{"id":9093,"date":"2010-04-15T10:10:24","date_gmt":"2010-04-15T14:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=9093"},"modified":"2015-08-17T09:58:16","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T13:58:16","slug":"pearl-of-china-by-anchee-min","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/pearl-of-china-by-anchee-min\/","title":{"rendered":"Pearl of China by Anchee Min [in Library Journal]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2010\/04\/Pearl-of-China.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-29133\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2010\/04\/Pearl-of-China.jpg\" alt=\"Pearl of China\" width=\"900\" height=\"1388\" srcset=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2010\/04\/Pearl-of-China.jpg 900w, https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2010\/04\/Pearl-of-China-518x800.jpg 518w, https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2010\/04\/Pearl-of-China-800x1233.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a>Min opens her latest with guilty sobs recalling her &#8220;brainwashed&#8221; teenaged self in 1970s China, when she was forced to denounce Pulitzer and Nobel prize-winning writer Pearl S. Buck to Madame Mao. That guilt clearly drove Min (<em><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/1997\/03\/01\/red-azalea-by-anchee-min\/\">Red Azalea<\/a><\/em>) to write this &#8220;based on the life of Pearl S. Buck&#8221; novel about a fictional friendship between Buck and her Chinese best friend, Willow. Unfortunately, by book&#8217;s end readers are left with little more than caricatures of a Chinese Saint Pearl and her long-suffering sidekick, both ultimately victims of the easily vilified Madame Mao. Buck and Willow bond as turn-of-the-century girls, and Min uses their lifelong relationship to chart China&#8217;s tumultuous history.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Verdict: <\/strong>A novel about Buck could have been interesting, but this one is marred by insipid dialog (Buck&#8217;s husband should be more understanding because of his Cornell degree, her would-be lover wants to know if she &#8220;love[s] like a Chinese woman&#8221;), jolting gaps (Buck&#8217;s adopted daughter, Janice, disappears after one mention), and apocryphal pronouncements (Buck apologizes via &#8220;Voice of America&#8221; for casting Western actors in Hollywood&#8217;s whitewashed version of <em>The Good Earth<\/em>). Buck&#8217;s story deserves better. With two autobiographies and 80-plus titles to choose from, readers can easily access Buck directly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Review<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.libraryjournal.com\/article\/CA6725435.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">&#8220;Fiction,&#8221; <em>Library Journal<\/em>, April 15, 2010<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Min opens her latest with guilty sobs recalling her &#8220;brainwashed&#8221; teenaged self in 1970s China, when she was forced to denounce Pulitzer and Nobel prize-winning writer Pearl S. Buck to Madame Mao. That guilt clearly drove Min (Red Azalea) to write this &#8220;based on the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,67,21,6,6535],"tags":[2924,6608,58,128,10,11,149,24,51,70,129,39,2925],"class_list":["post-9093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-chinese","category-chinese-american","category-fiction","category-repost","tag-anchee-min","tag-bookdragon","tag-coming-of-age","tag-cultural-revolution-in-china","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-gender-inequality","tag-historical","tag-identity","tag-library-journal","tag-mother-daughter-relationship","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-pearl-of-china"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Pearl of China by Anchee Min [in Library Journal] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/pearl-of-china-by-anchee-min\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pearl of China by Anchee Min [in Library Journal] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Min opens her latest with guilty sobs recalling her &#8220;brainwashed&#8221; teenaged self in 1970s China, when she was forced to denounce Pulitzer and Nobel prize-winning writer Pearl S. 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