Empress Orchid

Empress Orchid is a historical novel covering the first 15 years of the last empress of China, Empress Dowager Cixi's, reign. Before reading this book I knew nothing about Cixi and her legacy. I discovered a world of ritual, wealth, power, deceit and sorrow that existed in the Forbidden City for hundreds of years. I find it infuriating that historically, women in power lives' and personalities are lambasted and spun so as to create a negative and inaccurate portrayal of who they really were. In Empress Orchid and its follow up novel The Last Empress Anchee Min attempts to deconstruct the elaborate lies surround Cixi's reign and portray her as the woman she really was.

Cixi, or Orchid, is the daughter of a minor Manchu noble whose family lost almost everything when her father passed away. In order to save her family from desolation, Orchid presents herself to the Emperor of China, along with thousands of other young women,to be chosen as one of his concubines.  Surprisingly, Orchid is chosen as the fourth wife out of seven. She believes that she is lucky because as wife, unlike the Emperor's hundreds of concubines, she has a chance at winning his heart and bearing him a son. She quickly learns that not everything is at it seems in the Forbidden City, and that love and honesty is not enough to get by. Instead, she must depend on her own cunning, will and passion in order climb to the top of power and gain the Emperors attention. She does this all whilst navigating a social and political minefield where one wrong step can lead to death. 

After finishing Empress Orchid  I delved deeper into Cixi's history and was surprised by what I found. Apparently, it is a widely held belief in modern day China that Cixi was an evil woman and that she was responsible for China's embarrassing defeat in the Boxer Rebellion and the era of foreign spheres of power. I found it hard to believe that she was as horrible as these claims, so I searched harder for more accurate accounts. Within the past decade or so historians have begun to uncover information that proves that she wasn't as horrible a person or ruler as some would like us to believe. Foreign powers published many slanderous accounts of the Empress, so as to justify invading China and taking huge spheres of trade, land, money and power. Many historians believe that if it wasn't for Cixi's leadership, China would have fallen to foreign powers and internal discord much sooner. I plan on trying to find more historically accurate accounts of Cixi when I get a chance to drag myself to the UB library.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

OK, so almost everyone has at least heard of the Millennium trilogy. They've been so heavily promoted that you would be hard pressed to find someone who hasn't read one of the books. There have been movies made in Sweden for all three, and the American versions are the in the works. I get it, everyone loves them. What I am about to say may seem like a shock but I might be the only person in the entire world that thought they were only so-so. There I said it! I'm sure to be marked as a literary pariah for admitting it, but I can't lie. I struggled through the first one, I hardly remember any of the second and the third was just 'eh' to me. The only parts that I really enjoyed were from Lisbeth's point of view. I think that the other characters, Blomkvist, Berger, etc. are  unbelievable and  downright annoying. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest just helped to solidify my opinion of the series. Much of the book is spent mucking around in legal issues and following various police officers who in my mind were so similar as to be interchangeable. Meanwhile, Blomkvist is trying to help vindicate Lisbeth, while banging multiple ladies during his free time. Berger is, as always, a powerful woman with a sketchy sexual background that Larsson never misses a chance to remind us of. Lisbeth remains as the only character that I don't find unbelievable or predictable.

It seems obvious to me that Larsson lived vicariously through Mikael Blomkvist. Even though Blomkvist is middle aged and not extremely fit or atractive, he constantly has younger attractive women throwing themselves at him. He is able to have a regular sex buddy on the side, (Erika Berger) who he has been sleeping with for over 20 years without any strings attached. He always finds himself in the middle of a huge story that will put him on top. Not to mention he is BORING. Maybe I am biased but I can't stand him. I find myself rolling my eyes or laughing at how transparent Larsson is being whenever I read Blomkvist's portions of the book. If he's not having sex with random women, he's sitting around brooding while drinking black coffee, eating sandwiches and smoking excessively.

All rants about Blomkvist aside, Larsson's saving grace is Lisbeth Salander. Considering she was created by a man, Lisbeth is an believable and intriguing female lead. She is completely unpredictable which gives the series the kick it needs to stay interesting. As a reader you are always on Lisbeth's side, making her story all the more exciting. She is the only character that I actually care about.  It's really a pity that Larsson wasn't able to complete the series because I read in a interview with his girlfriend that the 4th book was going to explain all of Lisbeth's tattoos.

Read the series for Lisbeth, it's worth mucking around in the other characters' stories for her part alone.