The only other book by this Chinese American novelist that I have read is The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane which I quite enjoyed. This latest historical novel is set in China in the 15th century, a cultural immersion that is completely foreign to me. With foot bindings by girls, cultural status determined by closeness to the emperor, arranged marriages set by age 15, several concubines, sometimes bought by wives, and the status of women always inferior to the men, even when they are doctors practicing a form of medicine based almost entirely on folklore, there is little that I can relate to. The constant reminder of the yin and yang and the qi are just confusing and the foreign names become complex. The obsession with menstruation, pregnancy and who is allowed to attend a birthing doesn’t help. The numerous ranks and rigid hierarchy limit what anyone can do, and the bizarre treatments are usually based on folklore although the is just a hint of some science as in the variolation to prevent smallpox used by the travelling smallpox master.
Told in the first person singular, the narrator is the insecure girl whose mother dies of a foot binding infection, but then marries into a wealthy family, becomes a doctor, and has a difficult delivery of an infant girl. Her postpartum problems are treated with a wide variety of medicines, including drinking wine mixed with a boy’s urine. This is just the start of endless concoctions of ancient Chinese medicine.
A typical description of diagnosing and and treating of a patient without the bother of seeing or examining her in 15 th centuaryChina is shown best with this quote: “Widow Bao, I believe that your daughter is suffering from a type of qi deficiency we call damage from weeping. You tell me your daughter was once quick tempered. This is caused by qi constraint that leads to Heat in the Liver, which in turn fires up Blood, which must be expelled by coughing. I don’t have a full pharmacy here but let me write some prescriptions for you to take back to Nanjing. The first remedy is Beautiful Jade Syrup in which one of the ingredients- Honey- is strained through raw silk. The second remedy is more complex, combining the Décoction of Six Gentlemen and the Décoction of Four Gentlemen. And the third I write a order for Calm The Spirit Pills to cool the Blood and help her sleep.”
There are lot of trite aphorisms As the plot progresses there is a disputed paternity in a rigid hierarchy and intrigue that becomes quite complex.
This book would be quite alarming with nonsense medical treatments if it were not that it is based, at least loosely, on careful research by the author of many antique documents. Lady Tan was a real person with a real influence on traditional Chinese medicine.
6/10
Thanks, Caroline.
The Passionate Reader 