Stone Sky Gold Mountain | Mirandi Riwoe #AWW

I wasn't sure what to expect when I started Stone Sky Gold Mountain by Mirandi Riwoe. A gold rush story set on the Palmer River in Queensland (an area I did not realise even had a gold rush!) through the eyes of Chinese settlers, sounded intriguing. However, I struggle with blokey books about blokey men doing blokey stuff in the wild - which gold rush/pioneer books can often be - so I tempered my intrigue.

In a number of interviews, Riwoe mentions that she writes of things that move her. 

Naturally, they end up moving her readers too. In fact, her characters get under your skin and become a part of your daily life. You feel like you have inhabited their world. You think about them between reading sessions. You fear for their safety and sanity. You feel their pain and trepidation. You feel their disconnection and isolation. 

Far North Queensland becomes a character too. You could feel the heat, the humidity, the dust and dirt, the unrelenting nature of nature.

During Riwoe's research for this novel, she discovered that Cooktown and the Palmer River area, during the goldrush era, actually had a population that was significantly more Chinese than Anglo. Yet our settler narrative only ever talks about white people exploring and moving into the area. This was the trigger for her story.

The initial inspiration for my work is probably to do with what is of personal interest to me – being Eurasian, I like to write of those who are culturally hybridized or marginalized, and I also like to write of women and feminist issues. AsiaLink: University of Melbourne

From there it was only natural to weave in a story about a brother and a sister fleeing poverty in China, to find their fortunes in the goldrush of Australia. The sister could not safely stay on the goldfields as a woman, so she disguised herself as a boy. The only other women in Maytown were prostitutes or the wives of merchants. (Incidentally, Maytown is also the setting for Thea Astley's story It's Raining in Mango).

Some of the scenes are tough to read, especially the treatment of the Indigenous population by both the whites and the Chinese characters. The women don't always fair much better. The pecking order is clearly described and belies our belief that Australia is a classless society. The British and Chinese early settlers, all brought their own prejudices to bear on their new country; prejudices we are still trying to live down.

Many of the Chinese came to Australia with the sole intention of plundering the gold, making their fortune, then returning home as soon as possible. Getting to know Australia, or fitting in, was not part of the plan. When making a fortune didn't pan out as expected, staying in Australia became caught up in a sense of failure and exile. Australia was not a welcoming place, neither did it feel like home. That sense of disconnect and alienation became a daily lived experience. The isolation could send you mad or into the seedy rooms of the local opium den. The Australian landscape and society never lived up to their memories of China. Yet, as one of the characters made their way home again at the end, they realised how much personal freedom they were giving up by doing so.

Henry Handel Richardson's The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, was in the back of mind as I read Riwoe's goldrush story. Both stories reveal the harshness of this way of life, the sense of discrimination and displacement, the degradation of character and environment, regardless of your country of origin. The dream of striking it rich and the sense of adventure that started such a journey, inevitably ended in heartache and madness. The gold fields were an unforgiving place, full of broken dreams.

Stone Sky Gold Mountain first came to my attention when it was shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Award earlier in the year. I'm glad I tracked it down. It was a fascinating peek into another point of view of early Australia colonialism complete with ghosts, hardship and lawlessness. The violence and injustice was tempered by the tenderness of friendship in unexpected places. Riwoe is an elegant storyteller and she takes you on an unforgettable journey. 

Epigraphs:

• To search for gold was like trying to catch the moon at the bottom of the sea. Taam Sze Pui
• Taam Sze Pui (or Tom See Poy) was a Chinese Australian shopkeeper in Innisfail, Queensland. He spent five (unsuccessful) years panning for gold on the Palmer River goldfields, before working in market gardens and banana plantations, eventually setting up a shop in 1883.
• I wish to inform you that they are only strangers in this land themselves. Many of them have only been here a few moons, and none for more than one of two generations. Jan Chin from a letter to his father in Shanghai, The SMH, 1858

Opening Line:

• Ying dreams of her little brother, Lai Cheng.

Facts:

• Winner 2020 Queensland Literary Award – Fiction Book Award
• Winner of the inaugural ARA Historical Novel Prize 2020.

#AusReadingMonth 2020

All the Tears in China by Sulari Gentill

The anticipation I feel as I wait for the next Rowland Sinclair mystery is hard to describe. I love spending time with Rowland Sinclair and his three friends almost as much as I love spending time with my real life friends! It's a real treat to be a part of the humour, loyalty and kindness that they constantly display towards each other. 

All the Tears in China picks up where we left off in book 8. Only a few days have gone by and Rowly is still paying for his involvement with Egon Kisch. To get him out of harm's way and to help the family fortune, brother Wilfred decides to send Rowland (and his friends) to Shanghai to broker a wool deal with the Japanese.

Naturally, from the moment they arrive in 1935 Shanghai, the level of danger and intrigue that Rowly seems to always attract only increases.

I love the blend of fact and fiction. Sulari Gentill has a lovely knack of allowing real life figures to rub along with our fictional favourites naturally. She also brings to life the bizarre, curious and precarious world of pre-WWII China.

Gentill has now brought me to the point (twice in recent times) where I believed that Rowly really was in danger of losing his life and that she had had enough of writing these mysteries and was ready to move onto another venture. Nothing about the energy or the writing suggests that Gentill is over the series, but the lead up to the almost-death of Rowly was so believable and convincing both times, that I really couldn't see how she was going to get him out of it safely and plausibly. She did both times!

#1 A Few Right Thinking Men

What I loved about this book: the witty dialogue, the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (which my own grandparents attended on their honeymoon in 1932).
What I learnt or want to remember about this book: all that stuff about the New Guard, fascism in Australia and Eric Campbell.

#2 A Decline in Prophets

What I loved about this book: the art deco cover, a Cary Grant cameo, the Bohemian lifestyle & a cruise to New York.
What I learnt or want to remember about this book: Norman Lindsay's Blue Mountains soirée's

#3 Miles Off Course

What I loved about this book: the visit to the Hydro Majestic Hotel in Medlow Bath, more Norman Lindsay & a run-in with Stella Miles Franklin
What I learnt or want to remember about this book: meeting Rowly's half brother for the first time.

#4 Paving the New Road

What I loved about this book: meeting a young, naive Eva Braun as well as Nancy Wake and Unity Mitford. Flying lessons with Kingsford-Smith.
What I learnt or want to remember about this book: who is Egon Kisch? The horror of Rowly's kidnapping and torture by the SA (Ernst Rӧhm).

#5 Gentlemen Formerly Dressed

What I (loved) about this book: how history has taught us nothing - how Brexit, isolationist policies and right wing thinking is once again dominating our politics.
What I learnt or want to remember about this book: Fascism in London 1933 & eugenics.

#6 A Murder Unmentioned

What I loved about this book: the Sinclair family backstory - domestic violence and murder.
What I learnt or want to remember about this book: Bob Menzies

#7 Give the Devil His Due

What I loved about this book: an appearance by Errol Flynn and the seedier side of 1933 Sydney. The development of more complex, nuanced relationships between our four friends as well as Rowly's extended family.
What I learnt or want to remember about this book: Maroubra speedway

Prequel - The Prodigal Son (e-book only - download your copy here.)

What I loved about this book: the very first meeting of Rowly, Edna, Clyde and Milton.
What I learnt or want to remember about this book: Gentill can draw too - her illustrations graced the pages of this e-book novella.

#8 - A Dangerous Language

What I loved about this book: 1935 Canberra & Melbourne and the increasing frisson between Rowly and Edna.
What I learnt or want to remember about this book: Gentill plans to continue the series until the end of WWII. I don't mind the new covers, but I loved the previous art deco covers more - they were more stylish and Bohemian to my mind.

#9 - All the Tears in China

What I loved about this book: 1935 Shanghai, Sir Victor Sassoon and the colourful cover (although I would have liked to see the art deco cover for this too!)
What I learnt or want to remember about this book: Russian revolution refugees in Shanghai & the horrific conditions in Ware Road Gaol.

Brona's Salon

Brona's Salon is a newish meme which aims to gather a group of like-minded bookish people 'under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine the taste and increase the knowledge of the participants through conversation.'

(wikipedia)

I will provide a bookish prompt or two to inspire our conversation.
However please feel free to discuss your current read or join in the conversation in any way that you see fit.

Amusement, refinement and knowledge will surely follow!

I'm so glad that I have a stock pile of picture book drafts tucked away for a rainy day.
This past month has been pretty hectic, with review writing being the main casualty.

I'm hoping the Easter weekend will be catch up time.

Over the years, my reading interests have gone through many, many phases (obsessions).
 However there are a few that keep returning.

1. - Holocaust literature (one day I will understand man's inhumanity to man!)
2. - the French Revolution (all those Louis' & Napoleon's, the brutality, and man's inhumanity to man).
3. - Russia, especially pre-revolution (the beauty, the poverty, the literature & man's inhumanity to man).
4. - Chinese history (the power, the philosophy, the inventions & man's inhumanity to man).
5. - Indian literature (the colour, the religions, the art & man's inhumanity to man).

After reading and loving Do Not Say We Have Nothing last year, it would seem that Chinese history is firmly back in my gaze. Which segues nicely into what am I reading now...

What are you currently reading?

Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China by Jung Chang

Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) is the most important woman in Chinese history. She ruled China for decades and brought a medieval empire into the modern age.

At the age of sixteen, in a nationwide selection for royal consorts, Cixi was chosen as one of the emperor’s numerous concubines. When he died in 1861, their five-year-old son succeeded to the throne. Cixi at once launched a palace coup against the regents appointed by her husband and made herself the real ruler of China—behind the throne, literally, with a silk screen separating her from her officials who were all male.

In this groundbreaking biography, Jung Chang vividly describes how Cixi fought against monumental obstacles to change China. Under her the ancient country attained virtually all the attributes of a modern state: industries, railways, electricity, the telegraph and an army and navy with up-to-date weaponry. It was she who abolished gruesome punishments like “death by a thousand cuts” and put an end to foot-binding. She inaugurated women’s liberation and embarked on the path to introduce parliamentary elections to China. Chang comprehensively overturns the conventional view of Cixi as a diehard conservative and cruel despot.

Cixi reigned during extraordinary times and had to deal with a host of major national crises: the Taiping and Boxer rebellions, wars with France and Japan—and an invasion by eight allied powers including Britain, Germany, Russia and the United States. Jung Chang not only records the Empress Dowager’s conduct of domestic and foreign affairs, but also takes the reader into the depths of her splendid Summer Palace and the harem of Beijing’s Forbidden City, where she lived surrounded by eunuchs—one of whom she fell in love, with tragic consequences. The world Chang describes here, in fascinating detail, seems almost unbelievable in its extraordinary mixture of the very old and the very new.

Based on newly available, mostly Chinese, historical documents such as court records, official and private correspondence, diaries and eyewitness accounts, this biography will revolutionize historical thinking about a crucial period in China’s—and the world’s—history. Packed with drama, fast paced and gripping, it is both a panoramic depiction of the birth of modern China and an intimate portrait of a woman: as the concubine to a monarch, as the absolute ruler of a third of the world’s population, and as a unique stateswoman.

How did you find out about this book?

When Empress Dowager Cixi first came out it in 2013 it attracted a lot of media.
It has been on my radar ever since.

Why are you reading it now? 

We ended up with a reading copy of Cixi at work recently.
One rainy lunch time I needed something to pass the time, Cixi was my first choice.

First impressions? 

I loved it.

But where does the truth lie? Is this a biography or historical fiction?
It almost reads like fictionalised history and although I'm loving the story a little niggle is growing. Something is not quite right with the historical sources or the authors interpretations.
It feels like Chang wanted to write a certain story and she's making the historical record fit her agenda.

Now it could be said that all history books are guilty of that charge, it's just that some authors carefully disguise what they're doing.
Chang has not been subtle about her agenda.
She is clearly writing herstory, not history.

Which character do you relate to so far?

I do not relate to any of the main players, but I am fascinated by their story.

I'm also thrilled that many of the places that Cixi lived in or visited are also places that I visited and explored during my time in China in 1996. Being able to picture the palaces and towns being referenced adds to my reading pleasure.

1996 Little Potala Palace, Chengde

Are you happy to continue?

Definitely.
But I feel more cautious about my initial enthusiasm.

Where do you think the story will go? 

As a biography, I have to assume that we will go all the way to 1908 and Cixi's death, with some commentary about the immediate after effects of her reign.

I hope there is also a discussion about the new Chinese sources that Chang has had access to and how they influenced her.

If you'd like to join in #BronasSalon tell us about the book you're reading right now and how it relates to one of your reading obsessions.
Or tell us about the genre or period in history that you obsess about? 

Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien

For four days I've been trying to write a review that would do this rich, engrossing, mosaic of a book due justice.

It wasn't so much writer's block as writer's muddle.

There was soooo much to say! I couldn't even decide which lens or which perspective to choose?

Because I was enjoying Do Not Say We Have Nothing so much, I began researching stuff before I had finished reading.

I looked up the classical pieces of music conducted by Glenn Gould* that Thien mentioned throughout the book (Bach's Goldberg Variations and Sonata for Piano & Violin no 4) and listened to them as I read the book.

I researched the politicians and artists who were real people. He Luting (1903 - 1999) was a real composer and he really did say 'shame on you for lying' when hauled before a televised interrogation during the Cultural Revolution.

I researched the L'Internationale** to find out the various interpretations of the phrase that Thien used in her title.

I simply couldn't get enough of this book - I wanted to know more, delve deeper. I wanted to totally immerse myself in the reading experience.

On the surface, this is a story about a Chinese composer called Sparrow and the things that happened to him and around him during his lifetime. A lifetime that encompassed the extraordinary events from the Chinese Revolution to Tiananmen Square.

However, Thien weaves in many threads and motifs, until we have a story within a story, across three generations and two continents. She plays with recurring themes, copies of copies and the cyclical nature of history.

Music is a big part of the story and I found her descriptions of the creative process and the interpretation of music mesmerising.

Equally mesmerising, but in a horrifying way, was the astounding use of double-speak by politicians and revolutionaries during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution in China.

Thien showed some of the effects of 'self-criticism', 'struggle sessions' and 'denunciations' on the creative mind as they learnt to silence their talents and learnt to live without their language.

One of the major themes developed throughout the story was the life of homosexuals in China*** during the Mao years. Sparrow and Jiang Kai obviously had an intense loving relationship that could not be realised openly. One had to become a hard-line revolutionary, destroying art and lives, while trying to protect his friend from within, who eventually fled the country. While the other stayed, gave up his career as a composer, married and worked in a radio factory of the governments choosing.

Later on, Sparrow's daughter, Ai Ming, also developed very strong feelings for her female neighbour during the heightened times surrounding Tiananmen Square.

Thien intertwined mathematics, etymology, translation, calligraphy, memory, disappearance, loss, free-will, and the nature of time seamlessly. There were moments of humour and moments of pathos.

I have read some reviews that felt Do Not Say We Have Nothing was too wordy. Not for me. I loved every single moment and thoroughly enjoyed the multi-layered, enchanting nature of Thien's loquaciousness.
However this book will not be for everyone.
Hopefully this review will help you decide whether it's for you or not.

Do Not Say We Have Nothing is a keeper for me. I plan to reread this one day and I will be devastated if this book doesn't win one of the book awards that it is currently shortlisted for (Booker and Giller Prizes as well as the Canadian Governor General's Literary Award).

Below are some of the results of my research (thank you wikipedia):

• The Chinese Soviet Republic (1931-1937) adopted a 19th century French socialist worker's song called L'Internationale** as their anthem. There was a line in the original (Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout) that according to Wikipedia could be translated as 'we are nothing, let us be all'.

• Qu Qiubai translated a version of this song from Russian into Chinese in 1923 which changed this line to mean 'Do not say that we have nothing.'

• To my mind, the Chinese version has a sense of martyrdom inherent in its phrasing. They are being watched and judged by others who say they have nothing. Whereas the English translation seems to resound with solidarity and a proactive intent.

• The anthem later became a rallying cry for the students during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

• Glenn Gould* (25 September 1932 – 4 October 1982) was a Canadian pianist. He became famous for his interpretations of Bach's music. His methods of recording, splicing, mixing and editing his performances in the studio caused controversy at the time. Critics questioned the authenticity of his work and made claims of imitation. More delicious multiplicity on Thien's behalf.

• Historically China, was tolerant of sexual experimentation and same-sex couples. However in 1949***, homosexuality was declared to be a sign of Western bourgeois decadence and vice by the Communist Party. 

• Treatment of homosexuals during the Cultural Revolution was harsh, many were humiliated in public and some were executed. They were forced into heterosexual marriages and all LGBTQ art and culture was destroyed. However, all sexual activity and discussion was considered lustful and decadent during this time. Personal choice was not important. Affairs, sexual freedom and even sex education in schools were all considered enemies of class. Neutral gender clothing was promoted and monogamy expected.

• Some of the books read by the characters during the story - David Copperfield by Charles Dickens and Notes From the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Friedrich Schiller's On the Aesthetic Education of Man, Kang Youwei's Book of the Great Community and Border Town by Shen Congwen.

• Thien was born in Vancouver. Her mother was born in Hongkong and her father was born in an ethnic Chinese area of Malaysia. They met whilst studying in Australia. The immigrated to Canada in 1974 just before Thien was born.