Empress Orchid

From a master of the historical novel, Empress Orchid sweeps readers into the heart of the Forbidden City to tell the fascinating story of a young concubine who becomes China’s last empress. Min introduces the beautiful Tzu Hsi, known as Orchid, and weaves an epic of a country girl who seized power through seduction, murder, and endless intrigue. When China is threatened by enemies, she alone seems capable of holding the country together.

In this “absorbing companion piece to her novel Becoming Madame Mao” (New York Times), readers and reading groups will once again be transported by Min’s lavish evocation of the Forbidden City in its last days of imperial glory and by her brilliant portrait of a flawed yet utterly compelling woman who survived, and ultimately dominated, a male world.

Finally back from my trip to China and feeling that it was certainly enriched by Min's novel, "Empress Orchid". Loosely based on the story of China's Empress Dowager Cixi, the story depicts the traditions and politics of the Forbidden City by way of a concubine's rise to Empress. Told in first person by Lady Yehonala (clan name for Empress Orchid), the novel challenges historical perspectives on the Empress' reign and reimagines her as an intelligent, calculating adversary of the political forces within the Forbidden City instead of a despot whose rule resulted in the fall of the Qing Dynasty. Through Min's depiction of the Empress, rooted in love - maternal, forbidden, and unrequited - Orchid not only ensures her survival in a system that places little value on concubines but also that of her son's.

The novel is set in the Forbidden City and captures the atmosphere and scenery of the time with imagistic prose and tranquil, yet effective, pacing. During my actual visit to the Forbidden City I felt a hightened sense of familiarity that is the direct result of my reading "Empress Orchid." I'd highly recommend this text over "The Good Earth" for an introductory perspective on China's last dynasty. "Empress Orchid" feels more authentic in tone and character than Buck's work. Of course an actual visit to China can be an ideal experience but until that happens trust Anchee Min to deliver an equally satisfying experience through her literature. Enjoy!

Although our lives are radically different there is so much truth in this story that I feel I know the empress. Orchid faced the choices of her time and did a remarkable job. A life of sorrow disguised in splendor yet succesful because she did her best under all the circumstances. I plan on learning more.

Reads like a cheap romance novel only more fantasy than historical. Edmund Backhouse would be pleased

I just don't think this author did her research fully on this novel, given what I already know about ancient China. It was a pleasant novel, and I would like to believe it, but a few incidents just stick in my craw, causing me to take the whole thing with a grain of salt. We are expected to believe that Orchid, after being chosen as concubine of the Emperor of China, is then sent home. Now I already know that the Chinese were fanatical about their women being virgin, and Min in fact describes the process where Orchid is examined for virginity. If Orchid is sent home, rather than being kept in the palace after being formally declared a virgin, she could lose that virginity and even conceive a child that was not the Emperor's. She describes how she bribed her way into the Emperor's bedchamber. She could do so, and pass off a child that was not the Emperor's. This is the ultimate nightmare of the Forbidden City. No, it would never happen this way, and I cannot believe Anchee Min proposes that it did.

Even more unbelievably, after an incident where Orchid complains that she is so well attended that she cannot go to the bathroom in private, we are asked to believe that she successfully sneaked out of the palace, went home, and went to a whorehouse to learn the arts of pleasing a man for the Emperor. Rubbish! Read "Daughter of Heaven" by Nigel Cawthorne about the ancient Chinese Empress Wu Chao to read how thoroughly concubines were prepared for the Emperor, and he for them. They were given extensive illustrated books as well as stretching exercises to do, and lesbianism was rampant. They were not ignorant girls just turned loose, as Min portrays.

It was a pleasant novel, but I am going to read others about this Empress, since I just can't believe this one. A few incidents that are just outrageous make me doubt the entire sequence.

The story of a poor girl who wins the heart of the emperor of China, and rises above the jealousies of the other concubines and wifes, and eventually the political class that plan to use her son for their own power at a critical turning point in Chinese history. Oh, what James Clavell would have done with this: an epic of battling royals, deceipt, and palace coups that shape China and the world for generations to come.

Unfortunately, suspense is not Anchee Min's strength. While she does a wonderful job describing the boring, lonely life as one of a thousand wifes and concubines within the austere strictures of the Forbidden City, the story lacks suspense. The last third of the book, in particular, describing the coup that placed the Empress in power, reads like a Wikipedia article -- interesting and informative, but lacking the drama of a skillful storyteller.

Though I did learn a lot about Chinese history as the empire crumbled to the military might of the Western powers at the end of the nineteeth century, and the descriptions of as a wife of the Emperor were insightful, I still wished it was more of a novel and less of a history lesson.