Felicia has read “Empress Orchid”

July 12th, 2008 by Nur Hakim · 256 Views · No Comments

WHO’S READING WHAT . reader’s recommendations

Empress Orchid by Min Anchee
Boston : Hougton Mifflin, 2004
English MIN

What goes behind the minds of the powerful and elusive? A figure both historical and romantic, the Empress Cixi is a person who has captured the imagination of the public due to her unprecedented rule—the rule of a powerful woman in patriarchal society—one that history would be hard placed to forget.

Empress Orchid is the story of Empress Cixi, a girl from a family in dire financial straits, who starts out as a a low ranking wife of the most powerful man of China—the Emperor—and ends up becoming the most powerful woman in China.

The light that history has cast on Empress Cixi has been harsh and understandably so for the longest of time as the world has little tolerance for determined, powerful and ruthless women, characteristics that are strengths in males but flaws in females. Empress Orchid tries to reclaim the negative image of Empress Cixi and recreates a person, one that is fully human and fully female, as well as one Empress who was unfortunate enough to belong to a period of China’s history that was exceptionally difficult for monarchy.

Written with candour, the Empress’s honesty, the decisions she had to make, from leaving her family to decisions that will affect the nation, this fictional autobiography is a book that you will not soon forget. The author’s attention to detail, right down to furniture and smell, will leave you spinning and reeling in the magnificence and grandeur of the Forbidden City. Young, rash, bold, intelligent, and not to mention beautiful, Min Anchee has created a character that is rich in depth and filled with the potential to surprise.

Perhaps China’s female Empress was not so much one who did not care as opposed to one who cared too much. Empress Orchid is a marvelous piece of work that brings a historical character back to the warm and human realm of the living. Do not miss the sequel, which is also by the same author, titled The Last Empress.

~ Contributed by Felicia Chan

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