Advantages: Original story that draws you in Disadvantages: Flashbacks may confuse if you find it hard to follow a story
This novel follows the life of May, a Chinese woman whose feet were bound against her will at the age of five. Her grandmother, Yu-ying, tells her to be quiet so that they can tell potential suitors "She never cried out". May is forced to be the fourth wife of a rich merchant and is very unhappy, so she hatches a plan to run away - taking revenge on Yu-ying as she makes her way to bustling Shanghai. In time, May marries into a Jewish family and develops ... ...with the two of them in Nice, where May is beginning to take swimming lessons. The novel is told through a series of 'flashbacks' which some people may find hard to follow, but I personally loved how the story unravelled as sections of May and Alice's lives were revealed. Even nearing fifty, May is still bound by both the bindings on her deformed feet and the mistakes she's made in her past. As the tale unravels, we find out more of these mistakes. ...
DoubleFantasy11 05.07.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Binding Chair - Kathryn Harrison
Advantages: An incite into an unknown world. Disadvantages: Sometimes a little uncomfortable to read.
...was another book sale, unfortunately the books on sale were not of the usual reading material that I go for, hence the review I will now write.
The book I will now review is “ The binding chair by Kathryn Harrison”
As I stated earlier this is not the sort of book I would normally go for, more of a semi fictional history book this only appealed in the fact that it was A, on sale for 20p, and B, I liked the cover! (Sorry I am so shallow!).
The cover ... ...is about, aside from the fact that the binding chair in question is the piece of apparatus that Chinese girls sat in to have there feet bound. Not being that knowledgeable on the subject of Chinese history or the barbaric traditions behind the binding of young girls feet, the book suddenly became a little more interesting.
The story is, as I said earlier, semi fictional, fictional in the sense that the history aspect of the story, I assume, is as ...
sarahbarrow 16.03.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Binding Chair - Kathryn Harrison
...and you felt part of the story. Descriptions were fantastic. Yes it took sometime to get into the book to start with but once you read the first ffew pages then you were hooked.It is very inventive and entertaining historical novel and it tells of the tragic fulfillment of a person's desires.the author Kathryn Harrison sets the book in China in the city of SHanghai. She explores the terrible things which the chinese did like binding women's feet ... ...had a disfigurement either mental or physical. What these chinese women went through must have been very terrible.With various issues that came up concerning the Chinese cultture of that peroid of time the author produces I well written novel with characters in the book experiencing some of the issues. ...
ruth1957 31.08.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of The Binding Chair - Kathryn Harrison
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The Binding Chair offers up a captivating brew combining the turbulence of ... more
turn-of-the-century Shanghai, Russia, London, and 1920s Nice, weaving back and forth in place and time in the lives of a rich cast of characters, all of whom are dominated by th...
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