Gang of One Memoirs of a Red Guard (Audible Audio Edition) Kirk Winkler, Fan Shen, University Press Audiobooks Books
Download As PDF : Gang of One Memoirs of a Red Guard (Audible Audio Edition) Kirk Winkler, Fan Shen, University Press Audiobooks Books
In 1966 12-year-old Fan Shen, a newly minted Red Guard, plunged happily into China's Cultural Revolution. Disillusionment soon followed, then turned to disgust and fear when Shen discovered that his compatriots had tortured and murdered a doctor whose house he'd helped raid and whose beautiful daughter he secretly adored. A story of coming of age in the midst of monumental historical upheaval, Shen's Gang of One is more than a memoir of one young man's harrowing experience during a time of terror. It is also, in spite of circumstances of remarkable grimness and injustice, an unlikely picaresque tale of adventure full of courage, cunning, wit, tenacity, resourcefulness, and sheer luck - the story of how Shen managed to scheme his way through a hugely oppressive system and emerge triumphant.
Gang of One recounts how Shen escaped, again and again, from his appointed fate. His secret self-education took him from the factory to college, where friendship with an American teacher earned him the wrath of the secret police. Following a path strewn with perils and pitfalls, twists and surprises worthy of Dickens, Shen's story is ultimately an exuberant human comedy unlike any other.
Gang of One Memoirs of a Red Guard (Audible Audio Edition) Kirk Winkler, Fan Shen, University Press Audiobooks Books
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Gang of One Memoirs of a Red Guard (Audible Audio Edition) Kirk Winkler, Fan Shen, University Press Audiobooks Books Reviews
It is always informative to get the perspective of a former "insider" who has escaped from such a terrible time. This book, though a little long at times. is well wort the read.
Very entertaining story. Mr Shen's book provides a wealth of information about what the Cultural Revolution was like to the Chinese people and his story is well told. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone with even a passing interest in this period of life in China.
This book was a fun and interesting read. I also learned a lot about the Chinese cultural revolution which was really eye opening for me. I recommend it!
The drama of this man's coming of age is just gripping. At some points I had to suspend disbelief (how many coincidences have to pile up before you suspect embellishment?), but that doesn't even threaten one star.
an online friend suggested that I might find this an interesting read...It turned out to be much more than that. It is a fascinating look at a world I never knew. The memory of this man's struggles will stay with me a long long time. His willingness to show us how a man must sometimes compromise his ideals in order to escape from an impossible situation should be a lesson to all of us. It has given me aew appreciation of the benefits of our system of government which we so often merely accept without a thought.
So many people have no idea what really happened in China during the Cultural Revolution. This book will blow your mind. Read it.
The book was slow at times, but a page turner at some parts. It's a fascinating story about a man's struggle during the Chinese Revolution. I was left wanting to know more of his life once he got to the United States.
This memoir is simply great story telling, a Chinese Horatio Alger tale where pluck and luck win out in the end. (Shen admits his admiration for Stendal's The Red and the Black and Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, but it would be ungracious to push the analogies too closely.) For some reason Chinese culture permits a more casual, even humorous, treatment of the inhumanity and stupidity of the man-centered ideological system profiled here. If Shen's memoir doesn't have the moral weight of say, something by Solzhenitsyn, it's at least more enjoyable reading. Hats off to Shen, who (like Jacob Riis at the beginning of the twentieth century) can write so vigorously in a second language!
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