Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar (2012)by Suzanne Joinson
Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Loved, loved this. Two stories, separated in time. Bit of genius. Really. ( ) Una conmovedora historia sobre mujeres aventureras y sobre la vida en un rincón remoto de la Ruta de la Seda a principios del siglo XX. En 1923, Evangeline English, una entusiasta dama ciclista, y su hermana Lizzie llegan a Kashgar, en la Ruta de la Seda, para ayudar a establecer una misión cristiana. Mientras las dos intentan adaptarse a su nuevo hogar, Eva empieza a trabajar en su libro, GuÃa de Kashgar para damas ciclistas. En el Londres de hoy en dÃa, una joven, Frieda, se encuentra a un hombre durmiendo en el portal de su casa una noche y le proporciona una manta. A la mañana siguiente se ha ido, pero en la pared hay un dibujo exquisito y una lÃnea de escritura en árabe. Y es justo entonces cuando Frieda descubre que es la heredera de una dama a quien no conoce. A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar by Suzanne Joinson is a dual time story with one part of the novel being set in 1923 as we follow the misadventures of three women missionaries. They disrupt the birth of a child on the side of the road, and, when the young mother dies, find themselves under house arrest in the city of Kashgar, which is one of the westernmost cities of China. They are looked upon with great suspicion mostly because they are three unaccompanied, unveiled women. While all three are there as Christian missionaries, it soon becomes clear that Eva, the narrator, cares less about religion than she does about the travelling and exploring of new places. She plans on writing a book, a guide for women on bicycling. The second part of the narrative takes us to present-day London. Frieda is an academic researcher who has been having an affair with a married man for quite some time. She finds herself involved in the immigrant underground when she befriends Tayeb, a sensitive artist from Yeman who is a homeless illegal immigrant. When Frieda finds that she has inherited the possessions of a woman she didn’t know, she and Tayeb work together to investigate the connection. Other than the shared themes of love, loss and redemption, it isn’t obvious why or how these two stories are connected. Both narrators are childless women, both apparently love to ride bicycles, although there is very little actual cycling done, and both are embarking on a voyage of self-discovery. Eventually a link is established, but by that time I was already totally involved in both story-lines and carried away by both adventures. This is a debut novel and I find myself a fan of this author who supplied exotic locales, descriptive imagery and unusual but relatable characters. A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar was an enjoyable read and I will be looking for more by this author. I can't imagine going to Kashgar even now (it is very remote) but to go as part of a team of three women missionaries from England in 1923 seems very brave. Of course, this is a novel; although there were European missionaries who went to Kashgar in the early 1900s none of them appear to have been women. So I guess this story is more fantasy than based on reality. I did have to suspend my disbelief at times. Eva English travelled with her sister Lizzie and her sister's mentor Millicent from England to Kashgar (now situated in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China) to act as missionaries to bring Christianity to the primarily Muslim region. In addition to being viewed with suspicion because they were Christian and female when they helped a young Muslim girl give birth which resulted in her death they were placed under house arrest. Eva was given the task of looking after the infant girl who survived the birth. Ai-Lien, as Eva called her, must have been strong since she survived illness, lack of food and water, changes in milk, and long hours of travel. Millicent was not worried about the house arrest and she continued to try to convert women she encountered. While all this was going on in Kashgar the Muslims in other areas were rebelling against the Chinese government. A male missionary visited them and urged them to leave Kashgar but Millicent refused to do so. There is a parallel story set in the present day in London. Frieda has been contacted by the housing authority because she is the next of kin named by Irene Guy, a woman who has just died. Frieda has a week to remove any belongings from Irene's apartment; the problem is that Frieda has never heard of Irene Guy and she must find and confront her own mother to learn about Irene. Of course, the reader can easily deduce that Irene Guy is the same as the infant Ai-Lien. Frieda's examination of her apartment gives us the full story of what happened to Eva and Ai-Lien. It was interesting to read this book in the latter part of 2019 because the Uygar people are in the news as a result of China imprisoning thousands of the Muslim Uygars. It seems the tensions in that area keep on. A story of adventurous women in the past and in the present. Eva travels the Silk Road pretending at missionary work but really wanting to experience a faraway place. Present day international researcher Freida unravels Eva’s story for us as she learns about her family and discovers her own rootlessness along with Tate’s, an illegal immigrant. Novel has lots of good points but a bit to general in nature. Not sure about the ending. no reviews | add a review
Awards
Fiction.
Literature.
HTML: It is 1923. Evangeline (Eva) English and her sister Lizzie are missionaries heading for the ancient city of Kashgar on the Silk Road. Though Lizzie is on fire with her religious calling, Evaâ??s motives are not quite as noble, but with her green bicycle and a commission from a publisher to write A Lady Cyclistâ??s Guide to Kashgar, she is ready for adventure. No library descriptions found.
|
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |