When the Purple Mountain Burns: A Novel

By Shouhua Qi

This is an unprecedented first novel by a native son of Nanking, set during the first six days after the fall of the city to the Japanese imperial army in December of 1937. Shouhua Qi has crafted a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1592650414
• ISBN13: 9781592650415
• Release Date: July 2005
• Publisher: Long River Press
• Length: 257 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.0" x 6.2"

Customer Reviews

It was a worthy birthday gift!

I got a copy of the novel as a birthday gift from a friend of mine. I was like: a war novel for birthday gift? Besides, I'm very selective in my reading, given my work schedule and taking one course at a time toward my master's degree and all; I only read books that are already critically acclaimed. But I decided to trust my friend's taste and gave this novel a try. I was hooked from the first page. Well, I did skip the first few pages, the "prologue," which gives a sketchy outline of China and Japan relations, and a quick picture of the city itself. I wanted to go straight to the story. Well, as I got more into the story, I did return to the prologue to get a better sense of the city and the historical context. Gradually I became so immersed in the story that I forgot what was happening was in a faraway land to people I am not even remotely connected to. I was shaken by the atrocities. I was often choked with raw emotions. I rooted for the people I'd grown fond of, the 12-year-old girl, her grandpa, and so on. In a way, they've become my own people. I read a few pages during lunch breaks and before bedtime and whatever chunk of time I could grab. When I was finally finished, I closed the book and looked outside the window, the darkness outside, for a long time, my mind still filled with the faces of the people, good and bad, that I'd got to know quite well. I doubt if I'll change my reading habit on account of this book alone. I'm already back to the same crazy life driven by deadlines and endless deadlines. I did call up my friend though and told her how I felt about the book. She laughed, "I told you it's good!" Jasmine Pracella

Marvelous First Novel On an Epic Scale

I didn't know anything about the Rape of Nanking until I went to one of Iris Chang's reading/book signing events, out of pure curiosity about eight years ago. I was shocked! I had thought I had a more than decent education and had a pretty good grasp of what had been going on in the world, particularly in the 20th century: WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam. I was so shocked because we're talking about hundreds of thousands of innocent people being slaughtered within the walls of a city not much bigger than Manhattan in the matter of a few weeks! I began to pay more attention. I've since read the diaries of John Rabe, that German Nazi who organized the International Safety Zone, of Minnie Vautrin, a missionary professor who was running a women's college as a refugee center. I was profoundly touched by the day to day record of what was going on by those who witnessed horror firsthand. I've also read Paul West's The Tent of Orange Mist, which is about an art professor's daughter who was forced to become a "comfort woman" for the Japanese conquerors after the fall of Nanking. The first few pages are promising and the prose is exquisite. But there is not much story and development. As I was turning the pages, I started to feel, more and more, this sense of distance, or disconnect, as if the author cared more about his prose, or art, than what would happen to the people. It was a lot of "mist" all right. Just about a month ago I read Mo Hayder's new novel The Devil of Nanking. It's a real page-turner! Grey, the young British woman, grabs my attention from beginning to end as she searches for her own version of "holy grail." But eventually, I was not that satisfied. I guess I was looking for things the novel was not intended to deliver: What it was really like during those horrific days in Nanking. That's why I was both excited and not sure what to expect when I noticed this new title: When the Purple Mountain Burns, a novel on the subject by a native son of Nanking. It took me two days to finish reading it and I have to say: I wasn't disappointed at all. In fact, I LOVE it! It's what I've been waiting for and it's come finally! I was taken with Ning-ning, the 12-year-old protagonist from the very first page, and her Buddhist scholar type grandpa, and became worried about how they were going to survive the ordeal. The chapters narrated from their points of view are among the most touching and beautifully rendered. Nakamoto, the brigadier general antagonist, is "charming" in his way despite his sadistic obsessions. Historical figures, John Rabe, Minnie Vautrin, figure in the story, too. I felt I had already known them from reading their diaries, but Qi's rendition of what was going on inside their mind, their pain, and sense of hopelessness, as they went about, desperately, saving lives of innocent women and children and POWs, is intense, gripping, and convincing. Other favorite characters of mine are Eva, a 14-year-old girl, Helen, a student at the wome