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Article: The Middle Heart. (book reviews)
- Article from:
- Insight on the News
- Article date:
- April 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 News World Communications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The story of 20th-century China is a tragedy of nearly incomprehensible proportions, an imposing challenge for any writer. Bette Bao Lord, author of the best-selling 1981 novel Spring Moon, has chosen a sentimental approach to the task in The Middle Heart (Knopf, 370 pp), which follows the lives of three friends through cataclysmic events that wrenched China into the modern world.
The year is 1920: Steel Hope, the second son of the patriarch of the crumbling house of Li, participates in a centuries-old ceremony; he must choose among several icons placed before him -- a sword, a hoe, an official's seal -- and his choice will determine his future. Instead of grasping ...