In The Crippled Tree Han Suyin evokes, through the life of her two families (eastern and western), a panorama of the history of China from 1885 to 1928. It contains eye-witness accounts, from family papers, of the Sino-French War, of the revolution of 1911 and of the emergence of Chiang Kai-shek. This book is more compelling than history and more profound than biography: it describes how events mould the lives of individuals, and how their private emotions are twisted by the gigantic conflicts of a changing world. The theme of the book is the story of the Chinese family of Han Suyin, a family deeply feudal, rooted in a far inland province of China adjacent to Tibet; yet, because of the western invasion of China, brought face to face with compelling change. Han Suyin's father, marked for a life of classical scholasticism, became instead an engineer, sent by his government to study railway construction in Belgium. There he fell in love with the daughter of a respectable Belgian family, and both defied all the conventions of their societies to marry. Returning to a China in revolution in 1913, they endured and suffered, helpless in the face of tragedy beyond their grasp. Eight children were born to them, while Han Suyin's father worked on the railways of China, and her mother endured the hardships and isolation of an outcast, ostracized by her own people. Nearly fifty years later one of their children, Han Suyin, was to spend years of painstaking research, both in China and in Europe, reconstructing the life and times of her parents and grandparents. This is one of the most important books about China yet written; while other volumes will continue the story, The Crippled Tree is complete in itself, with its own satisfying ending. It is a unique contribution to our knowledge and understanding of the One World in which we all live, east or west.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This one could be one of my favourites!,
By "laraana" (Slovenia, Europe) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Crippled Tree (China : Autobiography, History, Book 1) (Paperback)
Very good reading for those who love history which is told in a simple way, thrue a live story of an Europen - China couple and their children at the beginning of the 20th century ; and for those, who are always seeking the real truth and are never satisfied with just one point of view.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you liked "Wild Swans" you will like this too,
By "thirteenthfairy" (, N.S.W. Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Crippled Tree (China : Autobiography, History, Book 1) (Paperback)
All the masses of people who loved "Wild Swans" will love this one too. It gives a slightly different perspective on the same situation. Gives less recent history, but more information on colonial exploitation in pre-communist times than Wild Swans does. This author has written a few other books too.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
History that reads like a great novel,
By
This review is from: The Crippled Tree (China : Autobiography, History, Book 1) (Paperback)
As the first volume in Han Suyin's history/autobiography of China, this covers an approximately 50 year period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. With all of the great themes of the human struggle intertwined through her life, that of her family and that of her country of birth (China), one can imagine the impact this book has on the reader. Here is history actually sifted through the lives and emotions of one who was there and either personally witnessed or interviewed others who were. Han Suyin especially calls on the reminiscences of Third Uncle, a meticulous researcher in the mold of 25 generations of his own family.
Truly fascinating stuff--love, cruelty, corruption, colonialism, poverty set against great wealth, the huge land mass of China literally fighting its inhabitants, the Western dream of China as Ur-Orient and as a bottomless mine of natural riches to plunder. Han Suyin has all of this under control and delivers it with beautiful prose and intelligent commentary. She breaks the reader's heart over and over, but the reader cannot shut the book and escape because it is all so engrossing. I plan to read the next volumes in the series, and I have great expectations for them as well.
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