Love and Revolution: A Novel About Song Qingling and Sun Yat-sen (Modern Chinese Literature from Taiwan) [Hardcover]

Ping Lu (Author), Nancy Du (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Modern Chinese Literature from Taiwan | Publication Date: August 29, 2006

"Death is inevitably the end of a journey. Death also allows the journey to go back to the beginning."

In this bold novel, one of Taiwan's most celebrated authors reimagines the lives of a legendary couple: Sun Yat-sen, known as the "Father of the Chinese Revolution," and his wife, Song Qingling.

Born in 1866, Sun Yat-sen grew up an admirer of the rebels who tried to overthrow the ruling Manchu dynasty. He dreamed of strengthening China from within, but after a failed attempt at leading an insurrection in 1895, Sun was exiled to Japan. Only in 1916, after the dynasty fell and the new Chinese Republic was established, did he return to his country and assume the role of provisional president.

While in Japan, Sun met and married the beautiful Song Qingling. Twenty-six years her husband's junior, Song came from a wealthy, influential Chinese family (her sister married Chiang Kai-shek) and had received a college education in Macon, Georgia. Their tumultuous and politically charged relationship fuels this riveting novel. Weaving together three distinct voices—Sun's, Song's, and a young woman rumored to be the daughter of Song's illicit lover—Ping Lu's narrative experiments with invented memories and historical fact to explore the couple's many failings and desires. Touching on Sun Yat-sen's tormented political life and Song Qingling's rumored affairs and isolation after her husband's death, the novel follows the story all the way to 1981, recounting political upheavals Sun himself could never have imagined.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This lackluster Taiwanese import reconstructs the final thoughts of Sun Yat-sen, "the founding father of modern China" who died in 1925, and of his second wife, Song Qingling, who died in 1981. Told from the perspectives of Sun, Song and a daughter of the widow Song's illicit lover, the novel offers a glimpse into a 10-year marriage between a peasant revolutionary and his rich, much younger wife who adored him (but was disgusted by his lapses in personal hygiene). Sun regrets Song's miscarriage during their violent days on the run; reflects on his abandonment of his first wife and children and his years of promiscuity; and worries about his political clout. For her part, Song, whose sister married future Taiwanese president Chiang Kai-shek, laments that she was sidelined politically after Sun's death and pines for her younger, last lover who died when she was 70. Dish on the intimate life of a revered national hero and his widow's political disillusionment and love affairs won't be a surprise to Ping Lu's readers in Taiwan (where she has published multiple works on figures including Madame Chiang Kai-shek and Soong May-ling), but this stilted effort will confuse readers less familiar with the intricacies of the region's political history. (Sept.)
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Review

[Ping Lu] succeeds in showing the ordinary and sometimes repugnant details of Qingling's life.

(Perry Link New York Review of Books 11/16/2006)

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press; First Edition edition (August 29, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231138520
• ISBN-13: 978-0231138529
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,821,234 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars history happens spontaneously, March 3, 2007

By 

P Leeuw "fromheretookazaki" (Pays Bas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Love and Revolution: A Novel About Song Qingling and Sun Yat-sen (Modern Chinese Literature from Taiwan) (Hardcover)

Very cool book. In just 62 chapters Ping Lu presents a history of the first president of China, Dr. Sun Yat-sen. More exactly, in the odd chapters we learn about the last month of the Founding Father of the Republic and how he reflects upon his own life as a failure. The even chapters contain the memoirs of his widow, Song Qingling, the middle of the three Song Sisters, and for a smaller part the reflections of her adopted children, the sisters Yuyu and Zenzen. Actually, Yuyu and Zenzen have never existed. They are adopted by Ping Lu to serve as her virtual eyes, in order to get a glimpse of the private side of love and revolution.

Obviously to avoid future conflicts about their real thoughts, neither Dr Sun nor Madame Song have left a track of written records. As a historian Ping Lu, however, aims to give words to a long silence. As a novelist she invented Yuyu and Zenzen, who contribute a lot to a vivid image of Madame Song. As a combination of fiction and non-fiction this book becomes a tribute to the revolutionaries who have no blood on their hands.
"People would see evidence of his (Dr Sun Yat-sen's) revolutionary and nation-building efforts, but they would also see how the lack of real power left China in a messy predicament."

This book is an eye-opener for the history of modern China. The hardest part for non-chinese readers to understand, however, is the long list of Chinese warlords who had betrayed Dr Sun Yat-sen's ideals. We have no idea who they are and what their power is. Initially, since it is hard to remember all their names, I wished for an appendix where we can read more about these opponents. However, it might have been that Ping Lu's style corroborates with time and history in obliterating all these names, so that we remember only the one that should not be forgotten.

It is interesting that in Dr Sun final memory of the lyrics "everything in the world is but a dream" the curtain rises for his longtime friend, the Japanese revolutionary, Miyazaki Toten. "Thinking of his bearded friend Sun's brows relaxed and happiness suffused him."

Ping Lu is a must-read for the reader interested in modern history of China.