My rating: 3 of 5 stars
“A man who does not like power will suffer from its cruelty.”
----Shan Sa
Anchee Min, a Chinese author, has penned an enlightening tale about the last empress of China in her book called, Empress Orchid that revolves around a young concubine of the last emperor of the forbidden city where the young lady is caught in the race against an heir to the king in order to rise above her mistress status, but once she becomes the empress, she gets tangled up in the war of jealously, rage, ugly politics, scandals against the kingdom which she wants to desperately save it from the English invaders but the problem is the kingdom doesn't want to be saved, thereby becoming the sole reason for the downfall of the forbidden city.
Synopsis:
The setting is China's Forbidden City in the last days of its imperial glory, a vast complex of palaces and gardens run by thousands of eunuchs and encircled by a wall in the center of Peking. In this highly ordered place -- tradition-bound, ruled by strict etiquette, rife with political and erotic tension -- the Emperor, "the Son of Heaven," performs two duties: he must rule the court and conceive an heir. To achieve the latter, tradition provides a stupendous hierarchy of hundreds of wives and concubines. It is as a minor concubine that the beautiful Tzu Hsi, known as Orchid as a girl, enters the Forbidden City at the age of seventeen. It is not a good time to enter the city. The Ch'ing Dynasty in 1852 has lost its vitality, and the court has become an insular, xenophobic place. A few short decades earlier, China lost the Opium Wars, and it has done little since to strengthen its defenses or improve diplomatic ties. Instead, the inner circle has turned further inward, naively confident that its troubles are past and the glory of China will keep the "barbarians" -- the outsiders -- at bay. Within the walls of the Forbidden City the consequences of a misstep are deadly. As one of hundreds of women vying for the attention of the Emperor, Orchid soon discovers that she must take matters into her own hands. After training herself in the art of pleasing a man, she bribes her way into the royal bedchamber and seduces the monarch. A grand love affair ensues; the Emperor is a troubled man, but their love is passionate and genuine. Orchid has the great good fortune to bear him a son. Elevated to the rank of Empress, she still must struggle to maintain her position and the right to raise her own child. With the death of the Emperor comes a palace coup that ultimately thrusts Orchid into power, although only as regent until her son's maturity. Now she must rule China as its walls tumble around her, and she alone seems capable of holding the country together. This is an epic story firmly in the mold of Anchee Min's Becoming Madame Mao. Like that best-selling historical novel, the heroine of Empress Orchid comes down to us with a diabolical reputation -- a woman who seized power through sexual seduction, murder, and endless intrigue. But reality tells a different story. Based on copious research, this is a vivid portrait of a flawed yet utterly compelling woman who survived in a male world, a woman whose main struggle was not to hold on to power but to her own humanity. Richly detailed and completely gripping, Empress Orchid is a novel of high drama and lyricism and the first volume of a trilogy about the life of one of the most important women in history.
Orchid, a young and whose beauty is compared to that of the orchid flower, finds herself caught up in the Imperial and royal court of the forbidden city, when a royal decree announces that the Emperor is looking for mistresses of pure blood, and since Orchid belonged from the Manchu community but with a mediocre background, she luckily gets chosen by the royal court and hereby commences her life in the palace, where mistresses plot against one another to win the trust of the Emperor by bearing him an heir. And Orchid must join this race against fertility to make the king happy and to help herself in the royal court filled with jealousy, rage, rivalry and enmity both by the insiders as well as the by the outsiders. Once again, luck plays in favor of Orchid, when she bears the Emperor a son, but sadly the Emperor's failing health takes a toll on him and takes him away too soon from his dear ones as well as from his Empire. So to save the Forbidden city as well as her 5-year old son, who is not of age to rule a kingdom, Empress Orchid takes over the throne, and like they have forever criticized that she became the reason of downfall of the Chinese kingdom in the hands of the European invaders and rulers, this book tells the truth behind her downfall.
I've always been a fan of Oriental historical fiction, since they are so much rich with beauty, so many elements and oriental flavor that is riveting to read about. Although Min's book about the last empress of China, which is a fictional story yet based on the real life account of the Empress, is really well layered with custom, culture and culture of the 19th century China, yet somewhere the central character, Empress Orchid, on whim this book is based on, is not at all well developed, rather, she lacks depth. As for me, I failed to connect with the Imperial queen who became the sole reason for the downfall of the Forbidden city.
The writing style of the author is really articulate and laced with enough emotions that will move the readers deeply. The prose is often lyrical and with a fairly fast pace, the story reads like some intriguing and mystifying fairy tale, only this fairy tale has no happy ending. The dialogues are enchanting and realistic enough to let the readers relate t the characters' voices and plights. There are lot of layers and multi elements that will keep the readers engaged till the very last page.
The backdrop of the Forbidden City is vividly painted with bright hues of colors, rich culture, superstitious customs, servants' whispers, oriental flowers and ponds, everything easily comes alive right before the eyes of the readers. The author's research is spot on, since the story delves deeper with accurate details about that era's feel.
Sadly the characters took a back seat in this story. The story might be very rich, but the characters are extremely dull unlike their bright background. The main character, Orchid, is a compelling protagonist, but both her back story as well as her journey fails drastically to give the readers a clear impression about her personality. Her journey is enduring, but she is the one who fails to connect the readers with her heart breaking journey. The rest of the supporting characters mar the charm of this story.
In a nutshell, the story is extremely absorbing to read about but sadly the characters steal away the limelight and make it look tremendously dull and boring.
Verdict: Could have been a great book!
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Author Info:
Anchee Min was born in Shanghai in 1957. At seventeen she was sent to a labor collective, where a talent scout for Madame Mao's Shanghai Film Studio recruited her to work as a movie actress. She moved to the United States in 1984. Her first memoir, Red Azalea, was an international bestseller, published in twenty countries. She has since published six novels, including Pearl of China and the forthcoming memoir The Cooked Seed (Bloomsbury, May 7 2013).
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