Inheritance: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A powerful story, told well.
Review: A compelling story of three generations of Chinese women during a tumultous time in China's history. I could not put it down.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent novel
Review: I really enjoyed Inheritance; the story line held my interest, as did the complex characterizations. As an added bonus, I found that, while reading the book, I was also learned more about twentieth-century Chinese history and culture than I had known.

Rating:
Summary: A Lyrical and Deeply Felt First Novel
Review: Several years ago, Lan Samantha Chang's magical and marvelous novella and short story collection HUNGER explored the sense of alienation, loss, and generational disjuncture of the immigrant experience in America. With INHERITANCE, she joins the ranks of Amy Tan, Anchee Min, Hong Ying, and Ha Jin as fictional chroniclers of Chinese history and the bridges Chinese people have constructed between their home country and America.

Lan Samantha Chang has crafted in INHERITANCE a sweeping novel whose characters lives' shadow the arc of 20th Century China, from the earliest days of the Republic to the modern era. Passing through the Japanese invasion, the Communist Liberation, the Cultural Revolution, the Taiwanese diaspora, and the opening to the West, the book moves from tranquil Hangzhou to war-torn Chongqing, from the temporary home of Kuomintang hopefuls in Taiwan to the permanent concession of the KMT's loss represented by the United States.

Ms. Chang's first full-length novel follows the fortunes of the Wang family through three generations and beyond, from old Chanyi to her daughters Junan and Yinan and then to their daughters Hong and Hwa and one son, Yao. While Hong provides the narrative voice (and the source of the existential question framed by the novel's title), her mother Junan is the novel's focal point, the eye of a family storm generated by her own choices as well as historical events beyond her control. The triangular relationship between Junan, her husband Li Ang, and her sister Yinan spawns unintended consequences that profoundly affect each other's lives and those around them.

Just as modern China is both the victim and inheritor of its own past, Ms. Chang's characters are the product of their respective pasts, inheriting character traits and the after-effects of embittered relationships from those who came before them. The author raises the question of who we are as individuals, and how much of our lives are directed by our inheritance from the lives and events of our parents and grandparents.

On one level, INHERITANCE can be read as a multi-generational family saga dominated by the force of will of one member. From this viewpoint, it is a story of parental and conjugal relationships, about broken trust and willingness to forgive.

Yet on another level, the book mirrors the story of China itself, with the major characters representing the different Chinas of the 20th Century. With her partially bound feet and superstitions, old Chanyi represents the last of imperial China. Junan, her oldest daughter, is the Republic, rigidly bound to tradition but striving for independence. Bookish Yinan represents the philosophical foundation of Communist China, the carefree militarist Li Ang represents Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomingtang, and Li Ang's brother Li Bing represents the spirit of revolution, the Communist Party in action. Daughter Hong, whose name translates conveniently as Red and who is the inheritor of this historical chaos, ultimately represents the internationalized China, integrated into the Western world in a way she could never have foreseen in her childhood.

Not surprisingly, these characters find it next to impossible to reconcile themselves to one another. Only the open and modernized Hong is truly able to accept and love her entire family, overlooking the shortcomings in each and aware of her own failings as well.

Ms. Chang creates a Russian novel's worth of intriguing minor characters who complement the major players admirably. Characters like Li Bing, Hu Mudan, Hu Ran, Wang Daming, Pu Taitai, Chen Da-Huan, and Hsiao Meiyu capture our interest in their own right, adding colorful flavor and contrast to the main characters. Her female characters are rich and fully developed, while her male characters feel moderately less so. Only the missionary Katherine Rodale and Hong's American husband, Tom, seem to fall flat, but perhaps this is Chang's commentary on the blandness of white American family life.

INHERITANCE offers an engaging story of a decidedly matriarchal family finding its way along the currents of history. Along the way, readers will absorb elements of Chinese life and culture, and a smattering of Mandarin vocabulary as well. This is a richly satisfying first novel that leaves me anxiously anticipating Ms. Chang's future works.


Rating:
Summary: Magnificent Family Dynasty& Survival Epic:1911 - 1993
Review: The story begins in 1911 as two young girls accompany their mother to a 'fortune teller' who happens to be a nun at a Buddhist temple. Changyi who is only 34 years old, knows she needs to have a boy to keep her husband from getting another wife. She wants to know her future, the nun is truthful. She says, some women have only girls, and some women learn to share their men. The fortunes of the two daughters is also revealed. Due to not satisfying her husband, Chanyi feels without hope. Later, we learn she drowned herself in the lake near the temple due to shame and grief. The two daughters, Junan and Yinan, although of different temperaments and physical appearance grow very close, as their father takes on a new 'mistress' which turns out not to be a person. but a vice, gambling, their father is a cotton merchant and fairly wealthy, he gets into debt. Several generations live in the family home, including his mother, who is used to servants and prestige due to a position of honor. While the girls' mother was alive, through fate, they obtained a very loyal servant, Hu Mudan. She made herself indispensible both to Changyi's mother-in-law and to Changyi, as a nanny to her daughters. After Changyi's death, Hu Mudan becomes even more valuable, although she has a son, without benefit of marriage, that she raises. Much later, he plays a very important role in the lives on one of Junan's daughters.

As the times and politics change, Junan and Yinan approach the "marriageable age". Communism was challening Nationalist China for supremacy and power. Junan entered into an arranged marriage, which turned out to be a "love match" with a soldier (as predicted by the fortune-telling nun), Li Ang, who was a Nationalist. His brother, Li Bing, had other political ideologies learned at the University, which he abandoned to practice his beliefs. He later became a prominent Communist officer ... Junan sensed the turning tides of politics, as she sold off pieces of hand-carved furniture and other valuables, converting it into jewelry and gold, for the future. She became pregnant and had a daughter, Hong and later Hwa. It seemed the family curse to bear daughters was being repeated in her life. However, Junan had a strong personality with highly developed survival skills. She was worried that her husband might be tempted to get a mistress so she sent her sister Yinan to be his housekeeper. Whether by design or fate, Li Ang and Yinan had an affair, that resulted in a son.

The family was divided by time, politics, and complex emotional relationships ... as war between the Nationalists and Communists escalated. Li Ang was captured but his release was secured through brotherly loyalty by Li Bing. Junan took her two daughters Hong and Hwa to Taiwan and later they emigrated to America ... The complex family dynamics of love, lust, and politics divided the family both geographicaly and over time ... through distance. However, family loyalties and love brought the younger generation to seek "closure" and renewal of ties with the past, which were never really severed, just blocked out. Li Ang and Yinan remained in China throughout the Communist era ... Junan, Hwa and her husband Pu Li, along with Hong built new lives in the USA. But the past haunted each of them in unimaginable ways. Hu Mudan surfaced in New York as the 90+ year old woman, who lived through much of Chinese history which she revealed to TV reporters and newspaper interviews (*if* only it had been the truth ...) Hong visits her old Nanny in New York and reconnects with the past. She also discovers a path back to China and makes peace with the emotional ties that link to her past ... with her father, Aunt Yinan and step-brother Yao.

This is a highly charged emotional novel which will hold the attention of readers who love complex relationships with a historical back-drop. It is for those who love Chinese culture, history and social complexities and a happy ending. Most highly recommended novel. Erika Borsos (erikab93)

Rating:
Summary: Don't Miss This One
Review: This is a great book, which I discovered quite accidentally. It hasn't received much publicity, which is a shame, as I feel it has the potential to become a "commercial" success. This isn't a "Chick Lit" book, there is something in it for everyone - love, lust, betrayal, war, set in 20th Century China.
Maybe this will win an award and get the recognition it deserves.