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Loading... The Binding Chair or, A Visit from the Foot Emancipation Society (2000)by Kathryn Harrison
There are three stories in this book - that of May, a former prostitute with bound feet who married an Australian expat in Shanghai, her niece Alice and Suzanne Petroska. I found May's story to be exceptionally compelling and really enjoyed reading about her life. However, as other have mentioned, when the story strayed to her niece or Suzanne, it lost some its magic. I think the author was trying to make us understand May and Alice's relationship by showing it from both sides, but in the end both came off an unsympathetic. (  ) elleceetee | Apr 8, 2013 |  The hook was the title - perhaps a glimpse into the secret world of Chinese culture in times not too long gone by. The protagonist with her tiny feet and huge greed was quite a fascinating character, but when the focus changed to her extremely boring niece going to school it seemed the author had run out of steam and the book died for me. I tried several times to get back into it, but in the end, despite the pretty cover looking at me from the bedside table, gave it up. (  ) Petra.Xs | Apr 2, 2013 | Essentially, this is the story of Mae who is married to a silk merchant and is his fourth wife, she flees him to a life in a Shanghai brothel, which is preferable to her married life. In 1899 she meets and marries an Australian called Arthur. The time line does flit from past to present, which I found in part irritating,but nonetheless,I continued to read.The ending is both dramatic and unexpected. ( ) AnglersRest | Dec 8, 2012 | May is a Chinese woman of the late 19th century, whose feet were bound to make her more attractive to a husband. But May escapes her fate and becomes instead a high-price prostitute in shnaghai. I enjoyed the compelling, complex characters in this novel. The setting is vivid, the imagery is great; there is some humour which relieves the sometimes gloomy subject matter. The pain of bound feet reflects the inner pain of the heroine. Recommended to lovers of quality historical fiction. (  ) Sheiladalton | Sep 3, 2011 | My review from May 29, 2003: An Amy Tan story without Amy Tan charisma! I love reading novels about Asian culture and I have read all of Amy Tan's books as well as such masterpieces as "Memoirs of a Geisha". This book,while seemingly well-written and promising at its onset, left me flat (and slightly confused and depressed) at the end. I found that while the general ideas of family relationships and Chinese cultures explored in this tale were somewhat akin to those topics explored by Amy Tan (one of my favorite authors), the characterization and story line lacked Amy Tan's depth. May was the protagonist whose life seemed to begin with the cruel yet traditional binding of her feet when she was 5-years-old in China. If anything, Ms. Harrison brings to light the cruelty of this practice as well as Western ignorance of Asian culture. The foot binding was the only time I really felt sympathy toward May. ...And I didn't find Alice or any of the other characters terribly likable either. If you are craving literature dealing with Eastern Culture of the past and present, better to stick with books like "The Bonesetter's Daughter", "The Kitchen God's Wife", or "Memoirs of a Geisha". (  ) KindleKapers | Apr 22, 2011 | no reviews | add a review
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May, a young Chinese woman, suffers the brutal ritual of foot binding at the turn of the last century. The book follows May from a bad marriage (think Raise the Red Lantern) to Shanghai, "the infamous city of danger and opportunity." May--either despite or because of her foot's deformity--is considered a woman of astonishing beauty. "Each part of May, her cuticles and wristbones and earlobes, the blue-white luminous hollow between her clavicles, inspired the same conclusion: that to assemble her had required more than the usual workaday genius of biology." Her beauty, her fetishistically bound feet, and her quick mastery of a handful of languages earn her a pile of money and finally a Western husband.
May develops a close relationship with her husband's Jewish family, especially with her unruly niece Alice. Harrison's scrupulously researched novel follows the two of them from Shanghai to London and back again, encountering along the way a colorful cast of women who've all suffered a disfigurement, mental or physical, that echoes May's. Finally several of the women come together in Nice, where each works out her destiny. The Binding Chair is far-flung, geographically and emotionally, and never quite coalesces, but perhaps the author was intentionally seeking to make a story about the Chinese and the Jews that has a feeling of diaspora. You've got to hand it to Harrison. Most writers, upon developing a fascination with Shanghai, would write a nice article for Travel & Leisure and have done with it. Kathryn Harrison has forged an ambitious novel. --Claire Dederer
(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:42:57 -0500)
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