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Inheritance

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Several years ago, Lan Samantha Chang's magical and marvelous novella and short story collection HUNGER explored the sense of alienation, loss, and generational disjuncture of the immigrant experience in America. With INHERITANCE, she joins the ranks of Amy Tan, Anchee Min, Hong Ying, and Ha Jin as fictional chroniclers of Chinese history and the bridges Chinese people have constructed between their home country and America.

Lan Samantha Chang has crafted in INHERITANCE a sweeping novel whose characters lives' shadow the arc of 20th Century China, from the earliest days of the Republic to the modern era. Passing through the Japanese invasion, the Communist Liberation, the Cultural Revolution, the Taiwanese diaspora, and the opening to the West, the book moves from tranquil Hangzhou to war-torn Chongqing, from the temporary home of Kuomintang hopefuls in Taiwan to the permanent concession of the KMT's loss represented by the United States.

Ms. Chang's first full-length novel follows the fortunes of the Wang family through three generations and beyond, from old Chanyi to her daughters Junan and Yinan and then to their daughters Hong and Hwa and one son, Yao. While Hong provides the narrative voice (and the source of the existential question framed by the novel's title), her mother Junan is the novel's focal point, the eye of a family storm generated by her own choices as well as historical events beyond her control. The triangular relationship between Junan, her husband Li Ang, and her sister Yinan spawns unintended consequences that profoundly affect each other's lives and those around them.

Just as modern China is both the victim and inheritor of its own past, Ms. Chang's characters are the product of their respective pasts, inheriting character traits and the after-effects of embittered relationships from those who came before them. The author raises the question of who we are as individuals, and how much of our lives are directed by our inheritance from the lives and events of our parents and grandparents.

On one level, INHERITANCE can be read as a multi-generational family saga dominated by the force of will of one member. From this viewpoint, it is a story of parental and conjugal relationships, about broken trust and willingness to forgive.

Yet on another level, the book mirrors the story of China itself, with the major characters representing the different Chinas of the 20th Century. With her partially bound feet and superstitions, old Chanyi represents the last of imperial China. Junan, her oldest daughter, is the Republic, rigidly bound to tradition but striving for independence. Bookish Yinan represents the philosophical foundation of Communist China, the carefree militarist Li Ang represents Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomingtang, and Li Ang's brother Li Bing represents the spirit of revolution, the Communist Party in action. Daughter Hong, whose name translates conveniently as Red and who is the inheritor of this historical chaos, ultimately represents the internationalized China, integrated into the Western world in a way she could never have foreseen in her childhood.

Not surprisingly, these characters find it next to impossible to reconcile themselves to one another. Only the open and modernized Hong is truly able to accept and love her entire family, overlooking the shortcomings in each and aware of her own failings as well.

Ms. Chang creates a Russian novel's worth of intriguing minor characters who complement the major players admirably. Characters like Li Bing, Hu Mudan, Hu Ran, Wang Daming, Pu Taitai, Chen Da-Huan, and Hsiao Meiyu capture our interest in their own right, adding colorful flavor and contrast to the main characters. Her female characters are rich and fully developed, while her male characters feel moderately less so. Only the missionary Katherine Rodale and Hong's American husband, Tom, seem to fall flat, but perhaps this is Chang's commentary on the blandness of white American family life.

INHERITANCE offers an engaging story of a decidedly matriarchal family finding its way along the currents of history. Along the way, readers will absorb elements of Chinese life and culture, and a smattering of Mandarin vocabulary as well. This is a richly satisfying first novel that leaves me anxiously anticipating Ms. Chang's future works.

The story begins when two young girls accompany their mother to a 'fortune teller' who also is a nun at a Buddhist temple. Changyi who is 34 years of age, knows she must give birth to a boy to keep her husband from acquirng another wife. The nun tells her truthfully, some women have only girls, and some women learn to share their men. She also reveals the fortunes of the two daughters. Changyi feels hopeless and we learn she later dies an early death due to her grief. The two daughters, Junan and Yinan, although different physically and temperamentally, grow very close after their father takes on a new 'mistress' an addiction to gambling. He is a wealthy cotton merchant who goes into debt because of this. Several generations live in the family home, including his mother, who has a position of honor and great prestige. When the girls' mother was alive, they had a very loyal servant, Hu Mudan who helped raise the girls into young adults. After their mother's death, she became even more indispensable and valuable in their lives. Much later in the story she plays a very important role in the life of one of Junan's daughters.

Communism was challenging Nationalist China for supremacy and power just when Juan and Yinan were approaching the marriagable age. Junan entered into an arranged marriage with a soldier Li Ang who was a Nationalist. It turned out to be a "love match" just as predicted by the fortune-telling nun. His brother, Li Bing, who studied at the University, was influenced by the new ideology of Communism and took the view of the opposition. As the political tides turned, Junan gradually sold off her valuables in hopes of escaping the conflicts and difficult future ahead in her war-torn country. She gave birth to her first child, a daughter, Hong, and later to another daughter she named Hwa It seemed the family curse to bear only daughters was reoccuring in her life. Having developed great survival skills Junan came up with a unique solution to the concern she had that her husband might take up with a mistress. Her solution would later haunt her in unexpected ways ...

As war broke out, politics, complex social and emotional relationships and loyalties tested this family to the max. They separated for their own survival. Junan emigrated with her two daughters to Taiwan and later to America. It is amazing how the author developed the themes of love, lust, and politics which divided this family and how despite geographical and emotional distance, she wove together their lives toward the end of the story. The author very neatly showed how the very problems which separated this family helped them unite and bond at the end. The author showed how the younger generation sought to renew the ties of the past which were severed by distance and time but not by feeling. Junan's sister, Yinan and her husband Li Ang remained in China throughout the Communist era. Junan's daughters Hong and Hwa built new lives in the USA. The past haunted them in unimaginable ways. Some astonishing circumstances related to their old servant, Hu Mudan, created the ability for them to make peace with their past relationships in China. This is a highly charged emotional novel which will hold the attention of readers who love complex social and family relationships that are resolved within a history and cultural context. Erika Borsos (bakonyvilla)

In traditional China, girls were valued less than boys. If a woman failed to give her husband a male heir, she lost face and possibly her man to a woman who could bear sons. Hong, the narrator of this familial saga struggles with her role as a female caught between two worlds and two cultures, resisting a history of devalued women until Communism turns centuries upside-down and changes the face of China.

The writing is exquisite, as finely wrought as the Chinese characters on a page of poetry, Chang perfectly attuned to the lives of these women, their fierce attachments and rigorous self-control in a country in the throes of tremendous upheaval. Each generation speaks its truth through female characters, Chanyi, Hong's grandmother, Junan, her mother and Yinan, her beloved, if eccentric aunt. Hong speaks of her grandmother, whose heart is broken because she cannot bear a son. Chunyi passes this legacy on to her daughters, the beautiful Junan and the quiet, introverted Yinan. The country is in such turmoil that Junan cannot have the marriage she imagined, but must adapt to a constantly changing landscape that she cannot control.

This is China lived from inside the Revolution, the only hope of starving people, desperate for survival and resentful of the leaders who live freely off their labor. Junan's husband, Li Ang, is a Nationalist soldier, his brother, Li Bing, a Communist, the two men's political beliefs clashing, but the brothers drawn together by stronger ties of blood. By 1940, the family has left their home in Hangzhou for Chongquin, one of a succession of moves to escape the violence, their world altered by the Occupation and the rigors of war: "The past three years the city had bloated like a tumor with the new people, their soldiers, their bureaucrats and their refugees".

Chang's characters inject life into history, peopling the pages with passion, despair, aspirations and the bonds of blood. Seen through the viewpoints of individuals, the past becomes a presence, the animation of humans caught in a tidal wave of political and societal change. The innocence of youth is soon corrupted by war, the scars of personal indiscretions and the desperate love between those who cannot find peace within themselves or with each other. But there are love stories scattered among the refuse of bombed cities and lost expectations, as the old ways disappear and the land is overtaken with a new sense of purpose. Affection reaches beyond political agendas, lovers grasping a few moments of peace among the chaos: "She held in her hands a piece of his desire. Without it he was crippled." Others love one another "with the cruelty of frightened people. I hurt him with information and he wounded me with secrecy."

A rich tapestry of faces, dreams and the urgencies of war, Inheritance is a quietly powerful novel reflecting a family in constant flux, their emotional ties scoring the heart of the woman who wistfully relates her family history: "We can never understand our children or our parents. Perhaps it is this ignorance that gives each young generation the confidence to live." Luan Gaines/2005.

This is a great book, which I discovered quite accidentally. It hasn't received much publicity, which is a shame, as I feel it has the potential to become a "commercial" success. This isn't a "Chick Lit" book, there is something in it for everyone - love, lust, betrayal, war, set in 20th Century China.
Maybe this will win an award and get the recognition it deserves.

Lan Samantha Chang makes quite an impact with this novel. It has the elements that I want when I am choosing a book to read. Her writing and use of language are delectable. Words and images flow and create a story about the inheritance that one Chinese family passes from grandmother to mother to daughter to grand-daughter. The relationships among the characters are undeniable and authentic. Their painful experiences are expressed in a direct and realistic way.

My criticisms are relatively minor. First, the middle of this generational saga gets the most focus and, therefore, is the most effective. Chang allows the immediacy of the story to fade as she hurries through the years after Hong, Hwa, and Junan come to the U.S. During this "fast forward," I lost my close attachment and feeling for the characters. Second, the horror of the historical events through which these people lived is softened, probably in order to keep the emphasis on the central characters. So, it loses some value as a piece of historical fiction.

Despite these negatives, I highly recommend this excellent book. In addition, if you want to read a more historically accurate account of women in China, "Wild Swans" by Jung Chang is an excellent memoir that reads like beautiful fiction. Furthermore, Pearl S. Buck writes beautifully about China in her fiction. "Peony" is my favorite.

With the cultural, political, and economic opening of China, a number of second generation Chinese authors have examined the tumultuous changes that took place in the last half-century, examining issues of family history, identity, and the sense of legacy implied by the title of Lan Samantha Chang's debut novel, Inheritance. A multi-generational tale spanning over fifty years and two continents, the book's greatest strength is in the completely natural way in which Chinese culture is depicted in these pages. Chang doesn't fall prey to the common trap of romanticizing or iconizing her heritage, but rather allows the cultural differences to manifest themselves in the thoughts, words, and actions of the characters.

The novel's narrator, Hong, recounts the history of the Wang family line through the women; she is the modern-day granddaughter of Chanyi and daughter to Junan. In a culture that values boys as heirs to the family lineage, the Wang women seem cursed to bear only daughters, and this proves to be a monumental misfortune. Beginning with her grandmother and her mother's youth, Hong is at first an unassuming narrator, slowly coming to life as she describes her mother Junan's relationship to her sister, Yinan (Hong's aunt), Junan's marriage to Li Ang, and finally her own youth in the growing turmoil of 20th century China.

The family's inner turmoils, centering on the troubled triangle of Junan, Yinan, and Li Ang, mirror the growing upheavel in the nation, and the cast of supporting characters represent the various factions in the growing conflict. Grandmother Chanyi grew up during the last years of Imperial China, and her bound feet and astrological superstitions hearken back to a more mythical past to the modern-day Hong. For Chanyi, her status as a son-less woman is also particularly devastating. Chanyi's daughters Junan and Yinan are born into Republican China amidst the conflict between the old ways and new independence. At first, the girls are inseparable, though this bond will be tested as they grow up into two very different women. While Junan is calculating, practical, and strong (all wood and fire), Yinan is dreamy, disheveled, and reluctant (water and air).

Junan's unbound feet represent a shift to a new era, and she wears a modern dress to her wedding, though the marriage is arranged. Junan's husband, Li Ang, is an upwardly mobile soldier in Chang Kai-Shek's Nationalist KMT party, and his brother Li Bing is increasingly active in the Communist opposition. At first these two parties are united to face the Japanese invasion and occupation, but victory against Japan is followed by civil war as the Communists and the Nationalists clash for control of China's destiny.

The majority of the narrative is set against this backdrop, focusing mostly on the tensions between Junan, Yinan, and Li Ang. Following the war, China's history of betrayal and exile is mirrored in the family's own conflict, and Hong grows up (and emerges as a more central narrator) in this period of chaos and war. Oddly, when the story becomes more of Hong's own it loses momentum and strength, and the shift to the family's flight to Taiwan represents not only a sundering in the story, but also in the narrative flow. Multi-generational tales are inherently difficult to navigate as a writer, and even harder to end without seeming arbitrary. Chang makes the transition more smoothly than most, but I was still left with the sense that the heart of the story was back on mainland China.

Chang's prose is lyrical and light, rich without being cloying, and tinged with the cadences and metaphors of her cultural home. Never once does she come across as pandering or instructional; the customs and philosophies of the Chinese are implicit rather than explicit. Those with an interest in modern Chinese history will find this book to be particularly satisfying, though such a background is by no means necessary to enjoying this novel. Hong's narration is best when she fades into the background, evoking her mother's driving need for security in an unstable world. The characters are compelling and dynamic, unique without being caricatures. All in all, Chang avoids many of the pitfalls that often plague a first novel, and her elegant prose carries this tale even as the ambitious storyline begins to falter towards the end. Chang is definitely an author to keep an eye on.

~Jacquelyn Gill

I'd never have picked up "Inheritance," except that it is our book discussion topic for this month . . . and I would have missed a memorable novel of love, betrayal and family. The Wang family's story covers seven decades and, once you get the names straightened out, you'll find yourself very interested in following all of its members as they live through the upheavals of China's recent history, from the Japanese invasion through the Cultural Revolution to the emigration to the US of Chinese opposed to communism.
I have only two minor quibbles: First, the novel jumps back and forth between an omniscient narrator who knows the actions and thoughts of most of the characters to Hong, Junan and Li Ang's oldest daughter. I just prefer consistency in a story's narration. Second, from the emigration to the US through the end of the story, it seemed to me that the story is less detailed, almost as if rushing to reach the deaths of the sisters, Yinan and Junan. I got a wonderful feel for their lives in China before and during WWII, but almost no feel for their lives--30 years and more--in the US after Hwa and Hong have moved overseas.
Take your time with this book and enjoy the rich wealth of Chang's language--it's like soaking yourself in a pool of metaphor and imagery!

A compelling story of three generations of Chinese women during a tumultous time in China's history. I could not put it down.

Inheritance is a wide-ranging novel spanning seven decades and set in both China and America, following young girls Junan and Yinan who form a strong bond when their mother commits suicide in despair over having no sons. A daughter tries to make sense of her family's turbulent history in the 1930s and 40s, clarifying her beliefs and values in the process, in the hard-hitting Inheritance which tells of family pain and struggle. A moving story which reaches out on many levels and grabs the reader with an intense emotional story.

I really enjoyed Inheritance; the story line held my interest, as did the complex characterizations. As an added bonus, I found that, while reading the book, I was also learned more about twentieth-century Chinese history and culture than I had known.