Summer of Betrayal

This is a well-written and meaningful novel. It is primarily about the experience of a woman, much more than it is about the experience of being in 1989 Beijing. The poet Lin Ying's journey is a series of painful disillusionments that many readers will readily identify with. The manner in which she gains strength and ultimately transcends the bleak world around her may be incomprehensible to some men and objectionable to some women, but will be powerful to the sensitive reader. Admittedly, Lin Ying's view of her world is unfamiliar to me as a man - which is the primary reason I found this book to be so worthwhile.

I loved this book, just like I loved Hong Ying's other novels. What was 1989 about? Read "Summer of Betrayal", and if you don't get it, and you still want to know, read "Daughter of the River". It is Hong Ying's autobiography, written a few years later than "Summer". Still, "Summer of Betrayal" is like an echo of "Daughter of the River". "Daughter of the River" is about growing up in Chongqing, a city of extremes. It is a voice from the labourers who didn't profit by the so-called Communist revolution. You learn about what happened in the 50s, and before. You learn about the famine. You learn about the 60s and 70s. Cannibalism. Boys executed for homosexuality. Civil war. "Summer of Betrayal" is beautiful and terrible. It doesn't care what you think. The same goes for every novel by Hong Ying. 1989 was about everything that happened since the 30s, at least. Nobody seems to have said that clearly. How do you talk about China in a way that avoids cliche? To read Hong Ying is to listen to voices that have always been there, only they are not what you've been told. You start thinking of the past. What happened? Not 1989, but 1937, for example? Read "K", it has just come out in English, ... "K" and "Daughter of the River" are available in every bookstore in China. They are not about 1989. But they are about everything that led up to it. Sexual pretense is part of the face of China, or of any country, that doesn't want you to remember, to ask your parents, to keep asking what happened. Hong Ying's books are beautiful, and terrible. Look for the short stories, too. One is about an old Chinese opera and a modern French writer who taught in Nanjing in the 1960s, when De Gaulle had taken up diplomatic relations with the PRC. In today's Paris, a Chinese man tries to meet this writer, and to remember what happened there at the university. Paris becomes Nanjing. But it is harder to meet again the person that he was. Do you know what I mean? It is terrible. And you know that these things have happened. Hong Ying always takes her stories from real events. There is one about a Chinese-English Red Guard who blows himself up with a house full of hippies in London. It is a true story. Hong Ying got a prize for it in England. "Summer of Betrayal" is a good way to start reading Hong Ying. There have to be people who don't understand her. I wonder what people seek for in literature. There have been few books, in any language, about any topic, that have moved me like Hong Ying's.

An intriguing story of self-discovery, sexuality, and individualism unfolds in communist China with the 1989 incident in Tiananmen Square as a backdrop. Using emotion to describe an artists conflict between freedom/expression to a control exerting government, Ying Hong highlights human determination and spirit in the face of adversity. This is a wonderful and exciting book, and one I found difficult to put down.

Under the umbrella of political repression and the bloody crack down of Tianammen Square comes the sexual awakening of a young woman struggling against the misogynistic society and attitudes she despises. This is an extremely honest, open and sensual book, thankfully devoid of vulgarity or gratuitous sexual content. As Deng Xiao Ping's troops marched literally through the student demonstrators and subsequently imposed martial law in the insuing months, the heroine, poet Lin Ying flees along with her collegues, although her feeling of isolation persist. This is emphasised by Lin's discovery of her lover in the arms of his estranged wife whom he claims to be divorcing. Lin Ying then sets about her own life and choices made free of guilt or the binds of a jealous, possesive partner. At times her actions and thoughts come across as self indulgent to the point of being irritating. But to judge would be to miss the point entirely. The self discovery that occurs culminates with the assertion that whilst you can imprison the body, the mind and soul will always remain free.A colleague urges Lin Ying to move abroad with her, stating; "You could write your poetry abroad. At least if you wanted to you could: freedom is a precious thing." To which she replies; "Here (in China) there are people listening, but one can't speak. There one can speak, but nobody listens," -a truly damning indictment of western values and apathy as much as it is against China's supression of its own people's thoughts and ideas.The climactic ending is one not to be missed, where whilst not every reader will enojoy it, it is unlikely to be equalled in its open or unapologetic sensuality.