Customer Reviews

A Cup of Light

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

 

 

Nicole Mones takes us back to China with her second book. If you are expecting a book similar to her first (Lost In Translation) then begin Cup of Light again. Mones shows her tremendous versatility as a creative writer of mystery and romance. Yet, as in her first book, the author displays her trademark ability to take the reader right inside her characters.
It is obvious from page one that Mones spent a great deal of time researching the Chinese porcelain world. Her writing style subtlety educates the reader as it draws you deeper into a multi-faceted mystery. Lia's recollections (from memory) of historical facts were fabulous. I found myself reading and re-reading them. She maintains the mystery surrounding the porcelain to the end of the novel, providing the readers with twists and turns to keep us guessing.
Are you tired of the man dumps woman, woman hits rock bottom, woman struggles and despite odds becomes rich and famous, man returns groveling only to be dumped by woman novel? Then get this book. Mones is a refreshing author who obviously understands that there are readers who want to think and be entertained at the same time. When is her next novel due? I await it anxiously! In the interim, Cup of Light gets my highest recommendation.

I read Nicole Mones' first book, Lost in Translation, and knew that I had happened upon a talented and brilliant writer. She creates interesting and compelling characters and, like the previous reviewer said, puts you into their mind as you read, and immerses you into a new world and culture.

Having never known anything about porcelain, this book taught me so much without being preachy at all. Mones has a way of weaving fact into fiction so that it reads in an interesting way and becomes a part of the story. And that goes the same for the culture both of China and of the intricate world of porcelain. Who would have known that some of those pieces date back hundreds of thousands of years and are worth billions?

And weaved within all of the interesting backgrounds of history, art and culture, there are multi-dimensional characters who you will not want to see go, as well as stories of romance, of art theft and of a world so different from the one's we live from day to day.

The story primarily revolves around a woman named Lia who is a porcelain appraiser sent to look at hundreds of pieces of porcelain in China. While there, she teaches us all about the history of many of these pieces, as well as so much more. She also teaches about an "underground" world of people who smuggle such works out of China, and she begins a budding romance with a doctor who left the US and an unsettled past.

The intricacies of this book are as unique as the pieces of art Lia describes. You will not be disappointed, except to see it end. And you will be left with a story you won't soon forget, as well as insight into a world you might have otherwise overlooked.
I hope to see more work by this author soon!

Nicole Mones' knowledge of China and of ancient porcelain is awe-inspiring. She has done her homework! Lia is an incredibly beautiful character. Since one of the editorial reviewers alluded to it, I'll note that she is deaf. This is not a handicap to her. In fact, it is responsible for that mental device of storing information in her head which he reviewer disliked. And she turned down the idea of cochlear inplants, which might have given her near-normal hearing. She likes her hearing aids, for lots of reasons. For one thing, she can take them out, and the silence in her head helps her move into that memory storage system which is so important in sorting out every piece of Chinese porcelain ever published. For another, she can turn them partway down and walk through the loud Chinese markets or sit in a loud Chinese bar and not be blown away by the sound! This is a good lesson, lightly applied, in what "handicapped" really means.

The plot moves back and forth, focusing on Lia, but showing us also people she never meets, the go-betweens, the ultimate buyers in the US, who want the art just because they can afford it (knowing they can never display it), the Chinese officials who don't want it to leave China but need even the little kick-back money that will come to the government. I learned a lot about the history of porcelain, but also about what happened to it during Chinese history, especially before, during and after WW II.

And Lia has to learn to tell forgeries from the real thing--even forgeries so beautiful they make her heart break. The descriptions are so beautiful they will make your heart break too. The writing is sensual, whether of the pots, leaves in the park, food, the man who might make a difference in Lia's life. It will be hard to wait for Nicole Mones' third novel.

Mones' description of the Hong Kong antiques trade is engaging, her knowledge of the beauty of Chinese porcelain convincing, and - despite my initial scepticism - the romance is handled surprisingly well given its predictibility. So far, so good.

But her characterisations aren't just mechanical, they're downright clunky. It sometimes seems as if Mones decided that both the female (Lia) and male (Michael) leads had to have 'difficult' pasts, and randomly selected their two character quirks each by throwing darts at a list. She's the deaf porcelain expert from a broken home! He's the Rai-loving doctor whose wife left him after nursing him through life-threatening cancer! She's the author trying a bit too hard to make her characters interesting! Really, really interesting! Oh, so VERY INTERESTING!

Sorry, but that just didn't work for me.

There's also a terribly under-written sub-plot involving an official from a Beijing museum that's dropped early on, and then suddenly re-introduced with no further development just as the main character's leaving mainland China. This just comes across as sloppy writing.

Finally, while I've done my best to judge the book on its own merits in this review, it's worth noting that as an archaeologist with a doctorate in ceramics studies, I have a serious problem with the way the book's plot involves the illegal smuggling of vast quantities of China's cultural heritage with no apparent consequences to any of the main characters. It would be unfair of me to accuse Mones of glamorising illegal smuggling, and it can be argued that she's simply trying to portray the realities of the current situation. But that doesn't mean I have to like it, and this aspect of the book simply didn't appeal for what I hope are obvious reasons.

I thought Mones' first book, Lost in Translation, was very well written. The plot and the characters were interesting and well developed. A Cup of Light just doesn't have the same qualities.
Lia is sent to China to appraise porcelain pots and decides to investigate where the pots came from. Are the pots true treasures? It is obvious that Mones knows her subject matter and the premise is certainly interesting, but the character development is not there. The storyline seems rushed. Mones took more time with the history of the pots than she did with Lia and her experiences. The subplots and minor characters took away from the story. I kept wondering why I was reading about some of the characters and wished Mones had spent more time with the main characters.
This was an interesting but disappointing read.

It wasn't until after I finished this book that I realized Nicole Mones is also the author of Lost In Translation. (Yeah, I know it says so right on the cover, but I was too busy absorbing what was in the book to be distracted by and the extraneous words on the cover.) It somehow doesn't surprise me, as both tales have a deceptive depth to them. On the surface of A Cup of Light, you have the basic story of Lia's appraisal of a collection of Chinese porcelain, and what that will reveal about the collection's worth and subsequent sale. You have the interactions of seller and buyer and all the intermediaries in between. But interwoven are several other tales-- the back history and mystery that Lia searches to uncover to put the collection in perspective, the story of Michael, and of Michael and Lia, the quest for the artist of the ruffled feather, and the desires of the potential buyer. In this story, the history is a character, and the fascinating story of the Emperor's porcelain leads the way. I also was fascinated by Lia's memory devices and by the way she would alter her world and perceptions by removing her hearing aids. As someone who has lived with a deaf woman all my life, and seen the struggles with uncooperative devices and the blessed relief that sometimes deep silence can bring, it added another dimension.

I really enjoyed reading this book, not just the unraveling of the story but the reading of the scenes and the development of the characters and what mattered to each of them. Mones' writing style conveyed the amazing beauty of porcelain and of the touching romance that develops. Mones' latest book, The Last Chinese Chef, was recommended to me but not available in the library, so I borrowed this one instead. It was such a beautiful read. Now I can't wait to read The Last Chinese Chef!

Lia Frank, an appraiser of fine Chinese porcelain, is sent to Beijing to catalogue and evaluate a rare collection of twenty pieces. When she arrives, she finds that the collection is of some eight hundred pieces many of which seem to originate from the imperial porcelain collection.

In trying to assess whether the pieces are real or fake, and which pieces fall into each category, Lia embarks on a journey of personal and professional discovery. There are a number of different strands to this story and not all are equally well developed. However, the relationships mattered less to me than the glimpses into the past and the memory skills Lia used to assist in the authentication of pieces. The description of some of the pieces of porcelain was so beautiful that I could visualise some of the porcelain for myself.

One of the themes which works very well is trying to differentiate what is original and what is not. Flaws themselves constitute beauty. And, if a copy is as beautiful as the piece it imitates then should the copier also be admired? I wanted, at times, to stay in Lia's world looking at beautiful objects. But, alas, the world intervenes and the journey finishes. The juxtaposition between the world of fine art and the reality of commerce is jarring, but serves as a reminder that art is a commodity with a price, and that ownership is about power.

This is the first of Ms Mones's books I have read, and I will be looking to redress this.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

After enjoying the Last Chinese Chef I sought out Nicole Mones's other titles. This book is both educational about Chinese pottery or "pots" and another example of the implicit competency of professional women at work. After reading you will appreciate Chinese pottery, but become very cautious about paying high prices without consulting experts.

After sitting on my nightstand for several years, I finally pulled this one out, dusted it off & read. I didn't read Mones' first book. I suppose the film "Lost in Translation" caused me to pick this out of the discount bin of a local bookseller. I enjoyed moving into the world of fine porcelain, something about which I have relatively little knowledge. Mones does a good job of making this solitary activity come alive through her main character Lia Frank.

The problem with the book is that there really isn't much of a story. Lia's memory boxes where she stores and memorizes information seemed like a technique that I wish I could utilize. The detective work on where the Wu collection of pots originated unfolded like a mystery, making the pots almost seem like living characters. Lia's disability seemed to be turned to an ability to focus as she would often take out her hearing aids and bathe her mind in silence. I found it hard to keep characters straight. Many never actually made it into the story -- Dr. Zheng, the employer she phones, Phillip, the colleague who never makes it to China, her father who isn't dead. Then there is an international incident that is thrown in of a downed jet, which seems contrived. In the end, the conflict of the story seemed to be between Lia and herself, having the confidence to grade the pots without assistance and to fall in love. The Chinese buyers, Gao, Pao, Bai & Stanley plus the potters such as Yu were harder for me to place in the story as to which part of the deal they occupied. They never became distinct people to me. Perhaps if she'd had personal interaction with them or if they'd been described with unique characteristics or more different ages, it might have helped. Her romantic interest Mike researches kids with led poisoning. He breaks down and cries when one of the kids dies, but yet spends most of his time saying how they didn't affect him. The fact that he was rebounding off a devastating divorce after a battle with cancer made him more depressing than emotionally deep or romantic. Lia's world and Mike's world never seemed to interface, which maybe was the barrier to their relationship. However, it served to make a splintered story increasingly disjointed. The love relationship seemed abrupt. The shower scene with Lia's manual manipulation was strangely written. While this specialist's world of fine porcelain came alive, there wasn't much of a coherent story that seemed to build in "A Cup of Light." It was more like patchwork story snippets woven in to a quilt-like concoction we'll call a novel. I'm glad to have read the book; but in five years it will be hard for me to tell you what it was about. Taxi!