The New York Times has been splurging on its reviews of a new Song Meiling (Madame Chiang Kai-shek) biography. But how can you take even a 735-page book about contemporary Chinese history seriously when it asserts the author Lu Xun was “buried alive” by Chiang Kai-shek in 1936? Besides being wrong, it puts Chiang Kai-shek in the position of the new Qin Shihuangdi…
That’s like reporting that Garrison Keillor was killed when his small airplane flying over St. Paul Minnesota was attacked and downed by a flock of Canadian Geese trained and released by former Republican Senator Norm Coleman. It just betrays a total lack of fluency in the realities of the period. But nevertheless these books are churned out and published with nary a word from the editors. What’s next? Trotsky dying in his sleep? 哎呀！
Adam Cathcart 