About this title: Reminiscent of "Memoirs of a Geisha," this novel is a re-imagining of the life of Pan Yuliang and her transformation from prostitute to post-Impressionist.
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Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Purchasing this book supports the King County Library System Foundation. Thriftbooks and KCLSF have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Fine. Almost in new condition. Book shows only very slight signs of use. Cover and binding are undamaged and pages show minimal use. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Purchasing this book supports the King County Library System Foundation. Thriftbooks and KCLSF have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Fine. 0393335313 NEW/UNREAD! ! ! Text is Clean and Unmarked! --Be Sure to Compare Seller Feedback and Ratings before Purchasing--Has a small black ink mark on outside edge of pages. May have light shelf wear to cover from storage, if any. read more
Description: Reader copy. Ex-Public Library. SPINE HAS BEEN REPAIRED AND THE PAGE EDGES ARE MIS-MATCHED AS A RESULT OF THE REPAIR. Text is clean. Usual library stickers and stamps. Save a tree-buy used.. read more
Description: Fair. 0393065286 BINDING IS BROKE-ONE SECTION OF BOOK (PAGE 99 TO 222) IS LOOSE FROM BOOK-EX LIB. BOOK-ALL THE LIBRARY MARKS STICKERS ETC PLUS MUCH WEAR TO THIS BOOK-DELIVERY CONFIRMATION INCLUDED. read more
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York
Date Published: 2008
Description: Near Fine. No Jacket as Issued. Advance Reading Copy (ARC) 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. A5-An advance uncorrected proof trade paperback in near fine condition that has light shelf wear. Reminiscent of Memoirs of a Geisha, a re-imagining of the life of Pan Yuliang and her transformation from prostitute to post-Impressionis. 9.25"x6", 414 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
Date Published: 2009-04-06
ISBN-13:9780393335316ISBN:0393335313
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780393335316. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780393335316ISBN:0393335313
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
Date Published: 2008-03-30
ISBN-13:9780393065282ISBN:0393065286
Description: NEW. Hardcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780393065282. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780393065282ISBN:0393065286
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Edition: First Edition, First Printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York and London
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780393065282ISBN:0393065286
Description: Fine in Fine jacket. Collectible. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. 416 pp., biblio.; 25 cm. AS NEW. Stated "First Edition. " Dust jacket protected in a mylar book cover. "Reminiscent of Memoirs of a Geisha, a re-imagining of the life of Pan Yuliang and her transformation from prostitute to post-Impressionist. Down the muddy waters of the Yangtze River and into the seedy backrooms of 'The Hall of Eternal Splendor, ' through the raucous glamour of prewar Shanghai and the bohemian splendor of 1920s Paris, ... read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Thorndike Pr
Date Published: 2008-12-10
ISBN-13:9781410411693ISBN:1410411699
Description: NEW. Hardcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9781410411693. read more
"This was not bad. It was actually pretty good in the first half. The first half is about Pan when she is a child and her drug addict uncle sells her to a prostitution house. Pan makes a good friend and reader's will see the impact this girl friend had on the rest of Pan's life. I found the first half very touching and intimate. It had a "Memoirs of a Geisha" type feel to it. After the loss of her good friend, Pan meets an important man that decides to rescue her. She becomes his concubine and thankfully for her, he is a man open minded enough to allow her to pursue her painting. After a few rough spots and struggles including the starving artist phase, she becomes one of very few female artists in China. However, this is when it gets boring. The last half of the book is mostly about art and very little about Pan. There is also a major injection of politics in the last half regarding China, Japan, Italy, and France. I simply scanned over what bored me and got back to what I thought was the "good parts" or drama. I did get the impression Pan was a bit selfish in some ways and I found it odd that she was always painting herself naked, but I cannot claim to understand artists. Good book, but I would not read it again."
"This was a good summer read. I didn't realize until I had finshihed the book that the character was an actual person. It was very interesting to do some research and see her paintings. From the NY Times:
"In this age of memoir and thinly veiled autobiographical fiction, writers who take high dives into deeply imagined waters have become increasingly rare - and valuable. What a pleasure, then, to discover that Jennifer Cody Epstein, whose luminous first novel, "The Painter From Shanghai," is based on the actual life of Pan Yuliang, a former child prostitute turned celebrated painter, also happens to be one such writer.
It doesn't hurt that Yuliang's life - buffeted by the seismic cultural and political shifts in China during the first half of the 20th century - makes for an irresistible story: born in 1895 and orphaned as a child, Yuliang was sold into sexual slavery at 14 by her opium-addicted uncle. After seven years in the brothel, she was bought out by Pan Zanhua, a progressive official who made her his concubine, then his second wife, and encouraged her painting. One of a handful of women accepted into the Shanghai Art School, she went on to win fellowships for study in Paris and Rome. After several years abroad, she returned to China, where success and scandal - thanks to her Western-influenced nude self-portraits - followed. In 1937, with Shanghai and Nanking under bloody assault by the Japanese, Yuliang fled China for good, settling alone in Paris, where she died, impoverished, in 1977.
In "The Painter From Shanghai," Epstein concentrates on Yuliang's time in the brothel - chillingly named the Hall of Eternal Splendor - and her early years with the devoted Pan Zanhua when, as Epstein imagines, Yuliang's understanding of herself as a (relatively) free woman and artist began to emerge. The brothel sections are harrowing. Epstein, who clearly did vast amounts of research, brings palpably to life the degradations these young women are subjected to: the mock wedding of new "leaves" (or virgins) to the highest bidder; the enforced vinegar diets to lose weight; the "puffy ringed hands" of Godmother, who checks the girls for signs of "sex-sickness."
Most vivid is Epstein's portrait of the lovely Jinling, "trailing scent like an elegant scarf, an exotic blend of gardenia and musk." The establishment's top girl, she eats seed pearls crushed with sugar to enhance her complexion. Jinling befriends and protects Yuliang, bringing a bright insouciance to the brothel's dark halls - until she is murdered, her throat slit by one of her clients. Her death reverberates throughout the novel. Indeed, Epstein suggests that Yuliang's desire to repossess Jinling's pale, beautiful, youthful flesh - and thereby her own - inspires the nude paintings that will later bring her such notoriety.""
"This historical fiction book deserves 3.5 stars. It is about Pan Yuliang, a Chinese woman who paints in the Western impressionist style during the 1920-1930s. Pan Yuliang was sold into prostitution by her uncle when she was 14, was bought out of her contract by a man who would become her husband, and went on to become one of the most famous Chinese painters of her time.
The story moved along quickly and I found it interesting. I especially liked the first half of the book when Yuliang was living in a brothel and then first learned to paint. I felt that the book lost steam in the second half, however, and important characters were introduced, but never fully fleshed out. I also felt that some of the story arcs, particularly those relating to the huge political changes going on in China, were never completely teased out and brought to conclusion. Furthermore, Yuliang's husband, whose strong personality plays such an instrumental role in the first half of the book, gently fades toward the end of book. I almost felt that by the last hundred pages, the author was tired of writing and just wanted the project done, sloppily finishing her tale and leaving too many things unsaid."
"This is a fictional, based on a true story book about the Chinese painter, Pan Yuliang. She had an interesting history as she was sold into the sex trade at a young age and found a way to develop herself from that low launching pad.
The things that I liked about this book were the character's focus and desire to fight for the things that she felt was inherently right - even when it embarassed or hurt the people who cared about her. As the child of a (future famous) painter, I also loved the way the scenes of her painting were told - of the turpentine smell, and the drop clothes, and the scattered mess of sketch book pads, and paint supplies. It reminded me of serepticiously watching my dad paint.
Still, compared to some of the books that I've read, this one just didn't meet the mark. It was enjoyable, yes, but not riveting. It was a book I actually could put down. There were no gaping holes, no problems, but it just wasn't excellent. It was good.
I will probably read this book again, but it will be during a "bored" phase."
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