Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China - Jung Chang

It's difficult to write a review on this book without coming across as insufferably cliched and sentimental, however, it's also rare for a bestseller to live up to its hype and praise. Wild Swans is a one such book. I received it as a Christmas present so I could learn more about China's history and dispel any ignorance associated with the country. Published in 1991, the book follows the lives of three generations of women; a concubine to a warlord, a Communist mother, and the author herself who lived through Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution. The biography/autobiography spans the early twentieth century through to 1978, detailing the wars, foreign invasions, revolutions and totalitarian tyranny that reigned. As a privileged daughter to a family of high ranking officials, before falling under suspicion and victimisation, Jung Chang was able to witness both extremes of wealth and poverty during the rigorous indoctrination and persecution of millions of innocent people. The result is a devastating account of a brutal ordeal that put me through a range of conflicting emotions, at one point I was seething and swearing in rage.

Perhaps the dominant feeling whilst reading was that of guilt. The death of my smart phone was instantly trivial in relation to the horrors and absurdities that devastated China. The biggest outrage for me was the rise of the Red Guards in 1966, school children who were encouraged to turn on their tutors and other professionals or intellectuals with violent abandon. It was an almost unreadable, dystopian nightmare belonging more in the pages of science fiction or sensationalist cinema than reality. There's simply no room for wryness and cynicism when discussing Wild Swans, such an approach would undervalue the real suffering of so many lives. Despite the abundance of cruelty and privations, there are fleeting moments of joy and serenity which provide glimmers of hope for the oppressed. These are typically presented in the descriptions of beautiful areas of China still unaffected by the conflict. Jung Chang has a keen botanical eye, probably reactive to Mao's denunciation and destruction of flora as bourgeois decadence. I couldn't recommend this book enough, indeed, it should probably be made compulsory reading for history class in most schools. Obviously, it remains banned in China today.

Rating: 4/5