The Binding Chair: or, A Visit from the Foot Emancipation Society

Mai is a young Chinese girl who, after having her feet bound and being forced into marrying an abusive man, runs away to a Shanghai brothel. It is there that she meets her future husband, Arthur, a man involved in the "Foot Emancipation Society" (dedicated to stopping the foot-binding tradition) until, that is, he becomes obsessed with Mai's feet. They marry and move in with Arthur's sister and brother-in-law and their children.Reading this novel is almost like looking at a magnificent painting. Kathryn Harrison weaves her words together like a true artist. The tale jumps back and forth between "present time" (early to mid-1900s), when Mai is struggling with depression and her niece - who is closer to a daughter to her - has been shipped off to boarding school, to the past, where Mai's life story is recounted. At first, the jumping around can be a little confusing, but once you catch the rhythm of the novel, it flows smoothly until the surprising end.If you're looking for a novel that'll make you think, pick up The Binding Chair and enjoy.

Maybe the best book I read all summer. This novel absolutely transported me - I couldn't put it down. It reminded me a little of _Memoirs of a Geisha_, another book I found myself rivetted to. Harrison's _The Binding Chair_ combines a good story, original and unpredictable, with good storytelling, making her language as sensual as the main character, May's, crippled feet and the soft, damaged skin wrapped in gauzey bandages. The shock of the book is equalled only by its subtlety, resisting the urge to make simple political statements or moral judgments, but revealing the complexity and complicity present in any system of oppression. Unlike, for instance, Anna Quindlen's _Black and Blue_, this novel does not turn out how you expect, instead turning this way and that in seductive narrative moves in every chapter. I liked it far better than _The Kiss_, her memoir, which seemed less skilled in handling controversial content.

The Binding Chair is an exotic mixture of a woman's search for love, acceptance, and significance. Set in turn of the 19th century Shanghai, the book reveals the horrors of bound feet, not to mention other indignities that Chinese women had to endure. The juxtaposition of British imperial society with that of the upper class Chinese shows an uneasy mingling of cultures that is often difficult to understand. The main character, May, is a Chinese woman who escapes an unfortunate arranged marriage and purposely finds herself a place in a high class brothel. From there she goes on to marriage in the upper class, but her life in not necessarily a happy one. May experiences loss, not only of her first family, but of her own family as well. The tragedies that affect May also affect those around her especially her neice, Alice, and other women she encounters. The pain May experiences in her bound feet, reflects the inner pain she suffers for her past and what could have been her future. The binding chair, where her grandmother tied her to bind and break her feet, is symbolic of the invisible bonds of society and the ever present tranquility of opium; that May overcomes her bonds with offers of kindness and charity, is a tribute to her enduring spirit and her search for freedom. Ultimately, this is a spellbinding novel about the nature of women's committment to themselves and to family, and ultimately, to the traditions that bind them to their time and place. A must for discerning readers.

I was completely hooked by "The Binding Chair." Kathryn Harrison has written a completely enthralling literary . . . I'm not sure what to call it. It's a mystery, it's a series of character studies, it is a study of the social mores of the late 19th/early 20th century, and it is ever so slightly rotten, which makes everyone and everything in it just that much more interesting.May-li is a Chinese woman with bound feet who has married into a British Jewish family living in Shanghai. Her story leads "The Binding Chair," and the others swirl around it in vivid detail. There's her sweet Australian husband with his love of social do-gooding, a lisping genius of a governess, May's niece, who takes her aunt's encouragement too much to heart, and a heartbroken Russian on the Siberian Express. I didn't care for the ending, but understand it. I would much rather have had the book go on.

Despite what others might say (including that reviewer from Boston who seems to have read a completely different book, and manages to describe in the vaugest of terms), The Binding Chair is a terrific, literary page-turner, filled with tales and history that I was surprised to find as compelling as Harrison makes it. And best of all, there seems to be a real undercurrennt of dark humor that pops up from time to time. The footbinding sequence itself will be something you will find hard to shake.