The White Mandarin

After reading `The White Mandarin', I was puzzled that its sales rank wasn't higher. This is not a common spy and love story. It is an epic, an insightful and artful account of the historical relationship between America and China from 1948 (before the Communist victory in China) to 1972 (when President Nixon visited China). The author has quite unusual insight into this history. Yet it is a very personal story, a page-turning suspense and drama - not many contemporary writers I know of have such combination of storytelling skills and profound insight. Coincidentally, I happened to have just seen the opera `Nixon in China.' The opera has its own merit and was fun to watch, however its view of China and China's leaders is somewhat childish and shallow compared to `The White Mandarin'. One might reasonably suspect that the author, Mr. Sherman, had lived in China himself as a reflective spectator. The book made two interesting points about what led to the defeat of the Nationalist to the Communist in 1949. One is that the Communist provided Chinese intellectuals the ideology that was lacking in the Nationalist's appeal. Another was that Mao truly understood the peasants and their needs: food and land, and provided (or promised to provide) them such. Both are valid points. Ironically though, what the book didn't mention is that a decade after Mao came into power, it was exactly his ideology that took away the peasants' land and food, and caused the unprecedented famine that killed millions and millions - a man-made disaster far worse than any under the Nationalist ruling. So this raises a question as to why and how the CIA agent protagonist John Polly, who lived a double life in China for 20 plus years, came to so love Mao and Zhou. On one hand, Mao did provide personal favors for Polly; on the other hand, Polly witnessed throughout how the Chinese people were machinized by Mao's ideology. One theme the novel repeatedly presents is that personal emotion is a far more fundamental drive than any political stance. This might partly explain John Polly and some other characters, but it certainly can't fully explain the Chinese people's enthusiasm in the crazed political campaigns aimed at crushing anything personal and individual. Despite the above questions, I must say this is one of the best novels I've read written by a westerner about China. It not only is entertaining but also provides lots of food for thought. Apart from the fictional characters, for the most part the book is very loyal to historical facts, except one thing that puzzled me. The plane crash that killed Lin Piao - Mao's officially designated successor, occurred on September 13, 1971, not on the 11th as the book says. There were no bloody fights between military units either. I'm not sure why, on this one historical event, the author suddenly strayed away from facts. But, this is a novel, a fiction work, so this should be a minor issue. I wish I had a chance to know Mr. Sherman.