The Last Empress
by Anchee Min
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Book Summary Information
Author: Anchee MinEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-03-21
ISBN: 0618531467
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Book Reviews of The Last Empress
Book Review: A Fascinating Inside Look at a Chinese Empress and the Death of Empire
Summary: 4 Stars
In much the same way Su Tong presented imperial life in MY LIFE AS EMPEROR, Anchee Min in THE LAST EMPRESS gives the lie to Mel Brooks's oft-cited, tongue-in-cheek remark in the movie "History of the World, Part I" that "It's good to be king!" In this sequel to EMPRESS ORCHID, Ms. Min continues her novelistic, and novel, retelling of the life of Lady Yehonala, the imperial concubine who rose to become (Dowager) Empress Tsu Hsi.
Known now in the modern English (pinyin) transliteration as Ci Xi, the last Empress of China has long been reviled in China as the Dragon Lady. Portrayed as the manipulative power behind the throne of the last four Emperors of China (her husband and then her own son, followed by a nephew and finally by the infamously impotent Pu Yi), Ci Xi has been portrayed in official Chinese history as evil, power-crazed, and the proximate cause of imperial China's downfall. THE LAST EMPRESS tackles Ci Xi's life from a quite different angle. Based on extensive research Ms. Min conducted in Beijing's archives, she portrays the Dragon Lady as an empathetic figure, a loving wife and perhaps misguided mother, a woman who yearned to be released from the bondage of imperial rule over a nation in rapid decline but for the lack of intellectual capacity and political competence of her husband's successors. Thus, we are presented with an "Empress in handcuffs," chained to her position of power and wealth by the exigencies of China's late 19th Century moment.
For readers like myself not deeply schooled in Chinese imperial history, it is difficult to assess the historical veracity of Ms. Min's interpretation. Certainly, Lady Yehonala must have experienced motherly feelings and perhaps wifely feelings as well - as one of a thousand concubines in the Forbidden City, who can know how close she felt to her Emperor husband, or he to her? Whether as Empress and Dowager Ci Xi always acted so nobly in the best interests of her people and her country, however, is doubtless open to historical debate.
Regardless, one can accept THE LAST EMPRESS as a historical novel and read it for its own account. In that respect, Anchee Min offers up a fictionalized retelling of the modern decline and fall of an ancient empire. Her story delineates the rot from within, combining political machinations and self-aggrandizing power games with such intense inward-looking by most of the imperial court that most failed to see the internal and external dangers encroaching on Beijing until it was far too late. At the same time, Ms. Min provides us with a strong and insightful feel for life in China's imperial city - the nearly obscene restrictions on personal freedom and private feelings, the constant fear of physical harm or political usurpation, and the enforced emotional distance among members of the imperial family. Life for an Emperor or Empress in the Forbidden City truly was imprisonment in a gilded cage.
From the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions to the destruction of the imperial park at Yuan Ming Yuan to the economic incursions of the Western powers and the eventual territorial incursions of the Russians and Japanese, Anchee Min's story provides a novelistic framework around an extended lesson in Chinese history from 1850 - 1908. To a limited extent, her work of fiction suffers from the burden of historical fact it seeks to convey. Her story occasionally comes across as heavy on exposition of historical events and explanation of the principal players and their actions, to the detriment of her story's characters and the reader's identification with them. Where Lady Yehonala, Emperor Hsien Feng, Lady Nuharoo, Prince Kung, and the eunuch An-te-hai dominated EMPRESS ORCHID as human characters, these same individuals and a host of new faces come through in THE LAST EMPRESS somewhat less as people and somewhat more as players in a game of 19th Century realpolitik, a game that China was destined to lose despite Empress Ci Xi's apparent best efforts. The authorial trade-off is a difficult one - more intensive focus on (say) the unrequited love affair between Ci Xi and Yung Lu would have made for less history but perhaps warmer and deeper novelistic characterization. In any event, THE LAST EMPRESS offers a fulfilling sequel to EMPRESS ORCHID and a fascinating insider's perspective on the death throes of an ancient empire.
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