Review: All the Flowers in Shanghai (by Duncan Jepson)

My Rating: 3.5 stars

As I was looking for a book to fill the "J" entry for my A to Z Challenge, I came across Duncan Jepson's debut novel  All the Flowers in Shanghai and in reading the summary, I decided to add this one to my list for this challenge.  Perhaps it is due to my Chinese background and growing up surrounded by family stories about my culture and its rich history, but over the years, I've developed a certain fondness for historical fiction set in China and since this book fell into that category based on the summary, I went into it with pretty high expectations.  While overall I would say that I enjoyed reading this book well enough, the overall story didn't really grab me as much as I thought it would, for reasons that I will talk more about below.

Set in the 1930s in Shanghai, a naïve young Chinese girl named Xiao Feng is thrust into the world of the wealthy and powerful Sang family through a marriage arranged by her parents.  This one action -- her parents' selfish, stubborn adherence to age-old superstition and tradition – upends Feng's life and eventually turns her into an extremely bitter, resentful woman who becomes obsessed with seeking revenge against not just the people who put her in that position but also the customs and traditions, her heritage, that drove those people to take the actions they did.  Spanning several decades into the 1960s, this story chronicling Feng's coming of age and survival in a world she views as largely foreign and cruel is set against the backdrop of one of the most turbulent time periods in China's modern history.

Overall, I feel that this book was pretty well written.  While the writing didn't blow me away, it was definitely above average for a debut novel -- descriptive where it needed to be, but not overwhelming, with language appropriate to its time period (for the most part).  I started reading this book without knowing anything about the author at first and have to admit that I was surprised at the author's extensive knowledge of Chinese culture – much of what was described in terms of Chinese customs and traditions, cultural attitudes, philosophy, superstition, relationships, etc. was spot on and it made me wonder about his background.  It wasn't until I read the Author's note at the end of the book that the familiarity with the culture made sense to me, as the author is Eurasian – his mother is Chinese and his father is British.  This book, while written for his mother in a way (he explains in the author's note), was not actually her story, though the inspiration for some of the themes in the story (i.e. mother/daughter relationships, concept of family, etc.) as well as certain elements pertaining to the cultural background were based on his mother's life. 

One of the things I found most interesting about this story is that the author chose to frame the narrative from the main character Xiao Feng's first person point of view.  Up until this point, I hadn't read any books written this way (male author telling the story from the female character's first person perspective), so for me this was a new experience.  I will admit that there were certain points during the story where I actually forgot that this was written by a male, as Feng's voice sounded so authentic at certain moments, but then later on there were parts where I totally could not understand why her character would act that way.  Perhaps this is why I found it difficult to completely connect with the character of Feng, despite sympathizing with her plight (to a certain degree) and the way she was treated.  Feng, while a believable character, was not likable, as her overwhelming bitterness toward the life forced upon her permeated the entire story and basically blinded her to everything going on around her. While I definitely understand why Feng turned out the way she did, it was hard for me to wrap my head around her rationale and the justification she tried to give for some of her actions, some of which were "mistakes" that she made knowingly and deliberately.  I'm all for stories about women who rise up against social convention and survive against the odds, but with Feng, I felt like something was lacking that made me feel differently about her – perhaps it was the fact that the way she went about defying convention was so irrational, I wasn't really convinced what type of person she wanted to be.

In terms of this book being marketed as historical fiction, I actually feel that it doesn't completely fit the category.  Majority of the book is about Feng isolated in the microcosm of her home (first her family home with her parents, grandfather, and sister and later in the Sang family mansion), completely oblivious to everything going on in the world outside.  As I said above, the backdrop of the story was the time period between the 1930s and early 1960s – a time period in which, for those familiar with Chinese history, so many historical events occurred that it was nearly impossible to write a story set during this time / place without having those events impact the story's characters in some way.  With this book, it wasn't until the last quarter of the story or so that the history piece actually came into play in a significant way.   To me, the best works of historical fiction are able to achieve a good balance between incorporating (accurate) historical detail and telling a compelling, captivating story and doing so in a way that weaves both into each other seamlessly.  This book didn't deliver in that aspect (as historical fiction) but as a well-written coming of age story that explores cultural and societal conventions, relationships, family, love and betrayal, etc., this book definitely worked.  I would still recommend this book, as it was a good read overall, it's just that I prefer more depth from a historical perspective.