Three Souls in Around the World

Mar 05, 2014 Lilisa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: around-the-world-2014, 2014, china

First-time novelist Janie Chang deploys an intriguing literary treatment that is effective and engaging. Leiyin, the main character is dead and she’s watching her own funeral and the mourning of her six-year old daughter and husband from high above as she’s being buried. As the priests finish their chanting, she encounters three bright sparks and realizes that these are her three souls – the yin, the yang and the hun – who inform her that her ascendancy into the afterlife ready for reincarnation First-time novelist Janie Chang deploys an intriguing literary treatment that is effective and engaging. Leiyin, the main character is dead and she’s watching her own funeral and the mourning of her six-year old daughter and husband from high above as she’s being buried. As the priests finish their chanting, she encounters three bright sparks and realizes that these are her three souls – the yin, the yang and the hun – who inform her that her ascendancy into the afterlife ready for reincarnation cannot happen until she makes good on the wrong she’s done in her real life. Thus begins an artfully crafted novel that takes us back in time to Leiyin’s life and we learn of her family, her love of books, her strong personality, her desire to pursue higher education, her crush on a handsome, left-wing writer and translator that leads her into dangerous political waters – all to be squashed as she defies her father and pays the ultimate price – being married off to an uneducated man in Pinghu, a small town south of Shanghai. The dialogue is seamless between Leiyin and her three souls as the story unfolds taking Leiyin back in time; at the same time the “dead” Leiyin watches herself from afar with her three souls and provides colorful commentary on how the young Leiyin handles herself and others involved in Leiyin’s life – it’s essentially “Monday night quarterbacking” on one’s past life – an intriguing phenomenon many of us do anyway but not with the luxury of real-time review. I found this writing technique rather brilliant and effective. Loved the easy banter between the three souls as well - it made them almost human!

I won’t be surprised if there’s a second novel which will be about Leiyin’s daughter Weilan. Prior to the epilogue..here's Leiyin's ruminations: “And yet. And yet…That’s how I know there’s more to do….Weilan’s life is still in danger.”

While Three Souls is historical fiction set in pre-World War II, Chang based many of the characters in her book on family members, particularly her grandparents and great-grandparents. Her paternal grandmother was the model for Leiyin, the main character in the book. Like Leiyin, Chang’s paternal grandmother was from a wealthy and well-educated family and trapped in the fettered chains of traditional Chinese culture and social norms – where women were bartered in exchange for dowries and marriages, leading them to lives of service to their husbands and in-laws. An engaging book that helps us understand the life and times of pre-World War China and the social, cultural and political turmoil that accompanied those times. The common Chinese belief of afterlife and the impacts of how a good life led on earth influences what and how one is reincarnated in the next life is the foundation of this absorbing and rather amazing first-time novel. (P.S. - I keep thinking of additional comments...this is a great book for a book group discussion - plenty of meaty topics to sink your teeth into.)
...more

8 likes · Like · see review

Apr 11, 2014 Neila rated it it was amazing

This is a book really worth reading!

1 like · Like · see review

Aug 14, 2014 Renae rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: genre-historical, setting-china, read-in-2014

I’m not quite sure what to think about this book. It’s very, very well-written, and the story is engaging and haunting throughout. Afterlife-type books aren’t traditionally my go-to (see If I Stay), but Janie Chang’s Three Souls is really quite lovely. At the same time, I did get a tad bit bored in the middle section.

This novel has two major sections, plus a fairly open-ended epilogue. The first thing we learn is that Chang’s protagonist, Leiyin, has just died, but is not allowed to go on to the ...more

Like · see review