The Book Stacks

Soon after arriving in China in 1854, the “godfather of China’s modernism” Robert Hart falls in love with Ayaou, but his feelings for her sister go against the teachings of his Christian upbringing and almost break him emotionally. To survive he must learn how to live and think like the Chinese.

He also finds himself thrust into the second bloodiest conflict in history, the Taiping Rebellion, where he ends up making enemies of men such as the American soldier of fortune known as the Devil Soldier. During his first year in China, Robert experiences a range of emotion from bliss to despair. Like Damascus steel, he learns to be both hard and flexible, which forges his character into the great man he is yet to become.

When I first read a summary of this book, I was quite eager to read it. I know next to nothing about China’s history and I love books that focus on the intimate details of people’s lives. Lloyd Lofthouse has written a very good book about learning to accept different cultures and ways of behaviours, finding your true self within the wars between your feelings and your upbringing, and learning to love that which is not you.

I found Ayaou and Robert’s love to be quite fast, but Lofthouse did such a good job of portraying Robert as a romantic – a little too appreciative of women, but still a romantic – that it wasn’t hard to believe he would fall so deeply in love with a woman he barely knew.

However, speaking of love, there is also quite a bit of sex involved. Lofthouse isn’t shy when it comes to getting into Robert’s head, and Robert is a tortured man when it comes to his physical desires versus his conscience. If you’re not fond of sex in books, then you probably won’t like this book.

Given the way women were treated in 1850s China, Lofthouse would have chopped off his nose to spite his face if he had left all sex out. It was part of the lifestyle of the times and Lofthouse treats it as such. Not once is it awkward or does it slow the book. He handles it quite well.

I recommend this book to anyone who would like a view of China in the 1850s and beyond or if you’re like me and enjoy biographies – even fictionalized ones. If you want hard facts about Robert Hart’s life, this might not be the place to start, but it is an interesting (fiction) book about a man struggling to find who he truly is in a land he doesn’t know.