Customer Reviews

Brothers

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book was recommended to me by another long-term expatriate living in Asia. The story line follows the lives of two half brothers; one legitimate, the other not. Against the backdrop of drama and political finagaling of the cultural revolution we follow Shento and Tan as their lives, loves, fortunes and failures become ever more intertwined - culminating with the massacre at Tiananmen Square.

At times I felt like I was reading a feel-good romance novel where all the characters were the best and the brightest and always overcame the worst possible obstacles. However, what struck a chord with me most was how accurately Chen evoked the total helplessness many less-favored Chinese must have felt - and still feel in China today. His background portrayal of the politics, corruption and the use and abuse of power was most fascinating - and painful. Overall this is an interesting story. My friend and I will definitely sit down and find plenty to discuss - both the story line and the politics. Younger readers beware - in addition to casualties of war, this book contains rape, murder and disfigurement.

With his first novel BROTHERS, successful memoirist of the Cultural Revolution Da Chen not only fails to join the ranks of his Chinese literary brothers and sisters (Ha Jin, Ma Jian, Hong Ying, Su Tong, Dai Sijie, Gao Xingjian, Anchee Min, Yan Geling), he positively embarrasses both them and himself. Drawing upon every hackneyed and clichéd story line imaginable, Da Chen leans on wildly improbable plot devices and absurd coincidences to create a story that ostensibly mirrors the explosive awakening and growth of China since Mao's death and the end of the Cultural Revolution.

Two brothers are born of the same military commander father: Tan into the wealthy and powerful Long (translation - dragon) family in Beijing, and Shento out of wedlock to a young village woman who kills herself at the moment of her son's birth, improbably giving birth even as she jumps off a cliff. The half-brothers follow their separate, excessively extraordinary destinies, each rocketing upward through different sides of Chinese dynasty. Tan follows the path of the great Ming and Qing dynasty lions - scholarship, business, and cultivation (in this case, literary culture), while Shento (a curiously Japanese-sounding name) rises through the ranks of the military and government. Their paths are not entirely parallel, however, as they periodically and unknowingly intersect at two points, both having to do with women. In particular, they are both captured by love in the form of Sumi Wo, an orphan like Shento who, in addition to being portrayed as an equal to the famous historical Four Beauties of Chinese culture, soon reveals her own improbably amazing intellect and an even more unbelievable talent as a writer. Sumi Wo serves as the nexus of Tan's and Shento's fate, drawing them inevitably closer and closer to one another until they finally realize each other's interest in the same woman.

At this culmination of countless absurd plot manipulations and unlikely coincidences, the story devolves into a vengeful love triangle, even as both brothers' careers continue their meteoric rise. Without revealing the details, suffice to say that Shento's career path reaches patently ridiculous levels in a story line worthy of a teenaged fantasist. Not content to leave this silliness alone, Da Chen manages to insert his brotherly protagonists as principle players in the June, 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy movement and associated massacre. By the end of the book, Tan's elderly grandfather is reduced to sounding like an American high school kid while the two brothers have materialized enough multimillions to exist in astonishing physical comfort as they contemplate the mess they've left behind and the lives they've ruined. It's nothing more than comic book characters injected into a comic book version of post-Mao Chinese history.

The morals of this story are patently simple - the importance of family, the corrupting effects of absolute power, the power of love to blind, the virtues of democracy, sacrificing the self for a noble cause, and the redemptive power of returning to one's humble roots. Da Chen's writing is perfunctory at best and his character development and sense of place are superficial. He alludes to actual personages - Mao, Liu Shaoqi, and Ronald Reagan - but thinly disguises Deng Xiao Ping as Heng Tu. Additionally, he devises a peculiar mixture of Anglicized Chinese names, using modern pinyin for Beijing, Yangzhou, and Fujian but older style English transliteration for Qunming (Kunming) and the Ch'ing (Qing) Dynasty, and Liu Shao-ch'i (Liu Shaoqi).

This mix of Horatio Alger, Oliver Twist, Wuthering Heights, and The Prince and the Pauper might actually have worked in its own peculiarly escapist way. However, by inserting the story into the real context of Deng Xiao Ping (herein named Heng Tu) and the tragic internal discord of Tiananmen Square in 1986, BROTHERS becomes a farcical imposition on real events. There is nothing of sufficient note in Da Chen's writing ability, nor in his depiction of the awakening China, to compensate for the supreme inanity of this story line and set of main characters. In the final analysis, BROTHERS is little more than a fairy tale set in a fairy tale version of China. I give it a rating of 2 Stars more out of regard for the author's earlier memoirs (COLORS OF THE MOUNTAIN and SOUNDS OF THE RIVER) than out of the merits of this particular endeavor.

I can't remember the last time a novel disappointed me as thoroughly as "Brothers". I was almost willing to overlook the contrived characterizations and their lack of depth, but I couldn't get past the sloppy history. Mao actually had four wives, not three, and the notion that he was grooming a successor is ridiculous. Mao's only concern for China was staying in power, and he couldn't have been less concerned about what would happen after his death. To top it all off, Chen portrays Vietnam and China at war in 1972, when both were allies fending off the U.S. in Southeast Asia. China's falling out with Vietnam actually took place in 1979, as a result of Vietnamese attempts to expand into Cambodia. Serious errors like this made finishing "Brothers" impossible for me.

The concept is interesting; the execution is remarkably poor. Childish and overblown prose, combined with cliched dialogue, makes Brothers diffcult enough to read. When that's combined with a ridiculous story, with improbable coincidences and dangling plot threads, it's hard not to laugh outright as you're reading. I also found the theme of having the brother(Tan) who was raised in luxury also being the hero who could do no wrong a little annoying. So it's not possible for someone raised in poverty(Shento) to be a decent man? ALL of the characters were shallow caricatures, however, and I guess it's easier to make it extremely clear who's good and who's bad. Anyway, I did finish the whole mess, so Da Chen deserves that much credit. Pick it up at a library if you really must read a novel set in modern China.

This book was amazing and enthralling. I do not understand the criticisms depicting the book as "juvenile" and "sophmoric." First of all, the plot line is incredibly complex, reaching far beyond a child's book. I was completely absorbed into the story. I wanted to find a story which would capture me from my everyday life, and this did it. It is a work of fiction, and for my own interest in reading literature, I certainly do not hope it is predictable. Overall, this story is one showing how fate depicts our future, for the better or worse. I loved it. Truly, it is one of my favorite books, along with others that would NEVER be given the term "sophmoric."

I read this book because my book group selected it, but within the first few pages I found the writing stilted and the dialogue amateurish. However, I persevered and finished the book. The book was easy to put down and hard to pick up and had it not been for my book group I would not have read it.

The storyline is quite good and when analysing the story structure it's interesting and the pacing adequate. At times I felt I was reading a high schoolers attempt at fiction, which I would laud, but not published author. Da Chen is a memoirist and author of children's books, I think this is his first published fiction. I also felt the story ended a bit too tidy, everyone suddenly had enough. I didn't connect to the characters, and found the female character one dimensional. Everyone wanted her, she was beautiful, and to show her appreciation to the brothers who helped/saved her, she gave herself sexually to them. Please! I did like that the brothers did a one eighty from the beginning: who I liked turned into someone I didn't like, and who I didn't like turned into someone I did.

Had the writing been rich, an example is The Way The Crow Flies, the story would have been more compelling. It was also presented to the group as a book that occurs during the Cultural Revolution in China, which it is not. This is the China that is changing after Mao dies and up through and past Tianamen Square's student democracy demostration...we all know how that ends.

A preposterous story set in a specific historical period in China. If only the history were right! Unlike other historical novels--Shogun, those of Phillipa Gregory, The Temple Dancer, etc--having read this book, one is left with little feeling for the history, places or people of China. This book could have been set anywhere. Why the author chose to set it in post cultural revolution China and then get the facts all wrong is a mystery.

Other reviewers have pointed out the historical inaccuracies, as well as the puzzling transliterations, but I was most put out by the 21st century thoughts and words of the characters. It was though 16 year olds in isolated China at the end of the cultural revolution could see what China would be like, economically, politically and sociologically in the late 1990's and early 2000's. Da Chen has poor, maltreated and ill-educated teenage orphans in 1968 talking about stocks and bonds, entrepreneurs and the market economy. And, really, this is only one example of all the different ways he has his characters saying things that just would not have been in the psyche of any young person in China in the time in which this novel is set.

On the positive side, Da Chen can tell a story. Despite the major distractions in his writing content, the story is a page turner. It just seems that Da Chen had a story in mind he wanted to write, he decided to set it in China (like sex, China sells, I suppose) and he massaged the facts to fit his story.

If you had nothing at all to read and you were on a beach vacation, this might be a way to pass the time. But I'd rather read a mystery--better story and at least you are not expecting any kind of historical or sociological accuracy.

A major disappointment.

I admit to being a bit deficient in the category of Chinese-inspired literature; however, this book pulled me in from the very beginning and I loved each of the characters. The epic plot is what makes the story worth writing - it does not in the least make it sophomoric or juvenile. I had to weigh in - the bad reviews on this one are completely unwarranted. I'm taking it to my Book Club this week.

Great book chosen for our book club this month! Set amidst the Chinese Cultural Revolution, this story of two brothers born of the same father- one illegitimate, begins the story that culminates at the end with a family and country bitterly divided. Shocking, touching and thought-provoking, this was a very well written novel, even more so, one with a message to be learned.

I'm surprised that it got so many so-so and negative reviews! While I agree that some of what happened was far-fetched and maybe not all history was correct 100%, I thought this was one of the better novels I've read in the last year. Certainly one that I won't forget- and that to me, is a telling tidbit of how much I invested in & enjoyed this book. I'd definitely recommend it to a friend. Give it a chance!

This is a wonderful novel that kept me on edge the entire time. It's a well-written facinating story by an author who clealy understands how to tell a story.