesting in a book is a challenge. However, people have done it before in historical fiction and I think that there was something lacking here.

This was a difficult book to follow due to the back and forth between 1st person and 3rd person. However I do think it was intentionally written that way to showcase the nature of the main character, "But in truth, for Madame Mao, there is no line between living and acting."

Sure, I knew about the Cultural Revolution, but I never wondered about Mao’s personal life or about the personal life of Madame Mao. Drawing on actual historical figures and events, Anchee Min creates a compelling fictionalized portrait of Mao’s forth wife, the woman known as the “white-boned demon” even when she was alive. We see the young, spirited girl struggling first to survive and then to establish herself as an actress. We can even sympathize with her. Anchee Min, who was an actor herself, certainly has the background knowledge to describe the artistic circles at the time.

We see Yunhe’s —the girl who fights against having her feet bound—gradual transformation to Jiang Ching in the greatest role of her life: on the stage of her marriage to Mao and, eventually, at the core of political leadership in China. “For Madame Mao,” writes Min, “there is no line between living and acting. The Cultural Revolution is a breathing stage and Mao is her playwright” (p. 184).

At times, the main character is powerfully convincing. At times, she comes across as one-dimensional. For example, her desire for political power seems fueled entirely by her very personal desire to please Mao and to become closer to him. We learn about Jiang Ching's machinations, about her vindictive actions and her most intimate thoughts, but I am not sure I know who exactly she was and what exactly drove her, even after I closed the book.

The style is fairly dramatic, sometimes overly dramatic, and Min is good at using metaphors. The tiger metaphor, for example, runs through the second half of book as Madame Mao’s political life is compared to riding a tiger: One cannot get off the back of the tiger because she will be eaten. I actually liked the interplay between the first-person account (the character’s own voice) and a third-person view. The rhythm felt strange at times. Min likes to use a series of clipped, incomplete sentences, and I realize she does it for effect,
but it just sounded as if a composer had overused the “staccato” notes in a piece of music. I can't imagine that it is easy to write about someone like Madame Mao, especially in a work of fiction, but Min’s book is an interesting perspective on her life.