|
In mid-March we shared an advance reading copy of Terrence Cheng's SONS OF HEAVEN with a group of Bookreporter.com readers asking them for their candid feedback on this title that is scheduled to release on April 30th. What follows are unedited comments from seven of our readers.
Terrence Cheng has written a story so remarkably believable it is difficult to accept as a novel. I have spent much time in China and feel I have some grasp of what Chinese consider "self," so it was wonderful surprise to find the characters in "Sons of Heaven" soundly convincing in their Chinese temperament. I fully believe the young students and soldiers who participated in Tiananmen were of the same mindsets as Cheng delivers in the brothers Xiao-di and Lu, each driven by the common flame...youthful hope. The relationships within the families, city and rural, are typical of the majority of families who suffered the raw years of the Revolution: cautious, clever, resigned.
But most engaging is Cheng's management of Deng Xiaoping's roll in the tragic moments of the Tiananmen Incident. Cheng's creative vehicle allows him to present facts that are extremely close to what many believe is the truth of the situation. While this is not what one calls a "political story" this is a novel from which one can learn much about China and also gain insights to the dilemma and frustration that allowed for the Tiananmen event.
The ending is not what I would have created were I the author, but then, it is Cheng's ending and it works and endings are never quite exactly as we should expect?
Congratulations to Terrence Cheng on an outstanding novel. I recommend it without hestitation.
—NancyKWilson@aol.com
The following is my review of SONS OF HEAVEN. I loved it, though I had mixed emotions as to whether or not it should be longer...as a writer, I'd have been tempted to elaborate, giving the characters more history, particularly the grandparents.
Who was that young man who stunned the world as he stood in front of the tanks sent to put an end to the Tiananmen Square student demonstrations in 1989? Not only has Terrence Cheng given him a fictitious name, Xiao-Di, he has also created a family, a life and a history for him. But what is truly remarkable about this book is that Cheng has portrayed Deng Xiaoping, the leader thought to have ordered the military intervention, as a man struggling with his own ideals. Westerners, eager to side with the oppressed, have rushed to condemn human rights violations attributed to China's rulers without much thought to the making of the men they hold responsible.
The giant that is China has stumbled its way through the twentieth century irritated relentlessly by insatiable beasts gnawing at its parts. Under siege since the beginning of the century when Dr. Sun Yat-sen formed the Nationalist Party to overthrow the corrupt Qing Dynasty that collapsed in 1911, China suffered several tumultuous decades with power divided among warlords, nationalists, communists, and even Japanese invaders at various times. The Long march of the Chinese communists in the mid-1930's is deeply embedded in the psychology of the men who ultimately took power in 1949. Deng Xiaoping was one of those men.
He recalls the dreams of his own youth when he joined a trek of 6,000 miles in pursuit of a better life for China's peasants. Of the 80,000 people who began the Long March, only 8,000 survived to reach the caves outside of Beijing. He remembers when, in the early stages of Mao's Cultural Revolution, he was denounced as a "capitalist roader" and subjected to "re-education." He muses on the fate of his son, Deng Pufang, who remains in a wheel chair, the result of a "fall" from a third story window while being interrogated.
Xiao-Di, recently returned from an American university where he was introduced to the concepts of freedom, is a reluctant participant in the demonstrations, having joined at the urging of his childhood friend, Wong. When Wong is shot by soldiers, Xiao-Di cannot believe that the soldiers would turn on their own people and impulsively resists the onslaught of the tanks. Aware of the fate that awaits him if he's caught, he becomes a fugitive.
The third central character, Lu, called Xiao-Lu (Xiao translated to mean little) until the birth of his younger brother, Xiao-Di, is an angry young man, once a member of Mao's Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. He has found a home of sorts in the People's Liberation Army. To prove his loyalty and perhaps earn a promotion, Lu becomes instrumental in the hunt for his brother. He is a largely unsympathetic character until the end of the story, but Cheng does a fine job of helping us understand his dark side even though we don't like him.
In a society largely uneducated and with too many bureaucrats, where power can be a fleeting thing, the complexities of the situation in Tiananmen Square are thoughtfully persented in SONS OF HEAVEN. The ghosts did indeed find their voices and the story is compelling without superfluous additions. Sadly, no one wins in the end and the beast rumbles on.
—INKPENBEN@aol.com
SONS OF HEAVEN. A novel by Terrence Cheng, touched me in a way I never thought possible. Mr. Cheng made the uprising at Tiananmen Square realistic. Lu, the soldier and Xiao-Di, the student, wove their way into and out of the struggles within the Chinese community, letting us feel we truly know "The story behind the story."
We all watched, with our hearts pounding, the students in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Once again we have the chance to experience the bittersweet story of family, government and self worth.
—Pastelred@aol.com
SONS OF HEAVEN was a great read. This was one of the few historical novels that, when I turned the last page, I just sat there with the book in my lap wishing that I could keep on experiencing the lives and times of those so skillfully brought to life by the author. The author's method of using each chapter building each character and his relationship to events was very effective. I was completely drawn into the story. He also was very evenhanded in developing the three different perspectives of the same situation. Well done!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and hope Terrence Cheng has more where this came from.
—Piscesadel@aol.com
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read the advance reader's copy of SONS OF HEAVEN. In general, I liked it very much. The arc of the narrative is quite compelling, and although the denouement seems a bit contrived, it's also somehow believable given the peculiar notions of Chinese justice. So overall, I enjoyed reading it.
There were some aspects of the book I found disappointing, however. With the exception of a few vivid moments (the killing of Wong, the confrontation between Lu and the girl), the prose seemed quite flat overall and practically devoid of the kind of telling detail that suddenly reveals the deeper nature of a culture or individual. Sometimes it almost felt as if I were reading a screenplay where the description of the action is deliberately unadorned.
When I saw the description of the book, I thought it might provide a fascinating tour through the hall-of-mirrors of Chinese politics, but the examples of high-level politics in the story seemed quite pedestrian. Likewise, there was never a sense of the zeitgeist of that particular time in that particular place, an overview of the social forces that converged to cause such a tidal wave of dissent. I believe if this background were more present, the personal stories would gain dimension as a result.
Once again, thanks for giving me the opportunity of reading this book. And keep up the good work with the newsletter!
—haddow @aol.com
Terrence Cheng has created an identity for the young Chinese dissident who faced down the tanks during the crushing of the Tiananmen student demonstration --- an image that Cheng claims has haunted him since he watched the drama unfold on live television --- and tells us his story in his new book SONS OF HEAVEN. It is a story of unrealized expectations and lost opportunity for both the dissident and China.
SONS OF HEAVEN is the story of three people: the dissident; his older brother, a soldier whose unit is involved in the crackdown; and Deng Xiaoping. We learn about each through their thoughts and actions told in their own words in separate chapters. It is an effective method by which to express the character and motivations of the actors in this story. The main motivation for all three appears to be injustice. For the dissident, the injustice of a socio-political system that permits a disgruntled functionary to block any chance of his advancement, despite his Cornell education. For his brother, the injustice of being the older, but not the favored son. For Deng, the injustice of his characterization by the students leaders and the dissident as an uncaring tyrant and suppressor of the people, despite the trials and personal hardships he experienced in a life devoted to China, and the greater good of the Chinese people.
Yet, except perhaps for Deng, Cheng does not fully succeed in creating in the reader any empathy for his protagonists. This is especially the case with the older brother, whose cruelty is pathological. The dissident is passive, day-dreaming about the blond-haired, blue-eyed All-American girl who was his sex partner (one cannot honestly say from the facts we're told of their relationship his girlfriend) while he attended Cornell on the sponsorship of a Beijing family whose ugly daughter he agreed to marry in exchange for his education, then repudiated once he began having sex with the blond.
Cheng is more effective at communicating the squalor of Beijing and its inhabitants, and the resilience and courage of the Chinese peasants. His description of China brings you there --- you feel the chaos of the city, smell the odors of the slums, appreciate the simple life of the peasants in the countryside.
Cheng states that this is not a political book. Yet, by setting his story against the events of Tiananmen Square, he has in essence written a political book, though without a clear purpose. This lack of purpose is what prevents this book from being a meaningful work, and renders it just another story.
—Alanh2062@aol.com
SONS OF HEAVEN by Terrence Cheng
Great acts of history too often fail to move us because of their greatness --- their size, the sheer terror of images of tanks, for example --- lose the human proportion of the story. By taking a deceptively simple first-person approach to one of the major events of recent times --- the 1989 uprising in Tiananman Square, novelist Cheng has humanized it.
The China he describes is such a strange blend of traditional and new --- arranged marriages coexisting with contemporary educations, respect and innovation. With language that borders on simple, he allows individuals on different sides of the story --- two --- the dissident student and the soldier --- are brothers and make the most convincing characters. The third, Deng Xiaping (designated "the comrade") comes across as slightly more stilted, but still surprisingly real. As each talks about his history, the ways a mother spoke or what was taught in school, their actions grow to seem inevitable and the conflict unavoidable. By breaking down his bigger story to its human components, Cheng gets down to the basics: What do we want from life? What have we been taught to look for --- and to avoid? Why do we do what we do? When politics raises its head, it makes sense --- sad but true.
I've not finished this yet --- I'm really savoring it. But Cheng's simple, poetic language is building images in my head that will not likely fade soon. A lovely book.
—cleas@earthlink.net
Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.
© Copyright 2002, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.
Back to top.
|
