91 [Do Not Say We Have Nothing] by [Madeleine Thein] This novel is set against the backdrop of the Chinese Revolution, The Cultural Revolution, and Tiananmen Square. There are 2-3 timelines and there seems to be no rhyme or reason for their placement. Sometimes there are two timelines contained within one page. The times lines are not the "same", they are not continuous--One page may be 1911, the next page 1966, and the third page 2011 and the reader will not see these dates again. This reader had a hard time keeping the story in order. The writing was such that the characters were kept at bay and I never really became engaged in the story; all sort of mystical. However, the Booker Prize Committee thought otherwise. (Longlist 2016) Also won Canada's Governor General's Literary Award (Winner – Translation (English to French) – 2019. 429 pages ( )

Do Not Say We Have Nothing has such richness of language, theme and story that it’s hard to know where to begin. Connections between family and friends; music in one’s life and culture; stories and the recording of them; loss, grief and memory; the cost and the need of revolution – Madeleine Thien treats these with compassion, subtlety and ambiguity, but she leaves it for the reader to determine their significance.
Thien writes with emotional intensity that brings a reader into the character’s struggles, whether it’s in the nationalist war for the independence of China, a family victimized by politicized mobs in the “Cultural Revolution” or young people trying to correct the errors of the Communist Party at Tiananmen Square. In the context of these vast social movements, Thien also deals movingly with individuals trying to relate to each other as friends, family members and colleagues. And she explores the inner lives of her characters as they try to express themselves through stories, music, even mathematics.
For me, the themes about revolutionary change are among the most interesting, and unusual, in a novel. The great hardships of the war to free China from Japanese occupation, and then to install the Communist government, are the starting point of the novel’s histories. Music and stories help connect people and help them deal with the hardships. Skipping over the starvation of the “great leap forward,” the novel then takes up the “great proletarian cultural revolution.” We see this from the point of view of its victims, who are manipulated into destroying each other as political factions fight for control of the state. Here, revolution seems completely destructive down to the soul and psyche of those involved – much like the ultimate betrayal by Winston Smith in 1984. Music and stories are wiped out.
This gets reversed in the Tiananmen uprising, when we see the passion for change on the part of the students, and also of the residents of Beijing and throughout China. Again, this has extreme costs but Thien also brings the reader into the hopes and energies of those affected by the uprising, and shows the great creativity it unleashed in music and writing. (I found this section particularly fascinating, as it shows the involvement of ordinary people across China in supporting the students, something that I wasn’t aware of before. If it’s an accurate picture, it’s easy to see why the party bureaucracy repressed the Tiananmen revolt so viciously.)
This is where the title becomes clear – it seems to mean: Do not say we have nothing when we have our links to each other that keep us moving ahead, even when it seems we have nothing else.
Interweaving all of this makes for complex writing, so the book is a slow read. But Thien’s writing is so evocative, that I was happy to give it plenty of time. It’s both beautifully descriptive and allusive, so it’s worth a little contemplation to see what the writing reveals about the characters and the story. Like poetry, rushing through the text would miss its richness and meaning. Also, since it’s open to interpretation, I think every reader will take a different understanding of the story.
For example, the Book of Records is never explained, but it seems to represent both creativity and history, inspiring and connecting people, but repressed by the Party regime. Like the creativity of the musicians, its survival is the possibility of renewal in spite of censorship and repression.
Initially, I wasn’t sure I would like the book. But Thien’s storytelling is so engaging that she overcame my resistance, and I completely fell for the story. ( )

This book falls into the category of being both wonderful and challenging to read. It's very complex, and Thien definitely assumes her readers are smart enough to connect the many dots. It's lengthy, dense, and slow to read. That being said, I loved it. Her writing is so thought provoking, and I learned a lot about Chinese history. Frankly, I'm shocked this book didn't actually win the Man Booker prize over [b:The Sellout|22237161|The Sellout|Paul Beatty|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1403430899s/22237161.jpg|41610676].

A few tips if you decide to take this book on. First, Wikipedia has a family tree. Honestly, in the beginning it is a little hard to track the relationships. It's really not that hard once you get the hang of it, but it does distract you from the storyline when you keep thinking to yourself, "now who is that person's father?").

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Say_We_Have_Nothing#/media/File:Do_Not_Say_...

You're welcome.

Second, I really knew almost nothing (to the point of it being embarrassing) about Chinese history. Fortunately, my husband is like a living breathing history textbook able to provide a wonderful summation at a moment's notice. In case your spouse isn't, the link below is a very fast, easy reference about the time period in question. Well worth the five minutes it takes to read.

http://www.china-mike.com/chinese-history-timeline/part-14-mao-zedong/

So what's the book about? Everything. Love, loss, oppression, heroism, identity. It's epic in scope (covering three generations) and heartbreaking in its details. There's a thread of music woven throughout the story, and frankly I know little about classical music, but I'd love to re-read this and listen to some of the music referenced. I suspect that this book is one that would stand up very, very well to re-reading . . .now that I know the characters and how they fit together, I would be able to focus more on the language and other aspects of the book that make it so rich. ( )

Initially set in Canada, Li-Ling (aka Marie) tries to understand what led to her father’s suicide. This goal takes her back multiple generations to the Cultural Revolution in China. Her investigation is assisted by Ai-Ming, a young woman who has fled China in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square. These two young women find that their family histories are interconnected.

It is an ambitious undertaking, a sweeping story of two families with ties to Chinese musicians. During the Cultural Revolution, people in the arts became a target for “reeducation through labor.” It gets at the heart of the artist, trying to hold onto their love of music and art while surrounded by an increasingly restrictive society.

Thien writes beautifully, with an emotional intensity. It is not a quick or easy read and requires the reader’s focused attention to keep track of the many individuals, family relationships, and historical events. I was particularly riveted by the dramatic account of the Tiananmen Square protests. I appreciated the numerous references to classical music and literature.

It is a story of the impact of historical events on the individual, and the many types of tragedies they experienced. It is also a poignant story of trying to preserve the essence of that which makes life worth living. It is a story of great love and great loss. It is ultimately a story of refusing to accept the denial of self (such as self-expression, identity, prior allegiances, and personal interests) required by the Party. ( )

It was the best book of 2018 for me. In fact, it was so good that I read in September, and then in December 2018 started reading it again.

For some unfathomable reason I felt I needed this story in my life again, I needed Zhuli, and Sparrow, and Kai, and Marie, and Ai-ming, and all of its profound sadness.
And sad it is, painfully so. Sometimes when I was on my way to my reading nook, anticipating an hour or so of a quiet reading, I would remember which book exactly awaited me, and every time it broke my heart a little bit, because I knew what kind of story was there.

Partly, I think, it was so painful for me because it hit too close to home. I too was born in a communist state, my country too went through a horrible totalitarian regime (and still does, in a way, though in its 'lighter' version). The heartbreaking story of the communist China was much too similar to the story of my country in the 20th century, and too many people suffered and were lost forever here too. We also used to scream out the political slogans about our bright future and destroying the past, we used to hate and ruin our neighbours for having slightly more that we had, we believed in one crazy fantasy after another, forgetting (or not being able) to actually live for ourselves and just be human.

And no matter how many times I read about stuff like that, I always, still, feel this all-consuming fury at the country (whichever country it is) that at some point decided that it didn't exist for its people but the people existed for it. That they were nothing more than means to get whatever the hell the idiotic state decided it wanted to have.

But I digress.
The book is full of music and I know nothing about music. None. Nada. Ok, maybe something of Shostakovich and Prokofiev, because they are part of my culture, but still i'm mostly illiterate when it comes to classical music.

Anyways, for the first time round (for the first read it is, in September) I was too lazy to look up the musical pieces the author mentioned. I just kept reading on.

This time round I'm in no haste to get to the end anymore, so I pace myself and I actually LISTEN. And oh my god, it's like ten more layers opened up for me (each one sadder than the other) that I never knew were there.
The music really complements the story, guiding you emotionally through the feelings of our characters and different moments in their life.
One particular moment comes to mind right now. It's when Marie visits China and listens with Tofu Liu to that one existing record of Zhuli and Kai performing "From the Homeland". The first time I read it - I just read it. I understood how sad it was for Marie to listen to those long gone voices, to miss the father that would never return, to cry over their lost youth and shattered hopes. I realized all that, I did.
But this time, I also put the record on.
And I cannot tell you just how much it broke my heart, just how much it broke me. I didn't just understand all those things mentioned above - I felt them. In a way it was a horrible experience, but it made the book so, so much more deep and real and scary and amazing and universal and did i say real?..

I wouldn't say everyone must listen to the music mentioned in the book, I know it's often almost impossible to pause especially when the book is so, so captivating. But, I guess, if you have patience or you have time or you too read it for the second (or seventh) time, then maybe try to have the music accompany the story.
It will break your heart though, it definitely will. ( )

I could not get into this book, read 75 pages then I gave up.

4.0 stars
Started off slow, but I really got in to it. I have recently been listening to a lot of classical music, and this tied right in to that. Well written and thought provoking. Gave me a much better understanding of China in this time period. ( )

Fascinating. ( )

I picked up this book mainly because of its first line. One of the most powerful & beautiful first lines I’ve read in a book: “In a single year, my father left us twice,” spoken by Li-ling, or Marie who was living in Vancouver with her mother. In coming to terms her father’s suicide, a whole history of two families are unravelled, & along with them the heavy history in which they were inevitably tangled in. When Marie was younger, Ai-ming, a young woman escaping from the crackdown of the Tiananmen Square massacre came to live in their home. Both their fathers had loved each other, & it is this history that ties them together. Ai-ming would later go on to leave Vancouver & Marie would never see her again.

This is a sprawling book charting the memory & trajectory of 2 families in 3 generations as they live (& died) through key moments in China’s modern history — the great leap forward, the cultural revolution, the June 4th massacre, until today, when the party retains its image of communism while the country is also the navel of global capitalist production & surveillance technology.

I have to admit thought that I was quite tentative about how these political events were written about & it’s quite telling that friends from China did not quite appreciate its approach. I didn’t have this feeling with Han Kang’s “Human Acts” for e.g when she wrote about the Gwangju Massacre. I don’t really know how to articulate it.. perhaps it’s this discomfort we have when intensely political events are the backdrop of a story that is written about so aesthetically & beautifully, & in a way that is aligned with the politics of western liberal audiences.

The narrative & prose is very beautiful & considered as Thien’s prose is known to be. There is a running theme of great individual loss ultimately unseen by the larger narrative of history.

“What was a zero anyway? A zero signified nothing, all it did was tell you nothing about nothing. Still, wasn’t zero also something meaningful, a number in and of itself? In jianpu notation, zero indicated a caesura, a pause or rest of indeterminate length. Did time that went uncounted, unrecorded, still qualify as time? If zero was both everything and nothing, did an empty life have exactly the same weight as a full life? Was zero like the desert, both finite and infinite?”

So many people & their complexities are snuffed out throughout the novel, & it is portrayed in expectedly tragic form, especially with Zhuli’s suicide after the great trauma & violence she faced under the hand of red guards.

The people in the novel took great pains in order to preserve whatever, whoever they loved during these times. Wen the dreamer, Ai-ming’s great-uncle, had one of the most beautiful narratives in this novel (but of course.. it’s a love story). The Book of Records is a serial-type novel that he copies out by hand & had left behind chapter by chapter when he was courting his future wife Swirl. Later, when Swirl travelled great distances in order to find her husband who had escaped from a prison camp, she would print hundreds of copies of the book & place them in bookshops around the region he had escaped & left clues in the text as to where to find her.

After Wen the dreamer & Swirl were reunited, he wanted to continue the story in the Book of Records in an attempt to commit to pages the history of those who had died in the prison he was in. I had wondered if this book was a kind of intertextual, meta-fictional reference to the Thien’s novel itself & what it was perhaps attempting to do

"He would populate this fictional world with true names and true deeds. They would live on, as dangerous as revolutionaries but as intangible as ghosts. What new movement could the Party proclaim that would bring these dead souls into line? What crackdown could erase something that was hidden in plain sight?"

Chapters of these book of records will go on to be kept by Ai-ming’s mother in their house in Vancouver, the collection incomplete. It is because of these book of records, in part, that parts of their histories have not been cast up into forgetting. One of the main narratives of the novel is the deep companionship & love between two musicians Kai and Sparrow (oh the music in this book! I listened to the songs as I read sometimes.. what an experience. Classical music lovers would love the abundant references in the book. SO much of it). They were tied together by their love for music but had markedly different class backgrounds, which led to rather different decisions, and personal struggles when it came to where their allegiance may lie during the cultural revolution period. Kai grew up poor, & had only survived because he was taken away from his family into a professor’s home due to his gift for music.

These were musicians who loved each other but were separated due to where their political allegiance lied. In fact, Sparrow did not really even express an allegiance, he simply refused to fully accept the demands of the party, a demand that was too much — the denial of a person’s very self, the denial of expression of their own desires. Instead, they were only allowed to express what was permitted, to deny their own fulfilment if it was not in conformity to the party’s own aims. But anybody could be subject to the torment, there was no safety even if you had pledged yourself to the party.

But, child, when you’ve seen as much as I have, you realize the die is cast. The so-called ‘enemies of the People’ are the ones whose luck has run out, nothing more. One day the traitor is Shen Congwen, the next Guo Moruo. It they want to come for you, they will come, and it doesn’t matter what you read or what you failed to read. The books on your shelves, the music you cherish, the past lives you’ve lived, all these details are just an excuse.

Sparrow, the more talented of the two, would while away 20 years working in a radio factory while Kai performed for dignitaries & enjoyed a position in the party. Later, when Kai left China for Hong Kong, he would write for Sparrow to join him so that he could help Sparrow play music again. They wrote back & forth like this, with Kai always trying to find sparrow through the years, trying to coax him back to doing what their political circumstances had denied him. But Sparrow never made it to HK, having died in the June 4th massacre. And shortly after, Kai committed suicide. It’s implied that the two events are connected.

There was a bathos in having Kai’s daughter Li-ling (Marie) try to find each Sparrow’s daughter (Ai-Ming), just as Kai once searched for Sparrow, & just as Zhuli’s mother once traversed across the desert to find her Husband, Wen the dreamer. And there was bathos in how Marie tried to do this by sending out thousands of messages, poems, and songs into the deep, vast web in China, in hopes that Ai-ming might see it, & try to contact her, just as Swirl had once copied out hundreds of chapters by hand & left them across bookstores hoping that her husband might chance upon just one & use it to find her.

This is an interesting intermingle of stories, particularly in chasing down a family history, although I bogged down pretty hard in the middle. I think trimming a good 100 pages would have moved the narrative along. ( )

One of those books that is on a powerful subject that interests me but is written in a way I find difficult to become involved. ( )

This is the perfect book to simultaneously read both paper and audio editions. Chinese characters to see and Chinese pronunciation to hear. I did that with CDs through disc 3 of 17. If I had been able to download an audible file on my phone I’d have continued reading this way but the CDs slowed me down too much. When using them I had to read only when I was home and not too early or too late in the days. I read most of the book with only the hardcover. I think I might have liked the book better if I’d been able to read both editions throughout.

This is an incredibly ambitious novel. For me in some ways that worked and in some ways it didn’t.

I really enjoyed certain aspects of this book. I learned a lot of Chinese history. I loved how music as a subject was included. I loved how the three musicians related to their life experiences via music. I loved the “big picture” of how people were affected by events. I appreciated the family tree in the front of the book. I liked when in addition to the English text other things were included such as Chinese characters, photos, and more. I thought much of the story was beautifully written.

Reading this was a slog for me though. It felt way too easy to put it down and read other books and do other things. It wasn’t the back and forth timelines & character groups as I often think that works well in multigenerational tales. I just didn’t connect with the people as individuals as much as I would have expected. When I read about happenings I cared greatly about the People but not THAT much about the people, the characters in the book. I felt some sort of distance with them. I also didn’t like how one thing seemed important and then absent and then not resolved. I sometimes like open endings and I had my opinion of what happened with this one, but somehow the story still felt incomplete to me, or at least unsatisfying.

3-1/2 stars ( )

Three different responses to the Cultural Revolution, which upended the lives of three talented musicians. Jiang Kai chose to join the authorities to be able to continue pursuing his music, Sparrow did what he was asked to and became a factory worker, Zhuli chose to die (to preserve what she had, I think). All of them met with tragic endings. I remember crying buckets at Zhuli's death. This silly girl did not even give herself a chance. ( )

It is rare that this happens so pay attention: I am speechless.

There is nothing I can say.

This is an absolute stunning work of beauty.

I sobbed for the last 50 pages, and most of the time, I wasn't quite sure why.

This book broke me, and somehow managed to put me back together.

Utterly broken, yet still full of hope.

And that is the story of Do Not Say We Have Nothing. ( )

This was a book club book and I am quitting at page 66. I was finding it a bit hard going and then it got disturbing on top of that. Not for me...

A very engrossing read. May be a little over written but the prose is very rich. The book is filled with ideas that I could mull over for weeks. ( )

The writing is beautiful, dreamy, and poetic, which is a treat. The subject matter is not new to me, but this is the best telling of the cultural revolution I have read so far. ( )

This book deserves more than five stars because it is in a league of its own. Thien writes with the insight and keen, careful observation of a fly on the wall of history. And yet, her words carry such breadth and depth and significance, it's as though she were floating high above her characters and watching the story unfold in the context of the universe. Historical fiction, generational saga—none of the standard depictions do justice to this masterful piece of creative beauty. The words practically sing and each component of this book has a life of its own. My thoughts are all jumbled here because I am so deeply impressed by this work, I don't even know how to begin reviewing it. ( )

I wanted to love this book so much. There's no question that Madeleine Thien has written a brilliant novel, but I'm not connecting with the style of writing here. ( )

Not an easy book to read - I never felt compelled to keep reading, and I preferred the Vancouver story to the China story. However, it is a well-written book and addresses a time and place in history I knew little about, so I appreciate the opportunity to be educated on the oppression by Mao and others. What could the peole do?? There isn't a sense of hopelessness in the characters, though, and it is interesting to see how each one deals with the situation differently. Definitely worth discussion in a book club or classroom! ( )

I found this more informative than moving - which probably says more about gaps in my knowledge than anything else. That said, the wider horrors of Mao's regime overshadowed the characters, and the Tiananmen denoument was oddly flat. ( )

Much like when I read The Historian, I was unable to decide if what I was reading was fiction or nonfiction. (Of course, there were no vampires in this book so maybe this isn't the best comparison except for the way they both made me feel.) I couldn't put down Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien despite how much I sometimes wanted to in order to spare myself further heartbreak. This is the story of those who lived through China's Cultural Revolution and their successors a world away in Canada...at least a tiny little slice. Our main characters rotate between Sparrow, Kai, and Zhuli who lived during Mao Zedong's reign of terror, Ai-Ming who took part in the demonstrations of Tiananmen Square, and Marie who wants to piece everything together in present day Canada. This is also about music and its power to lift the soul or to mire it in secrets. A lot of sensitive topics are touched on in this book including but not limited to torture, public humiliation, and sexual assault. This is not just a work of historical fiction but also a mystery about people, events, and a book that keeps resurfacing. Intricately woven with details which seem to make the story come to life in vivid color right before your eyes this book is one that I think everyone should experience. This is the hallmark of excellent historical fiction. 10/10 ( )

The 2016 ScotiaBank Giller prizewinner is a gem of a book. 'Do Not Say We Have Nothing' takes the reader from modern day Vancouver, back to China of the 1960's through the Cultural Revolution and to the uprising at Tianamen Square. This is not always an easy book to read. Sometimes I found the timelines confusing and sometimes I had to struggle to work out who was who. However, the writing is beautiful. Every day when I picked the book up, I had to remind myself of where I was in the narrative, but whenever I put the book down my thought was, 'This is such a good book!'. The section on the Tianamen Square uprising, in particular, was so vividly engrossing and I could imagine myself on the sidelines in the students' struggle. I have put this book aside to read again - it just won't let me go. ( )

I enjoyed and got totally caught up in this multi-generational story of life in China during the cultural revolution and the Tianamen Square uprising. The book made me think about identity. Most of the characters are musicians, where their work and their creativity are one and the same. And what if your music -- your very sense of yourself -- is not allowed? Or if you are told you will have a different job? It makes me appreciate the accomplishments of individual people in such a regime.

The book also made me think about freedom. When so much of your life -- your work, where you live, where your spouse lives -- is controlled, it must be hard for those who leave such a regime (say, by emigrating) to adjust to the kind of freedom we enjoy in Canada. The very lack of oppression here can be a burden to some extent -- at least for a while.

Great writing, strong characters....well worth reading. ( )

This is an extraordinary novel and I feel bad that I speed-read it because I am reviewing an earlier novel of hers and needed to immerse myself in her work. So I promise to go back to you, great novel!

Yes, it's too long and I'm not sure the frame works - the family in
Vancouver and Marie. But the story that takes place in Shanghai and Beijing and the way that the Cultural Revolution rips apart this family is so well told and goes really deep emotionally. I loved it. The narrative has a way of repeating and spiralling around itself - I can't explain it and I''m not even sure how she did it but it's pretty incredible.

The set piece of the events in Tienanmen Sq is a tour de force.

If you haven't read it, you should. And I promise to read it again. ( )