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The Eye of Jade
by Diane Wei Liang
Reviewed by Shahbano Bilgrami
According to her mother and younger sister, sharp-featured Wang Mei is a failure: in her thirties and still unmarried, the fiercely-independent Mei resigns from her prestigious job in the Ministry for Public Security amid a cloud of speculation and joins China's newly--emerging entrepreneurial class. Her choice of business and her method of operation are as unconventional as her lifestyle: despite the laws against it, she opens a private detective agency, hires a male assistant from the provinces, and roams the streets of Beijing in her red Mitsubishi solving crime. Difficult to get along with and uncompromising in her ideals, Mei's reputation for arrogance precedes her.
A refreshingly unconventional, surprisingly introspective work, Diane Wei Liang's The Eye of Jade is the first in a proposed series of books focusing on Wang Mei and her adventures in a modern China still grappling with the legacy of a turbulent past. In this first book, Uncle Chen, an old family friend, asks Mei to help locate a rare Han dynasty jade that mysteriously disappeared from a museum during the Cultural Revolution and is now at risk of being sold to unscrupulous international buyers. With few leads to fall back on, Mei's search takes her all over Beijing, from the mirrored halls and designer stores of the fancy Lufthansa Centre to the back alleys, brothels, and slums of the shadier parts of the city. As she comes closer to discovering the truth, she realizes that the disappearance of the jade has more to do with her own personal history than she ever imagined possible.
Like the history of her nation, Mei's past is shadowed by the events of the Cultural Revolution. Her father, an intellectual and writer, was left to die in a labour camp while she and her sister were released with the help of their mother, Ling Bai. After his death, her mother burned his possessions, leaving Mei with just a portrait to remember her father by: "She didn't show anyone the photo, nor did she talk about her father. It was her secret, her pain and her love." The loss of her father shapes Mei's character, as does an abortive romance while still at university. Her embattled personality is in sharp contrast to her superlatively beautiful though slightly selfish younger sister, Lu, who has married rich and fulfilled her mother's hopes. The tension between Mei and her mother runs deeper than this, however, and the mystery of the missing jade holds the key to the past.
This tension between the generations is also manifest in Liang's description of the city of Beijing, which not only forms the backdrop to the novel but is almost a character in its own right. In the novel, Beijing is a city in transition -- its crowded traffic-ridden thoroughfares spiraling outwards to slums as well as new luxury high rises. Liang's simple yet evocative descriptions of the city give the novel a quiet grace. This passage, with its contrasts, is particularly effective:
Interestingly enough, China has a venerable history of detective fiction, dating back to Bao Gong An, a mystery novel written during the Ming dynasty. While The Eye of Jade may not satisfy a die-hard fan of the genre because the case of the missing artifact is not as fully developed as Mei's own family secrets, the book itself, with its restrained, oblique yet evocative style, will be immensely enjoyable to anyone who appreciates good fiction.
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Shahbano Bilgrami's first novel, 'Without Dreams', was published in November 2007 and was longlisted for the 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize.
by Diane Wei Liang
Reviewed by Shahbano Bilgrami
According to her mother and younger sister, sharp-featured Wang Mei is a failure: in her thirties and still unmarried, the fiercely-independent Mei resigns from her prestigious job in the Ministry for Public Security amid a cloud of speculation and joins China's newly--emerging entrepreneurial class. Her choice of business and her method of operation are as unconventional as her lifestyle: despite the laws against it, she opens a private detective agency, hires a male assistant from the provinces, and roams the streets of Beijing in her red Mitsubishi solving crime. Difficult to get along with and uncompromising in her ideals, Mei's reputation for arrogance precedes her.
A refreshingly unconventional, surprisingly introspective work, Diane Wei Liang's The Eye of Jade is the first in a proposed series of books focusing on Wang Mei and her adventures in a modern China still grappling with the legacy of a turbulent past. In this first book, Uncle Chen, an old family friend, asks Mei to help locate a rare Han dynasty jade that mysteriously disappeared from a museum during the Cultural Revolution and is now at risk of being sold to unscrupulous international buyers. With few leads to fall back on, Mei's search takes her all over Beijing, from the mirrored halls and designer stores of the fancy Lufthansa Centre to the back alleys, brothels, and slums of the shadier parts of the city. As she comes closer to discovering the truth, she realizes that the disappearance of the jade has more to do with her own personal history than she ever imagined possible.
Like the history of her nation, Mei's past is shadowed by the events of the Cultural Revolution. Her father, an intellectual and writer, was left to die in a labour camp while she and her sister were released with the help of their mother, Ling Bai. After his death, her mother burned his possessions, leaving Mei with just a portrait to remember her father by: "She didn't show anyone the photo, nor did she talk about her father. It was her secret, her pain and her love." The loss of her father shapes Mei's character, as does an abortive romance while still at university. Her embattled personality is in sharp contrast to her superlatively beautiful though slightly selfish younger sister, Lu, who has married rich and fulfilled her mother's hopes. The tension between Mei and her mother runs deeper than this, however, and the mystery of the missing jade holds the key to the past.
This tension between the generations is also manifest in Liang's description of the city of Beijing, which not only forms the backdrop to the novel but is almost a character in its own right. In the novel, Beijing is a city in transition -- its crowded traffic-ridden thoroughfares spiraling outwards to slums as well as new luxury high rises. Liang's simple yet evocative descriptions of the city give the novel a quiet grace. This passage, with its contrasts, is particularly effective:
- Like any other city, Beijing seemed more romantic at night. Newly erected business towers illuminated the skyline with wondrous expectations. The windows of run-down matchboxes were now lit up with the promise of love and affection. The last street vendors were shutting up, packing barrel stoves and wooden stools onto flatbed carts and pushing them with bent backs to the rat-infested rooms they shared with other migrant workers. Their faces lit up with the thought of warmth, beds and hometowns. Half-empty buses hummed nostalgically down narrow lanes. Night was like a magic brush, blacking out all the ugliness so that the hour of love and longing could unfold.
Interestingly enough, China has a venerable history of detective fiction, dating back to Bao Gong An, a mystery novel written during the Ming dynasty. While The Eye of Jade may not satisfy a die-hard fan of the genre because the case of the missing artifact is not as fully developed as Mei's own family secrets, the book itself, with its restrained, oblique yet evocative style, will be immensely enjoyable to anyone who appreciates good fiction.
--
Shahbano Bilgrami's first novel, 'Without Dreams', was published in November 2007 and was longlisted for the 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize.
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