A Case of Two Cities, Xiaolong Qiu

[sub_divided]

I picked up this book from Borders because Tin mentioned that she'd read the series. But she didn't say anything about liking it, come to think of it. ^^ R teased that I am disappointed in her taste, which might be right, though I knew beforehand that as long as you hit Tin-sama's "weak points" - detective stories, communism, dead languages, books about books - you can write anything. This one is a detective story set in Communist China, with a T'ang poetry quoting detective and a subplot about squabbling intellectuals, so meets three out of four requirements.

The best thing about the book are the frequent descriptions of delicious Chinese food. Among the worst things are the thin characterization, weak writing, and poor treatment of women.

Characterization falters whenever the viewpoint shifts from Chen: especially when it shifts to Yu, his lieutenant, who gets an entire scene just so he can discuss how obligated he is to Chen (and restate some plot points from the previous chapter).

Meanwhile, the poor treatment of women, though not super obvious, is shown through the author's choice to make every unclaimed female character either a love interest, or a potential love interest, for Chen... or else the subject of a sexual scandal because, of course, any successful buttoned-down anchorwoman who is also running a successful private company, trading on the connections she's built up as an anchorwoman, is a candidate for blackmail once you discover compromising pictures of her with a senior Party member. You don't even have to feel guilty when she is murdered soon after your meeting, because she has made a "mistake" and deserves what happens to her. Of course, you don't judge her for her personal choices, but she was in over her head. *rolls eyes* (An Jiyang accuses Chen of focusing his attentions on her because she is a woman, while the high-ranking Party officials more central to his investigation are too difficult to pressure. She's right.)

The worst thing about this plot point is that Chen and An Jiyang are supposed to be old friends, and after approaching her in a friendly way, he finishes several courses of the delicious and expensive meal she treats him to (mmmmm) before bringing up the case. And then he goes straight into blackmail! That surely could have been handled better.

This was also disappointing because I'd been hoping that this book would have more insight into, for instance, the strange puritanism of revolutionary cultures (another character was once thrown in jail for "seducing women" i.e. being a popular young poet-stud who had lots of consensual sex in college). But no, the sexual prurience - and simultaneous extravagance, in these heady capitalist days - of the Communist Party is not really examined. It's just something the characters comment on a lot.

Bah. I don't really want to turn every book review into a feminist critique, I'd rather talk about other things, but the signs are present and bothersome. Maybe I will follow R's example and only read YA novels from now on.

What else can I say about this book. The only real insight I have gleaned from it, so far, is that in the 1990s in Shanghai a cultural shift was taking place, as more and more well-connected public officials took "second" jobs in the private sector to supplement their state-mandated incomes. And that while this happened, those people who had grown up in more Communist times screamed "corruption!" both in response to the actual conflict of interest, and in response to the betrayal of the equal society they'd been promised. Chen reflects that with so much money floating around, it's understandable that a police chief making as much as a janitor would want to find some way to cash in... but that's as far as he goes. At least Gorky Park had those pretend-intellectual exchanges between Cadres.

UPDATE:

Had lunch at a Chinese place, after being driven to distraction by descriptions of Chinese food. Lunch was cheap ($5 for huge portions!) but sadly, not very tasty. :( The roast duck was okay - a little salty. At the next table over, two women were eating delicious-looking steamed pork buns. I knew I should have ordered those instead of the dumplings.