Ling ZhangRezensionen

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review here and on my blog, Samwise Reviews. I was really impressed with the way this book was written. Set in China during World War 2 it introduced us to many different characters, and it did a very good job at keeping them all separate. The book switched perspective every few chapters and invited us into someone else's viewpoint and background and often this can get confusing or tangled, but I didn't find that in this case. I'm using this for the "A Book That Leaves You Thinking" part of my 2020 reading challenge because it's not a story you can move on from quickly. Each character goes through a lot of trials and it was really interesting to learn how they handled each one and the repercussions from them years later.

In 1976, a 7.6-scale earthquake rocked the region around Tangshan, China. Hundreds of thousands died, and hundreds of thousands more struggled for survival after houses, essential services, and bridges were leveled. Thirty years later, one survivor Xiaodeng is an acclaimed writer in Toronto, Canada, but is still haunted by the events of that day, when she was just a child. She tries to piece together her personal life, now falling apart. In reconstructing her life by reliving its historical course, she rediscovers herself and reconnects with her Chinese roots.

Author Zhang Ling’s mastery of language and storytelling is profound. She relates this story in non-linear fashion, yet each piece seems well-connected with the prior piece and never awkward. She enmeshes the reader with the complex story of this one family, which comes to involve multiple family units. She draws out the protagonist’s deep-seated emotional wounds that, even decades later, still haven’t healed into livable scars. Ling doesn’t merely expose these hurts, however, by showing them the light of day; she brings the characters – and empathetic readers – towards a healthier emotional place in the end.

The original Chinese version of this tale was adapted into an award-winning movie in China. Although Zhang Ling has tried her hand at writing in the English language more recently, it was left to Shelly Bryant to translate this book for the English-speaking world. The translations is fluid and clear. Ling is clearly comfortable with both Canadian and Chinese cultures and moves readers seamlessly across both settings. She reminds us that despite our differences, all too amplified by politicians and journalists, our common humanity unites us in the most important ways.

Lovers of literary fiction will love this complicated, ornate story whose pieces form a beautiful whole. Many English speakers who appreciate Chinese culture will also fancy this tale. The Chinese community in Toronto, large in number and featured in this book, will especially relate to this book’s marriage of their two rich heritages. I find all of Zhang Ling’s writings evoke sentiments deep in my heart, and Aftershock is no exception. It draws on many foundational human themes in an artful way that bring me to a therapeutic place.

Mothers and daughters are a special relationship. But what daughter can fully know who her mother was before she became a mother? This lack of knowledge is complicated even more when the mother doesn't share her past, keeping secrets from her daughter. Zhang Ling's newet novel, Where Waters Meet, explores a daughter's search for her late mother's past, a search that will change her view of her mother and alter herself in the process.

Phoenix's mother Chunya "Rain," has passed away unexpectedly at the age of 83. Rain has lived with Phoenix for her whole life, even after Phoenix married, and her death has devastated her daughter. After discovering her mother's memory box, brought with her from China to Canada, Phoenix has more questions than answers about her mother's life, especially since Rain had been suffering from dementia for the last several years. Reaching out to her Auntie Mei in China, she is told that the stories must be told in person. With her easy-going husband's blessing, she flies over to China to uncover the missing pieces that shaped her mother.

The novel is told in several different formats: third person narration in the present, Phoenix's emails home to George once she lands in China, and a manuscript that Phoenix is writing about her mother but written as if it is Rain's memoir. The story of Rain's life is full of hardship and tragedy, running as it does through the Sino-Japanese War, WWII, and the Civil War between the Communists and the Nationalists. Each time something seems to be looking up, history flip flops and there are additional horrors to live with and through. Ling has seamlessly woven the twentieth century history of China into Rain's life, exposing the horrors perpetrated on the common people. The leaps into the past are not handled chronologically as Auntie Mei recounts things out of order to Phoenix, not only leaving room for additional information to come later but making the story turn back on itself, winding along, much as a river meanders through a landscape. This can come across as a bit disjointed to the reader but works with the nature of memory and a long gone past. Phoenix's desire to know her mother's past and what she learns remakes her own memory of her early life in China, changing her perception of her mother from a woman who ccoasted along relying on others to a strong woman taking charge when she could and making decisions for Phoenix's future over her own. The ending of the novel is quite abrupt and unsatisfying after everything that went before, but over all, the novel combines an intriguing premise with history that we don't often read about in the West. It's a novel of loss and resilience, relationships, secrets and truth, wrapped up in a family saga complicated by history.

Where Waters Meet is Zhang Ling's second novel to be translated into English. It follows A Single Swallow. It is a heartwrenching story about a daughter and her journey to discovering the truth about her mother's life after her death.

The publisher's summary:

There was rarely a time when Phoenix Yuan-Whyller’s mother, Rain, didn’t live with her. Even when Phoenix got married, Rain, who followed her from China to Toronto, came to share Phoenix’s life. Now at the age of eighty-three, Rain’s unexpected death ushers in a heartrending separation.

Struggling with the loss, Phoenix comes across her mother’s suitcase—a memory box Rain had brought from home. Inside, Phoenix finds two old photographs and a decorative bottle holding a crystallized powder. Her auntie Mei tells her these missing pieces of her mother’s early life can only be explained when they meet, and so, clutching her mother’s ashes, Phoenix boards a plane for China. What at first seems like a daughter’s quest to uncover a mother’s secrets becomes a startling journey of self-discovery.

Told across decades and continents, Zhang Ling’s exquisite novel is a tale of extraordinary courage and survival. It illuminates the resilience of humanity, the brutalities of life, the secrets we keep and those we share, and the driving forces it takes to survive.

I loved this story enough to immediately reread it after finishing it. There is alot of nuance to the story and I wasn't sure whether I picked them all up during the first read. It's such a lovely story which also made me want to read it again. It reminded me of last year's Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu.

Women are the main characters in the book. Phoenix Yuan-Whyller is the narrator. She took care of her mother Rain, born Chunyu, during her entire life including during her marriage to George Whyller. Rain’s sister Mei is another strong character. Rain and Mei's mother is also featured in a few chapters and the reader gets the sense that strength runs in the women of the family. They overcome everything. It was interesting that they chose weak men as husbands. For Rain and Phoenix it was a matter of wanting to take care of someone. Mei is still a mystery to me as she was to both her sister and her niece.

The family originated in China. Rain and Mei lived through three wars there: WWII, the Japanese War and the Civil War between the nationalists and the communists. They suffered severe hunger and bombing raids, as did everyone else in China. Rain and Mei's parents died in a bombing of their village East End. The sisters were captured by Japanese soldiers and forced to be prostitutes. Rain handled it better than Mei who was unable to eat or even get up off her mattress. With her sister's help Mei escaped and joined the communists and fought alongside Mao's warriors. Rain eventually made her way to Hong Kong and then Toronto where she and her daughter lived with Phoenix’s husband George. I see George as weak compared to his wife. He was American and refused to fight in the Vietnam War. He fled to Canada. Rain’s husband was a war hero who was disabled from war wounds and needed a wife to provide for his needs.

While the book begins in Toronto most of the action takes place in China. This family saga is definitely the exquisite tale that it is advertised to be and it has captured my heart. I am rating it way, way over 5 out of 5 stars.

This book opens with Phoenix Yuan-Whyller’s mother “Rain” dying in Toronto at the ripe old age of eighty-three. Rain had lived a full life spanning two countries on two continents. Phoenix spent most of her life caring for her mother, yet her mother’s early life remained buried in mystery even to her daughter. Having recently married a Anglo-Canadian, Phoenix spent most of her life tethered to her mother. Grief and curiosity combined, and Phoenix flies to China to talk to her Aunt Mei to learn more about her mother. What she unearths causes her to see her mother’s life – and her own – much differently.

To Phoenix, her mother always seemed simple and uncomplicated – even boring. Yet the mind-spinning dramas that conversations with Aunt Mei uncover would each be enough for one person’s life. These dramas, comprising large chapters in this book, intersect in nuanced ways and each uncover further mysteries. They tie together as one beautiful tapestry that comprises the artwork of this book. And as with any good novel, the plot continues to unravel until the last page.

Rain’s early life is set in China during the time of World War II until the Korean War. This was a time of constant fighting in Chinese history, yet it was also a time of focused turbulence. The “good” characters and the “bad” characters were yet to be sorted out by history. Zhang Ling, a Chinese immigrant to Canada, vividly depicts these scenes in southern China as only someone who grew up in the area could. She clearly appeals to those interested in Chinese history with the motif that there’s more here than first meets the eye! Just as so, human emotions like love, grief, sorrow, guilt, and gratitude intersect more than we’d like to admit.

This book is Ling’s first work written first in English. Her previous works, which have been smashing successes on both sides of the Pacific, were translated from the original Chinese. The quality of English is excellent, either way, and tells of many hours of hard study learning a new language and culture. Ling’s strong storytelling skills remain, regardless of language. I can’t wait to read the results of her next project.

The story of three men and their relationship to one woman during the Japanese invasion of China and during the civil war that followed. It is uniquely told in that the three men are dead and they met at a pre-arranged place. One of the problems I had with this book is that two of the main characters were Americans and the third a native Chinese, worked on the military base as a translator/teacher. I feel that the perspective of the book is very anglicized. The form of the book is creative, although the story lagged in places. This book won the Best Novel China in 2017. I listened to this on audio. 9 hours 17 mins= 299 pages

A collections of chapters of different characters to bring the story along. At times, the transition were a bit choppy.

I chose this because it was translated from Chinese and I assumed it would give me a Chinese perspective on what World War II looked like from China. I did find it interesting reading, but wished I could read another book that told Ah Yan's story. Because this is really the story of three men who cared for Ah Yan as they saw her, and not likely as she saw herself.

Set during the Japanese occupation of China and during the civil war, the action described takes place in two villages away from the worst of the fighting: Sishiyi Bu, where Ah Yan and Liu Zhaohu have relatively happy childhoods until the Japanese arrive, and Yuehu, where Americans train Chinese fighters in fighting the Japanese with explosives.

The story is told from three perspectives: Pastor Billy, an American missionary who has lived in Yuehu over a decade before the Japanese come; Liu Zhaohu, a villager with Communist sympathies who runs away to join the fighters; and Ian Ferguson, an American soldier who trains the fighters in using weapons.

The setup, that the ghosts of the three men meet after their deaths, seemed a bit clunky to me, and since two of the three narrators were Americans, I didn’t get as much Chinese perspective as I hoped.½

On the day of the historic 1945 Jewel Voice Broadcast—in which Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender to the Allied forces, bringing an end to World War II—three men, flush with jubilation, made a pact. After their deaths, each year on the anniversary of the broadcast, their souls would return to the Chinese village of their younger days. It’s where they had fought—and survived—a war that shook the world and changed their own lives in unimaginable ways. Now, seventy years later, the pledge is being fulfilled by American missionary Pastor Billy, brash gunner’s mate Ian Ferguson, and local soldier Liu Zhaohu.
All that’s missing is Ah Yan—also known as Swallow—the girl each man loved, each in his own profound way.

A very moving look at WWII through the eyes of 3 men and Ah Yan as they revisit their past. Great cast of characters and historical details that transport you to another time. Recommend for all historical fiction readers.

A Single Swallow by Zhang Ling (translated by Shelly Bryant) is the story of one woman - Ah Yan - told through the perspective of three men in her life - Liu Zhaohu, William E. Macmillan aka Pastor Billy, and Ian Ferguson as their ghosts look back 70 years later. The unusual narrative timeline proves frustrating because the story does a lot of “telling” instead of living the events and because the book never shares the perspective of Ah Yan herself.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2020/03/a-single-swallow.html

Reviewed for NetGalley.

No plot summary here, as many other reviewers have done that. This is a literary novel that follows its own leisurely path while nonetheless telling harrowing stories about war and its consequences. A reader has to accept the style and pacing, which lean heavily toward atmospheric narrative, to reap the rewards of the book as a whole. The characters are developed well enough to hold a reader's interest, even as we move back and forth in time. The female protagonist is especially sympathetic and fully realized--not surprising, since the author is a woman. I love reading into another culture, in this case, Chinese, and gaining this author's perspective on historic events from a non-American point of view.

I read Ling Zhang’s A Single Swallow in the original before reading this fabulous English translation. The novel is set in China during WWII. The storyline is fantastic: the tale of the woman protagonist, Ah Yan, is told by three dead men, which reminds me of the multi-narrators in As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. What Ah Yan goes through during the war is brutal, but these tragedies can’t destroy her; she grows into a strong and independent woman while overcoming all barriers from the social tradition that shackles women. The vivid details make the characters real and come to life. The novel reflects a history that the Americans helped the Chinese during the Sino-Japanese War.

The premise of the story is enticing. On the day Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender to Allied Forces, three very happy men agree that after they die ,their souls will return to the Japanese village where they fought during WWII. Seventy years after this the last of the three has died and the souls American missionary Pastor Billy, the gunner’s mate Ian Ferguson, and a local soldier, Liu Zhaohu meet. The only one missing is Ah Yan, (Swallow) who each of the three men loved. As their souls reunite, their stories of the war and of Ah Yan is fleshed out. This story meandered a lot for me. I suppose that’s sort of the way a meeting of the souls of dead people would tell the story, but I would have loved to hear Swallow’s story in her voice as well. And why did the story change three men to dogs????

This tale, translated from the original in Chinese, centers on events surrounding one Chinese woman during the Second World War. It is told through the perspectives of the ghosts of three men who loved her and who she loved back, albeit in different ways. It narrates how war augments human stories of love, family, and relationships.

The translation is generally excellent and fluent. Only the prevalence of Chinese customs make it obvious that this story was written for another setting. However, such “insider” views provide us with a sympathetic understanding of Chinese culture in-and-around the war period. It can remind the English-speaking world that the Chinese and Americans, despite governmental hostilities, aren’t that different after all.

The story itself is artfully told and does not come off as cheap romance. Instead, using the technique of triple narrators, Ling skillfully weaves together a story through continual deployment of intrigue that spans sections. The protagonist, a strong young woman with different nicknames from the three men, overcomes adverse experiences such as rape, death, and becoming an orphan. The chapters, which vary in length, rely on other narratives and pick up where others left off.

Besides love, this work’s great theme is how inextricably the cultural upheaval of war serves as part of the human experience. The work spans two great cultures across two continents across many decades. Many elements of the story are tragic, but the book does not take the form of a tragedy. Instead, it realistically depicts human life and human determination in unusual times.

I’m glad I read this book because of its insight into Chinese culture. The characters are dynamic and three-dimensional. Its main weakness consists of a relatively slow plot. But the deep character development, while confusing initially, successfully makes up for the lackadaisical pace. I hope this beautiful work will enlighten the lives of those in the English-speaking world as much as it has inspired those in the Chinese-speaking world.

Ah Yan is only one small person, but her life is a strong and colorful thread in the life-quilts of three different men for three very different reasons. Each calls her by a different name based on who she is to him, or at least who he wants her to be. Her intense suffering at the hands of men both during and after World War II break her, shape her, mold her, and teach her—yet sometimes broken bones heal stronger than they were before the fracture. From her experiences, Ah Yan learns to stand tall, build resilience, and trust herself, and despite all the evil she encounters, she continues to do good. Her story is one of conflict, betrayal, anguish, and somehow love. She grows up in a nation at war with Japan, and also with itself. As China changes, so must Ah Yan. Her story tells me that anyone who can face the past without shame can live in the present without regret and face the future without shame. What more can we hope for?
(ARC in exchange for an honest review did not influence my opinion)

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A Single Swallow by Ling Zhang (translated by Shelly Bryant) is an award-winning Chinese novel taking place during the Japanese occupation of China during World War II. Ling Zhang is an award winning author.

The story follows three men, American missionary Pastor Billy, brash gunner’s mate Ian Ferguson, and local soldier Liu Zhaohu who promised one another that they will each other, after their deaths on the anniversary of Japan’s surrender.

As each one takes a turn telling their story, they all come down to Ah Yan, or Swallow, a girl each man loved in their own way.

Even though the story is told through the multiple points of view of three men, the real start of the book is the woman who they are all in love with, in some way or another. Ah Yan, or Swallow, leaves her mar on each one of the men at some point in their life, which they reminisce about after their death.

The narrative of A Single Swallow by Ling Zhang is very lyrical, great translation by Shelly Bryant who, I believe, really captured the essence of the story and the spirit of it. A novel about a very strong woman, who constantly puts others before herself, many times in a heartbreaking fashion.

I thought that the style of making the three narrators supporting actors in the novels, while the main protagonist view point is left alone was very creative story-telling. Even though the three narrators are dead, and tell the story in hindsight, the overlapping of their narratives creates a strong story.

The first chapter or two got me interested in the concept, ghosts meeting up in a per-scheduled date and time, even though they had to wait a few decades for the meeting to cumulate fully. The narrative got slower than, but the rich language kept me going and once Ah Yan got introduced the whole story took off.

There are several brutal scenes, after all this is a novel about a war. The way the Japanese treated their Chinese captors, the way the Communists Chinese treated their own people, and of course the horrible events which Ah Yan went through are not for the faint of heart, but make the story much stronger and significant.

This is, however, a slow novel and there are a few parts which, I felt, could have been cut to make the pace faster (why do I need to know about two dogs, it added nothing to the story).

Gold Mountain Blues by Ling Zhang is an extraordinary read and page turner. The novel is a fictional family saga set in China and Canada, spanning 125 years from 1879 to 2004, with vivid stories about life and death, love and hate of the Fong Family.

The multi-generational epic starts with Amy Smith, the fourth generation of a Chinese immigrant, who visits her family mansion in China. Among the different artefacts found in the house, an opium pipe helps trace back to the early years of the Fong family and their eldest son, Ah-Fat's youth as a farm boy in Hoi Ping County of Guangdong Province. To help his family out of poverty, Ah-Fat leaves for Gold Mountain. His pigtail cut is a sign of cultural conflict, but not because of the Xinhai Revolution. Then a woman's old jacket and pair of silk stockings tell the story of Ah-Fat who returns to his hometown for an arranged marriage several years later.

Reading the letters discovered in the house, Amy learns about Ah-Fat's life in Vancouver and his wife with two children in Hoi Ping. Years later, Kam Shan, their eldest son joins his father farming in Canada. Kam Shan is, by inadvertence, involved in Dr. Sun Yat-sen's revolution, and the loss of his pigtail leads to his temporary disappearance. The second son, Kam Ho, also joins his father in Canada. During the Second World War Kam Ho enlists in Canadian Army and dies in France.

The photo Amy has brought with her links to the story of her mother, Yin Ling, the third generation of The Fong family, and Amy herself as the third generation of the unmarried women in the Fong Family. The reason for being unmarried is either being rejected by Chinese traditions or objecting the traditions. The novel ends with Amy making a surprising decision.

The epic portrays a historically true picture of the Fong family that gradually becomes affluent in the village as the financial support provided by their family members through hard work in Gold Mountain at the cost of the family dispersion. After the Chinese communists' takeover, the lives of the three generations of the Fong family come to a violent end in a rink, leaving the five-story mansion haunted for decades.

The novel is developed with historical facts and events, such as building the Canadian Pacific Railway, early years of Chinatowns in Victoria and Vancouver, the Chinese head tax, Sun Yat-sen's Revolution, Sino-Japanese War and the Land Reform Movement in China.

The setting is sophisticated. Through Amy Smith's eyes, the storyline goes back and forth between the present and past and between China and Canada. This story isn't only about the Chinese Canadian family, but also about this family's relationships with Caucasians and Native Indians.

Gold Mold Mountain Blues is one of the best novels I've ever read, emotionally touching and compelling, with an intriguing plot, dramatic scenes and intricate characters. Suspense and O. Henry-style surprise are built throughout the novel.

If you enjoy this novel, you would like to read the following novels: The Rice Sprout Song by Eiling Chang, Field of Life and Death and Tales of Hulan River by Hong Xiao and One Hundred Years Of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.

A 519 page saga about 5 generations of a family from Guandong Province in China, Gold Mountain Blues begins in the 1870s as teenaged Fong Tak-Fat, like thousands of his countrymen, sets sail for British Columbia. Drawn by the possibility of a better life, these migrant workers, many married with children, leave behind wives, mothers and children for years of almost penal servitude. Fong becomes one of the coolies who daily risks his life to build, by hand, the Pacific Railway.

Ms Zhang’s list of research materials testify to the scholarly quality of her project. But this academic approach might have been better employed in writing a non-fiction chronicle of the West Coast Chinese. I experienced Gold Mountain Blues as a linear narration of events, interrupted occasionally by a modern day story of the descendant who returns to China to sign off her family’s claim to the family “fortress” so that it might be declared a World Heritage Site. Speaking as an east coast caucasian Canadian, I understand that as a chronicle the story excels. But again, from my vantage point, I feel that as a saga, it lacks the literary devices—foreshadowing, juxtaposition, mood, suspense, climax— that might have helped me, and perhaps other non-Asian readers, connect to these characters in a livelier way.

P.S. Ms Zhang’s dedication features a phrase that profoundly summarizes her story in three verbs: to her parents who taught her “how to labour, to achieve and to wait.”

6.5 out of 10 Recommended to those who would enjoy a detailed narration of 19th and 20th century Canadian/Chinese history.½