[.ca] Spider Eaters: A Memoir (ISBN 0520215982)

From Amazon.com:
Born in 1950, Rae Yang came of age in a time of tremendous social upheaval in her native China. Her parents, Communist intellectuals who had been in favor with the leadership, were denounced during the so-called anti-Rightist campaigns of the 1950s. During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Yang, a Red Guard, traveled throughout the country spreading revolutionary fever--an exciting period, she recalls, that she had much time to reflect on while later working at a collectivized pig farm. (She named the pigs under her charge, she writes: Capitalist, Prince, Natasha, and so on.) Disillusioned by the violence, repression, and hardship all around her, Yang eventually managed to leave China on a student visa for the United States. "Lies, big and small, cannot easily hypnotize me," she writes, and her memoir paints an honest portrait of a China in suffering.

Spider Eaters:
After reading "Spider Eaters" and several books like it ("Son of the revolution", "A Woman's ordeal", "Troublemaker".. ect) I wasn't Sure how to review this one. "Spider Eaters" is a much more complex memoir than the others. "Spider Eaters" does not have the simple emotional punch of other memoirs in it's class yet as a memoir it works well. As a first person acount of mordern China it works well but the book is so much more than just a personal History. Spider Eaters is probably best described as a personal psychologial drama. How does a poor little rich girl survive the mental abuse that is the demonicaly inspired communism of mordern day china? How does a girl with dreams and aspirations of any little girl suppress those dreams and thoughts when they conflict with the strict communist party line and exposing them can mean ruin? Rae Yang first creates a fantasy hero, an almost Christ like figure who resuces the poor stands up for the wokers even to the point of death. Later when "politicaly correect" she transfers that figure to Chairman Moa and ultimately begins to see herself as that figure. A Savior who is betrayed by those she loved. Later still while living in the US she must find ways to reconcile all the various personalities into one functioning adult. A psychologist could have a field day with this book. Spider Eaters to me is a frighting look at the damage Communism can do to the minds of those it inslaves, and how a person can cope once freed of it's grasp.