Rating: 
Summary: An attempt at understanding the "white boned demon"
Review: Anchee Min, the author, grew up in China and was part of a labor collective. She also worked as an actress in Madame Mao's Film Studio. I loved her novel "Katherine" as it introduced me to the reality of living in Communist China. I was therefore very anxious to read "Becoming Madame Mao", in which she attempts to shed some light on the life Jiang Chang, the wife of Mao Tse-Tung, often referred to as the "white boned demon" and known for her vindictive cruelty.The voice of Madame Mao come through clearly in the alternating sections written in the first person. It is here that the reader gains some psychological insight into the forces that have shaped her life. These sections are always followed by a dispassionate third person narrative. I found this technique effective in telling this story. The tale begins when the young girl rebels against having her feet bound, and follows the headstrong young women through an acting career and three unhappy marriages before she meets the dynamic Mao and joins her life with his. She craves his love, but is treated badly throughout her life. There is always intrigue and betrayal. Favor or disfavor is subject to whim. The world she lives in is cruel and she lives in constant fear of her enemies. I had hoped to learn more about Chinese history. But the focus is always on the person and much was not explained. I also found it difficult to follow the many different Chinese names and kept getting the people confused, especially since, with the exception of Madame Mao, most of them were not developed in depth. I was also aware that is was a historical novel about real life people and kept wondering about where the line was drawn between fact and fiction. Mao Tse-tung saw everyone as an enemy, imprisoned anyone who seemed to threaten him. Madame Mao did the same. And whether or not she was able to ever achieve true love seems besides the point. This book would probably be most interesting to those who already have a background in Chinese history. I can therefore not give this book any more than a very weak recommendation. It was a good try on the part of the author. But it just didn't work for me.
Rating: 
Summary: Becoming more real
Review: As a student of chinese language and history, I had read accounts of Jiang Ching's role in the gang of four. I also read how, at one time or another, the official historians in China basically blamed her for all things bad that Mao had done. This wonderfully scripted works makes Jiang Ching a real person. It removes her from the history books and newspaper clippings and, in a poetic style, tells a human story. While we know Madame Mao was cunning and mean, this book gives a more reasonable background for the snapshot I had seen before in history class here in the US and in China. As for the literary critique in other reviews, remember how Faulkner's Sound and the Fury was punctuated and then reviewed!
Rating: 
Summary: Poetic introduction into terror...
Review: For someone looking for an introduction into modern Chinese history, this text is truly a poetic introduction into a history of terror. As one not well versed on contemporary Chinese history, this viewpoint sparked a curiousity in me to investigate the backdrop of this woman's life. Anchee Min sets out to capture the psychological structure of a woman who truly evolves into Madame Mao. From a cursory read, Min captures a passionate and driven woman, human and fragile. Having an avid interest in history, I would have liked a bit more of a factual basis, especially towards the end of the text. The book does leave some skepticism relating to historical accuracy; however, my own personal desire to know more does not take away from the story in any way. Becoming Madame Mao is wonderful and rich novel from start to finish!
Rating: 
Summary: If your summer reading list is short - leave this one out!
Review: I agree with one of the other reviewers - the shifting perspectives are very annoying. I would add to the list of annoyances, lack of punctuation. These qualities coupled with a general lack of a flow make the story difficult if not impossible to follow. If the reader has any general knowledge of Madame Mao, the book hardly sheds any new light on this significant personality in recent Chinese history. The reader does not gain a better understanding of what made her tick or why she was so evil. The character Ms. Min portrayed is an extremely evil one, all evil and with little redeeming quality. However, near-one-dimensionally evil characters do not make very interesting subjects of novels. The historical personality-based novel is a great tool for the author to share her view on the motivations and psychology of historical characters. Till this day, Jiang Qing lives in rumors and innuendoes yet little factual is known of her. One can only depend on fiction to explain the connections among the events in the life of the "White-Boned Demon". Ms. Min's novel, however, reads more like a poorly written newspaper account of a life rather than a deep psychological exploration. She could have done better with a really very interesting subject matter. If your summer reading list is short, leave this title out!
Rating:
Summary: Tedious story, unskilled writing
Review: I appreciate Ms. Min's desire to flesh out the story of an important woman in world history, as women's stories still aren't being told often enough. Unfortunately, I found this novel to be quite tedious and not particularly enjoyable to read. One of my main criticisms is Ms. Min's unskilled attempt to go back and forth between first person and third person point of view. I get the feeling that this approach to writing is being used more and more frequently, and perhaps authors are no longer feeling the need to do it in a skillful manner. They may feel readers will accept a poor attempt to write in this style because we are so used to seeing it. Ms. Min's style was insulting to me. Readers deserve better. I believe readers deserve more skilled writing, and if that was Ms. Min's best, I feel she should have used a different style. I also felt the book could have used a different editor. Reading conversation between the charcters without proper punctuation was tiring. Ditto regarding the lack of commas. Other than the writing style and editing, much of Ms. Min's use of poetic writing was successful, in my opinion. I think the main reason I didn't enjoy this book was because the main character, Madame Mao, was a nasty, morally worthless person. She appeared to have no political idealogy or any vision regarding what might be best for China. Her desire to control China was just that: a desire for power. She appeared to have been a woman unsatisfied (rightly so) with the sexist constraints placed upon her by Chinese society. Unfortunately, she never appeared to do anything positive to change her circumstances or to make life better for other women. Madame Mao was manipulative, jealous, deceitful, and full of vengeance and hatred. I grew tired of reading about her, and tired of reading the same things over and over again...
Rating:
Summary: Not as BAD as some of the reviews. Choppy? Yes.Boring? No
Review: I just finished the book. I travel frequently to the new "free enterprise" China. I have studied and practice Mandarin (putonghua, the "common" Chinese language. I have read many stuffy (ok boring) history books about the bloody, strange Mao years in China...years with seemingly little logic to the West. Anchee Min's book cannot be 100% factual. She doesn't claim it is. But it puts out a fascinating viewpoint, and if nothing else tells us westerners to seek out the facts.
Her writing style - well at least it's "refreshing"...and it seems that some reviewers miss the point....I'm sure some of the conversations were bizarre between Jiang and Mao... I liked the book, and it does seem the reviews are love OR hate....however, to say that Min painted Jiang as perfect is just wrong. She came across as power crazed, never able to get enough. We can't blame Madame Mao any less than Mao himself for the atrocities in China. It was a bad system with flawed people....Anchee Min just gives a viewpoint. Are we suggesting she shouldn't be allowed this to express this in book form?
Rating:
Summary: Amazing Book!
Review: I really enjoied this book. It taught me alot about china and the CR. It was very interesting and insightful by seeing the way a woman ran a communist country. It had many suspensful moments, which i love, and i was reading non stop. A great read anytime...
Rating:
Summary: Don't misunderstand this book
Review: I think that some of the Amazon reviewers have missed the point of this book. Though of course I cannot speak for the author, my take on this book is that it is not a history lesson. One reviewer stated that s/he had trouble keeping track of the Chinese names, but that kind of criticism seems ridiculous to me. I really liked this book. Though I thought the beginning was a bit slow, once Mao came into the story I could not put the book down. It is a fascinating take on the personalities of two infamous people. Sure, one can write stacks of books condemning the excesses and horrors of the Cultural Revolution (and stacks of such books have already been written), but how many books are going to give you some psychological/contextual insight into why the Maos may have behaved in the ways they did? This is a multi-dimensional book. The characters are not painted as either angels or devils -- they are 100 percent human. This is an interesting story from historical and political points of view, but it is also the story of a woman who was driven insane by her love for a megalomaniac.
Rating: 
Summary: Hilariously Contrived
Review: I was lured into reading this book by the publicity for it that appeared in Entertainment Weekly and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. What a mistake. I expected a sophisticated and deftly composed drama exploring another historical hysterical harpy. I expected art. What I found was artifice. The narrative is hilariously contrived and the China of the tale is packed with one and two dimensional characters. I suspected, as I labored my way through the inept and silly dialogue that perhaps there was a subtext to the form of the narrative -- it might be dumb and clumsy out of intent. But I don't think so now. I have long loathed Jiang Qing(who doesn't) and thought all of her words and work nothing more than bloated banalities. She started her career as a cheap, second-rate actress and went downhill from there. Henry Kissinger once described her operas this way: "The good guys wore red, the bad guys wore black and the girl fell in love with the tractor." That terse statement probably better sums up JQ than this belabored confusion of a book.
Rating:
Summary: Tedious but entertaining
Review: I wouldn't go so far as to call anyone's work 'stupid' but I do agree that this piece of work was a tedious read. Hang in there...
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