Bonnie G.'s Reviews > How Much of These Hills Is Gold

Geez this was a frustrating read. There were elements I liked, but three things kept me from really enjoying this, or even thinking much of the craft.

The first issue was the biggest for me -- Why on earth does Zhang include Mandarin in the book? The Chinese people depicted (not people of means who would have been called to court) are from Guangzhou. In the time covered they would have spoken Cantonese, potentially a smattering of Fujianese, and chances are quite high they would never have heard a word of Mandarin. It was not until the Nationalists had settled into power in 1911 (maybe a couple years later, I cannot recall) that China became linguistically united under Mandarin and likely fewer than half the people spoke the language until the Communists got there and started forcing the issue in a major way. Even now probably a quarter of the people in China don't speak Mandarin, and a lot of those people are Cantonese speakers from Guangzhou. What the hell, Pam? This is basic stuff. The barest acquaintance with Chinese history (like Wikipedia level) would have revealed this fact. Every time the pinyin started I was pushed out of the story. Additionally, this is historical fiction, and I found I did not trust the writer or her editor to have done any research. I did not believe anything here was researched, zero historical accuracy means I had to read this as fantasy, not historical fiction. It did not work as fantasy at all.

My second problem was the weird use of magical realism. Zhang used none other than the occasional cameo appearance by, or reference to a sighting of, a roaming tiger. In California. You either have to embrace magical realism or avoid it, you can't just have perhaps 3 brief references to MR and expect the reader to jump into the illusion. Or what do I know, maybe along with thinking Chinese people from Canton spoke Mandarin in the 19th century she also thought there were tigers in California? I mean, cougars are big cats, maybe she thinks they are the same as tigers, and she was not going for magical realism at all? Anyway, she kept quoting the tiger song in Mandarin so insult to injury.

Problem number three was the writing itself, and this is a question of taste. IMHO this was wildly overwritten. There are other books people love which I consider overwritten (The Shadow of the Wind and All the Light We Cannot See are the two worst offenders. The Shadow of the Wind also misused words over and over, but we are not here to talk about that book so I will shut up.) This book though, this book used a whole lot of words to evoke ... I seriously do not know what.... where a sparer approach would have been most welcome.

I liked the relationship between Sam and Lucy, and I wish Zhang had better helped us to see the reason for their attachment, their truly unconditional love. In the second half of the book I really liked the way they played off one another, but in the first half Sam was pretty awful -- I understood why, and I wasn't mad at him, but it did not make for a great foundation for their later connection unless it was simply shared pain. This was not a major issue at all though, like I said I liked their interplay.

Not a miserable read, but really disappointing since I was looking forward to a smart nuanced western and that is absolutely not what I got.

ETA: I just checked and Zhang is Chinese -- people from Beijing forget there are other places in China, so the refusal to acknowledge languages other than that which they speak up in the north capital makes more sense.