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Empress Orchid

By Anchee Min

(30)

| Others | 9780747579922

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Critics

Behind the wall

Empress Orchid by Anchee Min 336pp, Bloomsbury, £9.99 Cixi, the last empress of China from 1856 to 1908, is one of those historical figures people love to be nasty about. Soon after her death, Edmund Blackhouse, a charlatan foreign correspondent, for ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

The Best Reviews: Anchee Min, Empress Orchid

"A work that makes you feel" In the middle of the nineteenth century, seventeen years old Orchid accompanies her aristocratic clan to Beijing to inter her deceased father. Meanwhile the Emperor Hsien Feng decrees that he seeks a wife who must have ro ... (read full critics)

thebestreviews published on Thu, 16 Sep 2010

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1 Review

Empress Orchid

During the last days of the Ching dynasty and the opium wars of the nineteenth century Orchid a young girl from an aristocratic but impoverished family auditions to become one of Emperor Hsien Feng’s concubines. She does this to escape marriage with an unsuitable cousin and rescue her family from po ... (continue)

During the last days of the Ching dynasty and the opium wars of the nineteenth century Orchid a young girl from an aristocratic but impoverished family auditions to become one of Emperor Hsien Feng’s concubines. She does this to escape marriage with an unsuitable cousin and rescue her family from poverty. She successfully gains a position not just as one of the Emperor’s three thousand concubines, but as wife number four. A prestigious position in the hierarchy, but one that still does not bring her close enough to Hsien Feng to attract his attentions. Orchid learns how to satisfy a man sexually just so that she can bribe her way into the royal bed!
Successfully giving birth to the Emperor’s only son does not however bring Orchid the happiness she hoped for. She continues to feel very dissatisfied with the restrictive life she is forced to live within the walls of the Forbidden City, surrounded by the other royal wives, concubines and enuchs within a web of conspiracies and jealousies. Hsein Feng dies at a very young age and Orchid along with another wife Nuharoo become Empress’s to support her son the young child Emperor Tung Chih.
Maybe the author has twisted the historical facts, but this is a novel and an enjoyable way to learn something about the history of China.
It gives us an interesting account of life in the royal court at the time, described in intricate detail, even the colour schemes of the décor! My only real disappointments were that the characters lacked depth and that the story ended when Orchid was only thirty. However what the characters lacked the very vivid descriptions of life style certainly made up for. Some I found rather disturbing such as the description of the indignities that Orchid underwent during her interview. Then very much later in the book (page 316) One-cough’s description of how to perform a successful beheading.
To summarise Ancheee Mins fictional novel based on historical facts about a strong independent young woman, who goes on to become a famous historical figure is fascinating.

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Lindyloumac said on Aug 28, 2009 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback