Customer Reviews

Red Azalea

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I think I walked around in a daze for days after reading this book.
I found Anchee's first part is a little choppy as I grew accustomed to her style. From part two on, I was her captive - unwilling to put the book down for a moment. I fell into her beautiful language and wept for the emotions that rose in me, especially during her experiences with Yan in the labor camps. I ached for her sadness and was uplifted by her hope. The book changed me - the mark of a truly wonderful author. You owe it to yourself to read this book.

Red Azalea, Anchee Min, Anchor Books, 2006, pp. 306

This is her own biography! Even as an elementary school student she was brainwashed with communist slogans, books, teachings and opera. The only texts were teachings of Mao. The influence was strong, to the point when asked to become the head of the Little Red Guard, she proudly accepted. Later, the communist secretary demanded she denounce her own kind, warm, helpful teacher as an American spy. With great reluctance and guilt, but influenced by lies and shouting of 2000 supporters, she completed the task with tears. An example of the blind loyal following of Mao is given by the secretary who is dying of a liver infection but rather than be hospitalized and lose precious moments to further this worship, he endured the pain. Many followers, as the secretary, had suffered under other rulers and only found relief when the communists took over. Their gratitude along with a regular dose of propaganda, twisted their minds into believing and performing any task demanded of them. Life was very difficult, death didn't stop but the ignorant people believed everything they were told. Chapter One details her experiences growing up in poverty and how the Party governed every movement of their lives. Of course, there was always the threat of death, labour camps and torture to change ones thinking.

The unfortunate seventeen year old is assigned to the Red Fire Farm, not because she is need or has special skills, but due to the fact that policy stipulates one member of a family must go work on a farm, to be re-educated. This farm contains 13, 000 former city dwellers, all unhappy but most prepared to continue the struggle for the communist bosses. Millions are displaced all throughout rural China, and will contribute to the later suffering. She meets the Party Secretary and commander, Yan Sheng who slowly becomes her best friend. It is a real eye-opener to learn some of the techniques used to instil absolute devotion and obedience. After working 5am to 9pm they meet nightly for self criticisms and listen to more propaganda, and to get 'rid of incorrect' thoughts.

They were not even permitted to think of men or girls until their late twenties and if caught in shameful acts, one or both could be sentenced to death. Interesting, when one examines Chairman Mao's private life. He was known to have many women selected by dedicated loyalists, and not just one at a time. Even while married to Madame Mao he carried on unashamedly. Anchee is arriving at that age when her hormones are raging. She knows nothing about relationships, sex or dating. A large section of this novel describes the relationship with Yan and the author seems to have no hesitation in admitting how they performed. You will read how Yan becomes her heroine, saving her life.

If you have read 'Becoming Madame Mao' by this author, you will know Jiang Ching is obsessed with the idea of producing operas and movies glorifying Mao. Through a series of regional contests, Anchee is actually chosen to train and possibly play the part of Red Azalea, the most highly revered opera. Red Azalea was recreated and produced by Madame Jiang Ching. She is the heroine represented by the purity of a young peasant who idolizes Mao as her saviour. Millions would recognize her easily as the new saviour of China after her husband's passing. This is the role Anchee must flawlessly portray on stage. 'I am Comrade Jiang Ching and the Supervisor's physical substance. I display their thoughts. I am my ambition....I am the embodiment of Red Azalea. I am my role.' (p, 295)

This novel is very much about a woman who misunderstands what true love is about, misdirects her affections and finally becomes involved with an idealist ' about communism, about artistic expression and about love itself. 'Romantic love does not exist among proletarians....It is a bourgeois fantasy.' (p. 238)

Her advancement towards her ultimate goal of playing Red Azalea is fraught with danger, as she steps over people who can now criticize or denounce her. A powerful friend today may not even exist tomorrow. As she hurdles obstacles, wins new respect, I become suspicious we may have moved from the biographical to fantasy. If this material is all fact, she has accomplished the impossible in a communist world.

A powerful, beautiful, achingly honest book. I was blown away when I first read this book. Beauty and pain co-exist side by side in this firsthand account of growing up under the Mao revolution. An extremely moving account of essentially what it's like to live under oppression. This book stayed in my memory for a long time.

Anchee Min's book is very subtle and I am impressed not only by what she reveals about China in the Maoist era, but also by what she hints at throughout the book. I wonder if other readers get the same sense that she holds back as much as she offers.

If the book is a memoir and not fiction, then the mysterious Supervisor must be a real person. I am intrigued by the parallels between the Supervisor, whose name she is never told, and Jiang Ching, whom she says she has never met. Did Anchee Min ever meet Madame Mao? Why does the Supervisor provoke the same feelings she has for Yan?

Anchee Min's lack of quotation marks and blending of dialogue in paragraphs made it tricky to keep straight who said what. I wonder if this was purposeful--to keep enough ambiguity in the writing to protect the identities. Certainly an American editor would have pointed out the conventions of print dialogue.

The ending of the memoir is also a puzzle, since it seems to end on such a despairing note for the rights of women in China. The gender equality that Red Azalea (the fictional heroine of the opera)seems to represent is finally and permanently suppressed with the imprisonment of Madame Mao.

Yet I wonder how the author rose above these social conditions and her own despair, during the years that followed the book, and escaped to the United States. Wouldn't she have needed help to get across the ocean?

Details of these crucial years, and whatever events may have led to her coming to the United States, are not included. Indeed, the letter from the friend from the U.S.A. seems to be a deus ex machina that doesn't quite explain the situation for me. Why don't we hear about this friend in the course of the narration?

There is more to the story than Anchee Min has revealed. I hope she will someday write about her voyage to America.

I bought this book after I had read Memoirs of a Geisha. I was looking to find another book that was just as good. While this book was not anything like MofG it was still a great read.

Anchee Min is an awesome write. At times I couldn't believe she was willing to let the reader know some things that many authors may have kept private.

Min gives great detail of what growing up under the leadership of Mao was like for a small child-then teen. It's hard to belive that life in the 60's could be so different in China that it was in the U.S. The part of the book that will keep its readers attention is when she goes to live and work as slave labor (even though she believes that she is being guided to a better life by Mao) at the Red Fire Farm.

I agree with another reviewer when they say this book is heartbreaking and erotic. Although this book is normally found in the fiction section of the book store, I think it is helpful in teaching the readers about what China and Mao were actually like.

Min is an author that should be noticed for her work as well as her survival. I hope that she will continue writing for many years to come.

Anchee Min has created a powerful sense of life in China during its darkest period: the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The year was 1966, revolution powered by the Red Army just began to crumple the country. 9-year-old Min was the most excellent student in her grade for her revolutionary mind. She had memorized Mao's Little Red Book, secretively criticized her parents' reactionary (counter-revolutionary) behaviors, sang heroic operas raved by Jiang Ching (Madame Mao) and was selected as the head of student Red Guard. Utterly ignorant of the revolution's poignant consequence, Min, afterall, was too young to understand the meaning of public criticisms and purges. Manipulated and brainwashed by the Party members at her school, Min openly criticized and betrayed her most favorite teacher by accusing her as being a spy from the United States.

At the age of 17, Min was told that she needed to be a model to the graduates as a student leader. The ambitious I'll-go-where-Chairman-Mao's-finger-points attitude stirred Min's heart and made her eager to devote herself in hardship at the Red Fire Farm. Upon cancelling her residency in Shanghai, along with million other youths Min joined the Advanced 7th Company to plant rice in leech-filled water along the eastern coast. There Min finally caught up with the terror and hardship of Mao's ambitious revolution. She befriended with and eventually worshippped and fell in love with Party commander Yan. Here Min contrasted the dark horror of Communist China, the purges and the criticisms with her own desirous passion. She picked fight with the deputy commander Lu who diligently sought to catch Yan's mistakes. The secret meeting with Yan at the brick factory, the fondling and cuddling in bed under the mosqutio net-such personal desires are politically dangerous that the culprit could be rewarded a death sentence. Min was then engaged in an affair with the "Supervisor" who directed the revolutionary film Red Azalea. After Cultural Revolution and the arrest of Jiang Ching, pro-Revolutionist like Min was labeled. She continued to work as a set clark at the film studio. The Party sent her younger sister Coral to the Red Fire Farm in order to fulfill the peasant quota for each family. She was not granted sick leave even though she caught TB. "My despair made me fearless", noted Min. She decided to fight for permission to leave not only the film studio but the country. The year was 1984. At the age of 27, Min immigrated to the United States. *Red Azalea* is her powerful memoir-a joltingly honest testimony to life in China under Mao. The prose is haunting, heartbreaking, and erotic. 4.1 stars.

I normally avoid dramas and books about people who emerge from adversity, but this book was SOMETHING ELSE. I was so fascinated I couldn't put the book down. The events move along, preventing the reader from becoming bored. Also, I had never learned about what Mao's reign meant for the daily lives of the Chinese, so the rules and propaganda were all new to me and also horribly fascinating. The author's story is told with beauty and in an endearingly straightforward style without any of the sappiness and drama that usually gives me the heebie jeebies. A MUST READ if you don't know anything about Communist China and/or if you love a good (true) story.

In Red Azalea, Anchee Min creates a vivid image of growing up in China at the height of Communist rule under Mao. She became leader of the little Red Guard as part of the Proletarian Cultural Revolution and eagerly demonstrated her devotion to the Party. The real story begins when she is seperated from her family and sent of to the Red Fire Farm,a dreadful work camp, durring her teen years. Life under Mao was a struggle for survival where the individual's needs were not considered. In her writting, Min does not show disrespect for those in powere, but rather describes the poverty and condition of the counrty. Min's fate took a remarkable turn one day when she was chosen from many girls to become and actress in training. This account is easy to read yet the concepts are deep and meaningful. Her life makes the reader think about their own fortunes or perhaps misfortunes. Red Azalea is a beautiful autobiography that creates a powerful sense of life in China during the country's most heartbreaking time.

Red Azalea is not difficult to read - it is a book easily consumed in one or two sittings. However, when it comes to the digestion of what's been read, that's a different story altogether. Red Azalea is the story of the author's childhood under China's Cultural Revolution, but tackled with seemingly simple language that manages to impart complicated undercurrents of meaning to the reader. Min has stated in interviews that she admires the painting style of Henri Matisse, and that her writing style is a reflection of that simplicity and naivete.

Red Azalea tells Min's story from elementary school where she is a good communist leader right off the bat, to her time spent at a farm where she has a relationship with her supervisor, to being chosen to star in a film version of one of Madame Mao's operas, Red Azalea. I found Min to be inaccessible, and the memoir difficult to ground in reality; however, this did not prevent me from enjoying the book and being vastly educated by it. The tone of the book was almost otherworldly, perhaps because of the lack of everyday details that would somehow anchor the events. I found myself often glancing back at the cover of the book, as if to remind myself that this was indeed nonfiction. Red Azalea is quite different from any book I've ever read: a memoir both complicated and simple, a plot both clear and elusive. Recommended for a challenge where you'd least expect one.

Essentially this is a book written for the Americans. While the narrator's account of her struggle in the Communist society hits close to a home-run, the graphic portrayal of the main character sexuality leaves an obscure taste in one's mind- a true piece of true Chinese literature would never be so visually explicit, even in communicating the most intimate passion.