Last Days and Last Letters

Peking Story: The Last Days of Old China by David Kidd

I doubt I would have heard of this book were it not for the fact that David Bowie has it itemised on his list of 100 good reads.  And this list might not have come to my attention had not the death of David Bowie in January this year given rise to the publication of that book list.  There the book is listed as All The Emperor’s Horses .  What we know about the author is that he has taught Transcendental Meditation for twenty-eight years. He has been an environmental activist for nearly twenty-five years, and a vegetarian for thirty. He lives in Canton, Ohio.

From photographs in the book we can also see that Bowie carries a certain resemblance to Kidd.

Here is what Kirkus Reviews has to say about the novel, under the title of All the Emperor's Horses.  "Set in Peking during the first days of Mao's entry into official power, this is a personal, and delicate depiction of what to some is a disaster, to others a deliverance. The author, an American university professor, marries Aimee, the daughter of an ex-justice of the Chinese supreme court, just as the entire order from which springs her dignity and grace is receiving its death blow. Like the crumbling mansion so vital to Buddhist mythology, the palatial home of the Yus quickly succumbs as the various members of Aimee Yu's family go about finding a way of survival within the new order of things. The author, highly suspect as an American and as a member of the aristocratic Yu menage is, himself, subject to scrutiny and even arrest, although with comic rather than dire results. Throughout his ordeal he maintains a perspective on the situation which admits nostalgia, awe, and humour. David Kidd writes with restrained composure. The atmosphere he evokes is strong, exercising a poignant effect on the senses. He is discreet and despite the chain of lamentable events he reveals-- often with humour--one does not feel that a political judgment is being made. Here, rather, is a picture of a world in transition, a world which, under the scrutiny of the author, emerges rich, refreshing and real. "

Last Letters from Hav by Jan Morris was my choice to fulfil a category on the BookRiot Read Harder Challenge.  (Read a work either by or about a transsexual.)  Jan Morris is a  is a Welsh transgender historian, author and travel writer. Last Letters from Hav is a narrative account of the author's six-month visit to the fictional country of Hav.

The novel is written in the form of travel literature. The work is structured in an episodic format with each chapter corresponding to a month spent in Hav. Hav itself is imagined to be a cosmopolitan small independent peninsula located somewhere in the eastern Mediterranean. The novel proceeds with little in the way of connecting plot but contains several episodes describing the author's subjective experience in Hav. The author narrates a string of evocative episodes including visiting a languid casino, a courteous man claiming to be the true Caliph, watching a city-wide roof race, and a visit to the mysterious British agency. The novel concludes with the author's invited visit to a strange ritual conclave where she observes several cowled men whom she thinks she might recognize as her acquaintances from her time in Hav. The author then recounts the rise of strange and ill-defined tensions in the country. The author decides to leave the country amidst the growing unrest. On the last line of the novel the author writes that she could, from the train station, see warships approaching on the horizon.

The title appeared on the Man Booker Shortlist as a work of fiction, which it is.  However such is the vivid account of the imagined Hav - just look at the book cover image - that the book really does have the feel of a travelogue, a first-hand account of the author's visit to that country.