The Binding Chair or, A Visit from the Foot Emancipation Society

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 show more 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". show less

Poignant, tormenting....The writing was artful, but a bit "uneven", some parts dragged on, while others were fascinating. The description of intimate scenes was too detailed for my taste, and I think the book, otherwise skillfully written, suffered from it... And, frankly, I will never understand (neither from female nor from male perspective) this cruel Chinese custom of feet binding...

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.

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.

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.

I picked this book up as I was drawn by the blurb on the back which indicated that it would tell the tale of a Chinese orphan escaping her tradition-bound life which incorporated foot binding to create a new existence. However I struggled to like any of the characters and only finished it because I forced myself to persevere. Very disappointing

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.