Tomorrow begins from another dawn,
when we will be fast asleep.
Remember what I say: not everything will pass.
I like the saying “this too shall pass”, it’s a way of being in the difficult moment, of realising that it will be replaced by something else, it represents a sliver of hope, a reminder of gratitude, that thoughts are not reality, they can be changed. So this quote that “not everything will pass” evokes a kind of heartfelt stab for me, for it pierces that hope and reminds us that some things stay, that they are not seeds of hope, they are reminders of a sadness that endures.
‘Do Not Say We Have Nothing’ felt to me like a novel of ancestral DNA and how living through Chairman Mao’s and the subsequent communist regime imprinted its effect onto people behaviours forcing them to change, leaving its trace in their DNA which was passed on to subsequent generations, who despite living far from where those events took place, continue to live with a feeling they can’t explain, but which affects the way they live, or half-live, as something crucial to living a fulfilled life is missing. This reminds me of what Yaa Gyasi achieves so successfully in her extraordinary novel Homegoing, spanning an even longer historical trajectory of 300 years.
The novel is presented through dual narratives, in Canada today Marie lives alone with her mother, her father Ba, died in Hong Kong far from them both in circumstances they don’t understand, a kind of double abandonment. The alternate narrative is set in her father’s time, with his extended family during the time of and following China’s Cultural Revolution.
We will come to understand that mystery as the daughter of one of her father’s friends Ai-Ming, comes to stay with them and recognises the calligraphy of her father in a box of books under the kitchen table, the first encounter we have with a manuscript called ‘The Book of Records’ a narrative by an unknown author, one that has been added to and copied and left as a message for various characters who became lost over the years.
The title of the manuscript is an allusion to China’s most celebrated work of history, Sima Qian’s Historical Records, completed in 91BCE but kept hidden for fear of the wrath of an emperor who had its author castrated. The telling of history in China was always a dangerous occupation.
We are taken back to China to the home of Ai Ming’s father who is referred to as Sparrow, a composer at the music conservatory, one of his students Kai and his young cousin Zhuli, whose parents are the first to come under the harsh judgement of Mao’s philosophy, because they were landlords, denounced, beaten, thrown from their homes, accused and sent to labour camps for unsubstantiated crimes. The young daughter is deposited with her Aunt and Uncle miles away in the city, under the protection of her Uncle who works for the regime.
He Luting, Composer (1903 – 1999) China
The story follows these three musicians who are passionate about music (which will become the wrong kind of music) and to survive they must suppress their desires, their passion and compromise, the three of them each make different choices, that will affect those around them.
The narrative around the musicians and some of the characters closely mirrors actual events that occurred in the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, the main concert hall now renamed He Luting Concert Hall, after the Director who “in 1968, after two years of violence and humiliation, was dragged before television cameras by Red Guards to be threatened and physically abused”
In the following quote, Ai-ming listens to what she learns is her father’s music for the first time, music that was destroyed before it could ever be played, recalled from the recesses of the mind of the composer, after 20 years of silence.
“Ai-ming sat on a chair in the corner as her father played the piano, she had never heard him do so before, had not quite realised he was even capable. His entire body, the way he moved, changed. Most of the pieces she recognised from the records (Bach’s Partita No. 6, Couperin, Shostakovich) but there was another piece, a complex figure that seemed to disassemble as she listened, a rope of music, a spool of wire. It seemed to rise even as it was falling, to lift in volume even as it diminished, a polyphony so unfathomably beautiful it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. When it stopped tears came abruptly to her eyes.”
This is a tragic novel whose characters spirits are oppressed by a philosophical regime, which mutates into something equally oppressive after the death of Chairman Mao, for a while the younger generation without the memory of the era their parents generation suffered under (and somewhat judging of their inability to challenge the circumstances forced upon them), appear to revolt against the lack of freedom to choose their paths, until they too are brutally crushed in the events of Tiananmen Square in 1989, ensuring the new generation understand the power and reach of an authoritarian regime, that no-one is immune to.
Madeleine Thien had originally intended to write a novel about the 1989 demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, events she vividly remembered watching unfold on television during her teenage years, however over time she began to ask herself more about what had motivated the one million Beijing citizens to come out onto the streets, especially the older generation.
“What gave them the courage to stand up to the government? And, what made them come into the streets to want to protect, in many ways, their children, and another generation? So I think that’s why it ended up going backwards into the Cultural Revolution. I’d been writing about Cambodia before that – the Cambodian genocide – and one thing I’d been thinking a lot about were the musicians. I started thinking about what was it about music that could be so threatening. We often know about the writers who are targeted by totalitarian regimes but looking at musicians is another way in to thinking about what’s threatening to this consolidation of power.” Madeleine Thien, Granta Conversation
Madeleine Thien
This is a must read novel if you wish to reflect on how recent Chinese history affects the present generations, how regimes affect generations of their populations and how even though subsequent generations may not have experienced the past, they continue to feel its effect in their lives today.
It was short listed for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2017.
Further Reading:
Article by Madeleine Thien: After the Cultural Revolution: what western classical music means in China, The Guardian, 8 July 2016
Madeleine Thien Interview : on a solitary childhood in Canada and daring to question the Chinese regime, ‘In China, you learn a lot from what people don’t tell you’, The Guardian, 8 Oct 2016
Conversation with Madeleine Thien: On translating the sensation of music for a reader, the importance of writing about women of colour, and the Chinese conceptual framework of time, Granta Magazine, 3 Oct 2106
Buy a copy of ‘Do Not Say We Have Nothing’ here
Word by Word 
I have a copy of this on my TBR so I won’t read your review now, but I will come back to it when I’ve read the book myself.
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Ah yes I remember, we were in the same boat, but I’ve finally dusted it off and taken the plunge, and what an immersion, brace yourself, this one gets under the skin.
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Beautiful review! I think you hit on the biggest message I got out of it – ” how regimes affect generations of their populations and how even though subsequent generations may not have experienced the past, they continue to feel its effect in their lives today.” The broad scope of this book was just amazing.
The other thing you said that had me thinking was about how the three characters each made different choices about how to react to what was going on around them. And you can see why each of them came to make their choice. There’s no right or wrong – just different.
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Thank you for your close read of my review Naomi, yes, it is this effect of what went before that allows Thien to both investigate and share this story, I’m intrigued to read her previous book on Cambodia, it’s interesting that she chose that event to precede the research into one that more closely must have affected her own family. It would be interesting to hear her in conversation with Vadney Ratner, who wrote In the Shadow of the Banyan, she escaped Cambodia and that novel was her poetic response to it.
Yes, I thought a while about those three responses, but didn’t want to say too much about it, no spoilers, but they are what everyone must have faced, must face and then live with.
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Dogs at the Perimeter is also very good!
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Hmmm you’re the second person in as many weeks I’ve seen recommend Gyasi’s Homegoing. I must bump it up my to-read list.
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Oh you must read it, it’s going to be one of my top reads of 2017, I think it’s absolutely brilliant, check out my review 🙂
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Reblogged this on Chakra Blog and commented:
…a must read novel if you wish to reflect on how recent Chinese history affects the present generations, how regimes affect generations of their populations and how even though subsequent generations may not have experienced the past, they continue to feel its effect in their lives today.
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Can’t wait to read this one. Thanks for the insightful review.
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Thanks for sharing it with your readers Becca.
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A beautifully written review, Claire, of what sounds a fascinating book… it reminded me of the life of my acupuncture lady, who had come to NZ … when she was fourteen, her academic parents were parted and sent off to be re-educated on collective farms, and she too was sent to a farm to work thigh deep in icy water in padi-fields, … she nearly died of cold and misery during her periods, and never had enough to eat, had no idea where her parents were, and was too small and weak to manage the heavy loads and baskets she was expect to carry in order to fill her quota and therefore get enough food… we are so fortunate in the west !!!!
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Thank you for the compliment Valerie, and for sharing the sad story of your acupuncturist, how fortunate that she was given a new chance at life in NZ, was she ever reunited with her parents? The idea of re-education and that govt can take the place of parents misses so much of what is essential in familial bonds, it’s heartbreaking and no wonder the trauma impacts our DNA, I think we all carry vestiges of that in our cells, almost who has survived to the 21st century has survived massacre and genocide and escape, there are almost no corners of the world unaffected by it, just shorter memories that have been able to forget some of it, even though that fear remains in the cells and recognises the threats much earlier than the intellect.
If you do read this novel Valerie, I recommend a visit to the acupuncturist as a remedy, it’s exactly what I myself did after reading, to remove some of the tense energy it generates on reading!
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Lovely review Claire. I have this book sitting on my shelf and have read a few reviews of it recently that suggest I should try to get around to it soon. It sounds a complex but rewarding read, if a little sad.
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It was on my shelf for far too long as well, as if I kind of knew the effect it was going to have and was a little unwilling initially to go there. It is an accomplished novel and I certainly want to read more of Madeleine Thien’s work, it is sad to imagine just how many stories and families there are for whom this so-called revolution destroyed and separated, so much pain and suffering, neeedlessly, it’s hard to understand how one person can have such control and affect the thinking of so many, how fear can drive populations to such tyranny and denunciation, but we see it over and over again in history and even in small ways in daily life, a kind of warning I guess, least we become complacent.
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I’ve been made aware of this book so often, and most notably in this thoughtful review, that I really do want to read it, emotionally draining as the experience may be. Off to order it from the library!
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Thank you Margaret for the words of confidence, enjoy your visit to the library!
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This is such an amazing, complex novel, and you’ve captured it here beautifully, as usual. Thank you!
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Thank you Valorie, isn’t it just an extraordinary work, I don’t know how well or not I captured it, I’ve just tried to express a little of the feeling it evokes, it’s a novel that gets in deep and is deeply affecting, yet enormously important to read and understand.
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I love the sound of this book and I’ve been to Tiananmen Square too so I’m fascinated by China. I also loved Homegoing. This bodes well 😃 Great review.
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Wow, you will really get something out of reading this, I’m sure it will add much to your understanding and interest in China. Wasn’t Homegoing just amazing, I love that this new generation are able to provide links through storytelling back through their origins and forward to the present day, showing how the effect of what happened continues to exert its influence.
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Yes, me too! Have you read Wild Swans? That book is seriously amazing! Don’t be put off by the size, it’s like reading a soap opera. In fact, it seems so far-fetched at times that you have trouble remembering that this actually happened and is not the result of someone’s vivid and warped imagination.
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Wonderful review, Claire. That’s quite some research you’ve done too. I’m pleasantly surprised to see that stamp of He Luting. You know, I haven’t read the other titles on the short list, but I’ve a feeling this one has a good chance to win. 🙂
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Thank you for your thoughtful review which has reminded me why I loved this book so much last year & why I placed it as my no. 1 read for 2016. I also love the extra articles you included 🙂
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