Whuhoo WUHAN!
Wuhan: John Fletcher
A review of Wuhan by John Fletcher.
Published by Head of Zeus ISBN 978100 249882
By God I loved this book!
We are in the process of rightsizing so I am going through our large book collection where the library tribe lives. For the uninitiated the Library Tribe dwells in our book cases and throw down books for us to read. These books are always mysterious as nobody in the house has any information as to where they come from. Yet here it was. Wuhan - an immense book. Over 700 pages of magnificent story telling.
So people, flex your muscles, both triceps and your brain. Pick this tome up and crack on.
Why did I love this book so much? Well reader it blew my mind. It reminded me of a time as a child, living in trauma, why I read books; to understand how other people live. To understand that my little family’s culture was not the only one. There are many ways to see the world and many ways of being.
The book opens with a farmer and his family who seem to be living in paradise. The earth is fertile, the trees are blossoming. Farmer Wei is slightly worried about a wonky wheel on his cart. The old farmhouse has stood for centuries and the ancestors take a great and partial interest in the success of the family. And yet gentle readers of the West - the terms of survival for families in China becomes a brutal affair. Terrible and pragmatic decisions are made. Stop clutching your pearls sweet pea- this is how it is.
While your mindset has been swiftly kicked into another gear, we notice along with Wei, that there are storm clouds on the horizon. The Japanese are invading and nothing good lies ahead for Farmer Wei and his family.
John Fletcher describes the family’s flight to Wuhan -an unknown city - they stumble along a terrible road among 1000s of refugees. The writing is epic, filmatic and gripping. Once again Wei and his wife make decisions that seem incomprehensible to us. The whole thing reeks of dark nightmare but Fletcher does not allow the reader to turn away from his unflinching descriptions. This is the world. This is what it can do. This is how it can behave. STOP pretending that everything is for the best in all possible worlds.
When Wuhan is not stunning us with its physical terrors, Fletcher delivers deadly tirades against other sacred cows of western culture. Science does not come out of this well. Technological advances have mainly served mechanised arms race and genocide. (See also Facebook and Myanmar) Neither does any political system prevent their people enduring such terrible fates. Honest people were now collapsing and dying by their thousands . It was those who had robbed them of their water who survived.
The focus is not just the Japanese invasion of China but all the sad history of war; the writing that fuels it. The Times of London comes in for an amazing scrutiny (if you are brought up on the WW11 myths of Great Britain). Not so much a roaring lion of truth but a little Weasley pipsqueak of a paper - dependent on ex-pat colonialists to do its dirty work. Peter Fleming shows up in the fabulous Last Ditch Club in Wuhan. He, as Ian Fleming’s brother, was rumoured to be the model for James Bond. Not enough to save him in this book. Peter Fleming was all façade. What else can an upper-class old Etonian be but that? That was all he had. It is he who writes a treacherous editorial for The Times just before war was declared by Britain. Whilst administering sharp blows against past politicians Fletcher also does not allow us to escape the present. A show-stopping description of Chiang Kai-shek was based on Mathew Paris’ (of The Times…) brilliant description of Theresa May.
It is worth commenting on the extraordinary visual images that comprise this book. Just one to mention here is the amazing market that takes place in Wuhan just as its unfortunate people are once again on the move. Yes , the Japanese are advancing on the city. The market is extra-ordinary as its harvest time and the local farmers are streaming into the town with wagons piled high with the finest food/ drinks imaginable. The writing is lyrical. I was there.
The cries of the sellers, desperate that there were so few customers, went up to the skies, as all this fecundity lay ignored around them.
One review of this book said that the characters were not nuanced. BY-OUR-LADY- nuance is a luxury in a world where you are reduced to drinking piss and eating each other. However naming conventions are blunt and to the point. May I introduce The Intelligent Whore, who does a lot of good work for charity. It all ties in with a Chinese custom of naming people by rank. First son, second son etc. Again before we reel back reaching for smelling salts, think about all the job titles that have become surnames in the West. Carter, Wright, Smith, Dumb blonde etc. Not so strange after all.
Wuhan is teeming with Dickensian style characters. One of which, Lao-She, steps forth to tell the parts of the story the Wei family do not see. He was in real life, a well known Chinese author and here he helps hold the narrative together. Wealthier and more privileged that the Wei’s, Lao-She also undergoes horrors. Through him the author explores the nature of propaganda, its power and Orwellian nature of language. His writing is powerful, thoughtful and yes nuanced. We feel the author exploring ideas through him. Lao-She spends a lot of time asking us how he can write the stupendous events overtaking Wuhan. I felt slight disappointment that he was not writing this tale. I wish at the end, Fletcher could have allowed him to be the fictional author. Rather as George MacDonald Fraser handed his narrative over to anti-hero Flashman.
The final and most important person in this book is Spider-Girl. I am not going to give you her history here. She is great. Pluck up your courage, knock on the front door of this profound book and ask to meet her. Suffice to say that despite everything, redemption comes through love. It is love that does and will hold us all together. My younger self would have been greatly reassured.