bookgazing (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bookgazing) wrote2009-05-26 07:50 am
bookgazing) wrote2009-05-26 07:50 am
Entry tags:
The Painter from Shaghai - Jennifer Cody Epstein
'The Painter from Shanghai' by Jennifer Cody Epstein is a fictionalized account of the life of Pan Yuliang, a famous nineteenth century Chinese painter. Sold to a ‘flower house’ by her opium addicted uncle, Yuliang (then named Xiuquing) is forced into prostitution at a young age. She finds love with the house’s top girl Jinling, but when Jinling tries to buy herself out and set up a rival house she is murdered by indeterminate forces. Yuliang becomes the top girl and is pushed into trying to corrupt the new customs minister Pan Zanhua. Zanhua seems unshakeable, but Yuliang’s intelligence and love for poetry encourages him to liberate her from the brothel. Soon Yuliang and Zanhua are living together, as she is freed from the flower house and then becomes his concubine. Zanhua teaches her how to read and encourages her drawing skills, but is always unconsciously controlling Yuliang, through his teaching. As Zanhua’s career begins to disintegrate because of his relationship with Yuliang her skill as a painter soars. She is accepted into the almost exclusively male Shanghai Art Academy, a move which leads her to become China’s most controversial female professor and painter.
I have some conflicted feelings about ‘The Artist from Shanghai’. I enjoyed my trip through the book and the way it quietly guided me around early-twentieth century China, but I came away dissatisfied, without experiencing any kind of emotional response towards the characters. The book was a competent and subtle depiction of the landscape of China. After finishing it I could picture the settings, the characters and the art with amazing clarity, which is unusual as I don’t have a very easy, pictorial imagination. Any book of fiction about art should evoke strong pictures and I feel as if I can see Yuliang’s paintings, even now. I’m curious to see some of the surviving paintings and compare them with the style Jennifer Cody Epstein evokes.
However, while I could still visualize each of the characters I struggled to feel each individual’s emotions. I felt like there was always a distance between me and the characters, even Yuliang whose thoughts are shown in great detail. I can’t quite pinpoint why but I think it’s mostly down to the quiet, calm tone that so softly recreates a landscape or a moment of tenderness. This tone makes descriptions light and ethereal to read and it seems to complement Yuliang’s disconnected state of mind during her time at the flower house, as she tries to avoid thinking of her clients as anything but skin. As this way of thinking later prevents Yuliang from giving her nude paintings a vital spark of life, so the continuation of this composed tone kept me from fully absorbing Yuliang’s emotions. I also felt that some of the dramatic events, such as the death of her lover, lacked impact because the reader experiences them at a remove of time.
Still the book is a beguiling piece of historical description and was an interesting place to start learning about a painter I wasn’t aware of. I’m especially picky about historical fiction, because I’m so attached to the genre and I examine books in this genre and my reactions to them perhaps more minutely than I should. I will be looking out for new books by this author, purely because she has managed one large part of creating successful historical fiction (the deft fabrication of a historical landscape) so well.
I have some conflicted feelings about ‘The Artist from Shanghai’. I enjoyed my trip through the book and the way it quietly guided me around early-twentieth century China, but I came away dissatisfied, without experiencing any kind of emotional response towards the characters. The book was a competent and subtle depiction of the landscape of China. After finishing it I could picture the settings, the characters and the art with amazing clarity, which is unusual as I don’t have a very easy, pictorial imagination. Any book of fiction about art should evoke strong pictures and I feel as if I can see Yuliang’s paintings, even now. I’m curious to see some of the surviving paintings and compare them with the style Jennifer Cody Epstein evokes.
However, while I could still visualize each of the characters I struggled to feel each individual’s emotions. I felt like there was always a distance between me and the characters, even Yuliang whose thoughts are shown in great detail. I can’t quite pinpoint why but I think it’s mostly down to the quiet, calm tone that so softly recreates a landscape or a moment of tenderness. This tone makes descriptions light and ethereal to read and it seems to complement Yuliang’s disconnected state of mind during her time at the flower house, as she tries to avoid thinking of her clients as anything but skin. As this way of thinking later prevents Yuliang from giving her nude paintings a vital spark of life, so the continuation of this composed tone kept me from fully absorbing Yuliang’s emotions. I also felt that some of the dramatic events, such as the death of her lover, lacked impact because the reader experiences them at a remove of time.
Still the book is a beguiling piece of historical description and was an interesting place to start learning about a painter I wasn’t aware of. I’m especially picky about historical fiction, because I’m so attached to the genre and I examine books in this genre and my reactions to them perhaps more minutely than I should. I will be looking out for new books by this author, purely because she has managed one large part of creating successful historical fiction (the deft fabrication of a historical landscape) so well.
Other reviews
