My partner keeps trying to read it and they keep stopping and reading me passages and then looking up actual historical fact and going wtf, this book is nonsense? Does it get better?
I don’t know I haven’t read it. I told them I’d ask here. Does it get better? Is it anti communist propaganda or is the ridiculous anti communist screed that starts this book serious off just setup for something better?
Thanks for all the good answers I showed them the whole thread and they said a lot of what you all said is in line with their understanding. So basically the first bit is a caricature of the bad parts of early Chinese communism and then that gets better but it turns misogynist instead. Fun series. They’ll continue to read because we have a lot of family and friends who LOVE the book and they want to understand why but it’s helpful to have the lens on it
The author is Chinese from the mainland so I doubt it
The beginning part of the book is a semi realistic portrayal of the cultural revolution tbh. I was talking to someone on here earlier about this. The early stages of the revolution weren’t in fact sunshine and rainbows, bad stuff did happen. Modern Chinese folks look back at it as a sorta shame and growing pains type deal and something they should learn and improve from.
That ability to accept fault and grow is something overall lacking in the west.
The beginning of the book is set in the Mao era and doesn’t shy away from its awfulness. If that counts as propaganda to you, 🤷♂️
Are you from the US? How often have you read stories as such for the Kent State massacre, the Battle of Blair Mountain, or the drowning of the hundreds in the Seine in Paris?
It does more than show what was at a point in time, it is powerful propaganda, as your comment shows. Not only do you use “Mao era”, but also imply that it was awful. Which is quite a big stroke used.
Besides that there are ways to frame scenes, the one’s in the three body problem have the problem that they are leading and are part of fiction, yet people take them for depictions of reality and construct their idea of what was from it.
Within the CPC the Cultural Revolution - rightfully - got critiqued quite a bit and the phrase in regards to Mao of “70% good, 30% bad” is still common.
The first book has quite a few flashbacks to the Cultural Revolution. Most are…fine I guess? There’s one that’s straight up ridiculous, and to the day I’m not sure if it was a joke or not.
Anyway, the books themselves avoid modern politics insofar as a book series with aliens can. It’s there, sure. But I wouldn’t say there’s any clear anti-communist slant. There’s some anti-western culture sentiment here and there though.
The ridiculous part is there are actual political interferences within high level states research institute. The CPC actually shelters all personnel who work on highly secretive projects (ei. space program and nuclear weapon program) and state level research for the fallout of the Cultural Revolution
