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Secret Piano, The: From Mao's Labor Camps To Bach's Goldberg Variations (2007)

by Zhu Xiao-Mei(Favorite Author)

3.88 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1455875163 (ISBN13: 9781455875160)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Brilliance Audio

review 1: Zhu Xiao-Mei was introduced to the piano at the age of 3. She quickly became a prodigy who won acceptance to a prestigious music school. Zhu Xiao-Mei was at this beloved school when the Cultural Revolution began and her life changed drastically. As students and teachers learned to tell on each other in order to prove that they fully believed in Mao and his teachings Zhu Xiao-Mei often crossed wires with people who had the power to break her. When she would not break easily she was sent to Inner Mongolia to a work camp. As she struggled to do what she was told she found that her mind was changing and accepting the Mao way of Communism. However, the brainwashing never took away her love of music or her need for a piano.Yes, Zhu Xiao-Mei did become a concert pianist but ... moremany years after she should have. A very good story, a little drawn out, though she had a great deal to tell. I'm glad I listened to the audio book because I might not have sat still long enough to finish the book or I would have kept putting it down to do other things and taken much longer to read it.I learned a great deal more about the Cultural Revolution than I have ever known or wanted to know until now.
review 2: Having heard about the Cultural Revolution and all of it's diametrically opposing ideas that were anathema to me, this book was an irresistible choice of book to read. The harshness inexplicably poured on the lives of millions of people and the systematic destruction of talents in artistically gifted youth left me astonished that those youngsters could mete out forgiveness while such destructive diatribes were being forced from them. The piano, which was very much a character in this book, had a life that mimicked the destruction of the Chinese way of life at that time--and makes me wonder at what we are currently conceding in our society of today here in the U S A. less

Download links for: Secret Piano, The: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

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