09-20-2007, 09:22 PM
Extremely unimpressive. It's about China's only true empress, Wu Zetian, a historical fiction. Apparently it was written in French by a Beijing author then translated to English. It suffers heavily from too much first-person subject>verb>object>Chinesey-description sentence structure, perhaps an artifact of the translations. It also translates the names, so instead of Zetian, she's named Heavenly something (see I forgot already) which is really bothersome if you intended on extracting some history if all the names are changed. Historically, the empress rose from being a concubine to the only ordaned female empress of China. Pretty meaty stuff. Even the lurid sex scenes were disappointing but I learned a new word - gynaeceum.
I was really interested in the Luoyang Grottoes, an extraordinary place where CF, LCF and I have actually been. There's this massive Maitreya Buddha as a centerpiece and the face was carved in the likeness of the empress. The guardian statues that surround her are supposed to be in the likeness of her top advisors. In the book, this is mentioned in passing with a short paragraph - sort of like "and then I had the Grottoes carved." Very disapointing.
I was really interested in the Luoyang Grottoes, an extraordinary place where CF, LCF and I have actually been. There's this massive Maitreya Buddha as a centerpiece and the face was carved in the likeness of the empress. The guardian statues that surround her are supposed to be in the likeness of her top advisors. In the book, this is mentioned in passing with a short paragraph - sort of like "and then I had the Grottoes carved." Very disapointing.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse