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The Empress Lover
‘Stories are the only thing that defy death. Stories are truth. I hereby give you mine…’
Peking, 1944: Sir Edmund Backhouse is a man of many parts. A polyglot scholar. An effete homosexual. A genius of perversity, a forger, arms salesman, occasional spy and fantasist. Also, if he is to be believed, the onetime lover of the redoubtable Empress Dowager of China, a woman many decades his senior. In his declining years, tended by his friend, Dr Hoeppli, he writes his memoir - ‘a wild tale’, as he calls it, ‘far-fetched and fantastical’- of his affair with the Dowager Empress.
Beijing, 2014: Linnie is an Australian woman of uncertain provenance struggling to make a living in Beijing. A Sinophile, a translator of film subtitles, the author of an unpublished novel about Backhouse called The Empress Lover. One day, she receives an intriguingly old-fashioned and formal invitation from a Professor H, an invitation that promises to reveal long hidden secrets of her family…
And so two worlds collide.
An enchantingly slippery, sinuous, playful - and ultimately very moving - novel of love, loss, identity and history from one of Australia's finest novelists.
‘Jaivin’s writing shines and burns.’ Sunday Age
Peking, 1944: Sir Edmund Backhouse is a man of many parts. A polyglot scholar. An effete homosexual. A genius of perversity, a forger, arms salesman, occasional spy and fantasist. Also, if he is to be believed, the onetime lover of the redoubtable Empress Dowager of China, a woman many decades his senior. In his declining years, tended by his friend, Dr Hoeppli, he writes his memoir - ‘a wild tale’, as he calls it, ‘far-fetched and fantastical’- of his affair with the Dowager Empress.
Beijing, 2014: Linnie is an Australian woman of uncertain provenance struggling to make a living in Beijing. A Sinophile, a translator of film subtitles, the author of an unpublished novel about Backhouse called The Empress Lover. One day, she receives an intriguingly old-fashioned and formal invitation from a Professor H, an invitation that promises to reveal long hidden secrets of her family…
And so two worlds collide.
An enchantingly slippery, sinuous, playful - and ultimately very moving - novel of love, loss, identity and history from one of Australia's finest novelists.
‘Jaivin’s writing shines and burns.’ Sunday Age
336 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2014
3 people are currently reading
63 people want to read
About the author
Linda Jaivin
31 books180 followersLinda Jaivin is the author of twelve books, including the forthcoming (May 2021) The Shortest History of China and the novel The Empress Lover, published in April 2014 as well as the travel companion Beijing, published in July 2014. Other major publications include the Quarterly Essay: Found in Translation (late 2013), five novels and a novella, a collection of essays (Confessions of an S&M Virgin) and a China memoir (Monkey and the Dragon). Her first novel was the internationally bestselling comic erotic Eat Me. The Empress Lover follows A Most Immoral Woman, which is set in China and Japan in 1904 and based on a true story. She is also a translator from Chinese and a playwright. She was the winner of the 2014 New South Wales Writers Fellowship.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 11, 2015
For me, this book is a treasure. It took me back almost 25 year ago, when I young, studied in Beijing and met my future husband. This book is so full of precious memories, little comments on places we, exchange university students from Russia in the 90’s have been “hanging around” (huge swimming pool in Friendship Hotel, so coveted by all of us, exchange students, with the entrance fee that was quite unattainable even for quite a few “laowai’s”), historical places the memory of which I cherish every day of my life as there was so much connected to them (YiHeYuan, Summer Palace, Xidan, Fuxingmen, JianGuoMenWai), allusions to learning that we first struggled at our history, literature and philosophy studies and then learned to love and understand (or, at least, came a little closer to understanding) (such as, famous lines from ZhuangZi about a man dreaming of a butterfly, quotations from “HongLouMeng”, my favourite poem of LiBai “Jing Ye Si” (“A Quiet Night Thought”), secret ventures into the magic world of “JinPingMei” that was not part of our literature course at Moscow State university in those years). This lame review doesn’t even begin to express what rich connotations Linda’s masterful novel with its splendid flashbacks and characters’ zigzagging evoked in my heart and memory, and how much it leant to me.
The protagonist of the novel – scholarly nerdy Linnie – reminded me me in my teens and early 20s, with a wild streak that came a little later before it almost completely left me. Her passionate interest and deep knowledge of so many things linked to China’s rich history and contemporary events, her relentless search for meaning of these events, people, places made me reach for the phone (well, Skype rather) and call my great old Chinese friend in Beijing – old Beijing-er -and tell her I was coming to visit her very soon…
I have to say, I wasn’t so sure about the actual story that lies in the centre of the book, as I wasn’t really reading it for the story, however it certainly is a great mystery that is build on truths, untruths and semi-truths. The denouement left me just a tiny bit cold, not because of the secrets that had been building up through the course of the narrative didn’t get explained, but probably because the puzzles’ pieces didn’t quite “clicked” at the end, but maybe, that was the whole point, they actually meant to be left loose and unclickable.
I highly recommend this book to all types of readers: with great passion for China history and literature and those who are just “testing the waters” to see whether this might be their “cup of green tea”. And the passionate romance that makes part of the mystery will undoubtedly cause some eyebrows raising.
Thank you Linda Jaivin for the wonderful entertainment that even though I tried to make it last for longer, was far too “delectable” to stretch.
The protagonist of the novel – scholarly nerdy Linnie – reminded me me in my teens and early 20s, with a wild streak that came a little later before it almost completely left me. Her passionate interest and deep knowledge of so many things linked to China’s rich history and contemporary events, her relentless search for meaning of these events, people, places made me reach for the phone (well, Skype rather) and call my great old Chinese friend in Beijing – old Beijing-er -and tell her I was coming to visit her very soon…
I have to say, I wasn’t so sure about the actual story that lies in the centre of the book, as I wasn’t really reading it for the story, however it certainly is a great mystery that is build on truths, untruths and semi-truths. The denouement left me just a tiny bit cold, not because of the secrets that had been building up through the course of the narrative didn’t get explained, but probably because the puzzles’ pieces didn’t quite “clicked” at the end, but maybe, that was the whole point, they actually meant to be left loose and unclickable.
I highly recommend this book to all types of readers: with great passion for China history and literature and those who are just “testing the waters” to see whether this might be their “cup of green tea”. And the passionate romance that makes part of the mystery will undoubtedly cause some eyebrows raising.
Thank you Linda Jaivin for the wonderful entertainment that even though I tried to make it last for longer, was far too “delectable” to stretch.
October 10, 2016
I absolutely loved this book. It is filled with little gems of description (“his face was antique parchment, one touch away from dust” p.231), philosophical insights (“You live in your head. You should get out a bit more.” p.191), and word play:
“It’s possible that if I were a character in a novel and, by some trick, also the reader of that novel, I would not believe in my own existence. But as the cliché has it, truth is really stranger than fiction.” (p.43)
The Empress Lover is not a straightforward piece of fiction. In fact, I suspect that it is threaded with a strong seam of autobiography (the heroine is only ever named ‘Linnie’, she works as a movie subtitler in Beijing, and she has an Australian upbringing, all of which strangely echo the author's bio). Further, as a result of the author’s long familiarity with the setting, there are scenes in which it feels Jaivin has simply inserted personal experience and thought into the novel’s weave. (Surely the overheard “Brad Pitt wasn’t a koala. He was a chicken” conversation was real – it is far too wonderfully weird for Jaivin to have made up! p.155) Truth is really stranger than fiction. There is also a distinctly biographical thread – that of Sir Edmund Backhouse, a famously decadent and deviant Englishman living in early 20th-century Beijing.
So what is this fictional, nonfiction novel actually about? The chief character is Linnie, an Australian with probable part-Chinese ancestry living and working in Beijing. The forward action of the story occurs over the space of only one day – in which Linnie is sent a mysterious letter from a friend of the long-dead Sir Edmund Backhouse himself. She eventually meets this doddering ancient and through him discovers the truth about her own – and Sir Edmund’s – past. But really, this is not where the story's fascination lies, so far as I'm concerned. It is the flashbacks in time, e.g. to Tiananmen Square, 1989, or to meeting Master Happy Fish in an obscure Daoist Temple, and the wonderful observations and asides that populate the book that made it a beautiful, hilarious and sad tale.
Do not come to The Empress Lover with any preconceptions of what a novel should be. I advise you to simply enjoy the ride. In fact, why not take Master Happy Fish's advice:
“A line is the shortest distance between two points. A line is a succession of points. Stand on a point and see the line. If it’s a fishing line, then go fishing.” (p.191)
“It’s possible that if I were a character in a novel and, by some trick, also the reader of that novel, I would not believe in my own existence. But as the cliché has it, truth is really stranger than fiction.” (p.43)
The Empress Lover is not a straightforward piece of fiction. In fact, I suspect that it is threaded with a strong seam of autobiography (the heroine is only ever named ‘Linnie’, she works as a movie subtitler in Beijing, and she has an Australian upbringing, all of which strangely echo the author's bio). Further, as a result of the author’s long familiarity with the setting, there are scenes in which it feels Jaivin has simply inserted personal experience and thought into the novel’s weave. (Surely the overheard “Brad Pitt wasn’t a koala. He was a chicken” conversation was real – it is far too wonderfully weird for Jaivin to have made up! p.155) Truth is really stranger than fiction. There is also a distinctly biographical thread – that of Sir Edmund Backhouse, a famously decadent and deviant Englishman living in early 20th-century Beijing.
So what is this fictional, nonfiction novel actually about? The chief character is Linnie, an Australian with probable part-Chinese ancestry living and working in Beijing. The forward action of the story occurs over the space of only one day – in which Linnie is sent a mysterious letter from a friend of the long-dead Sir Edmund Backhouse himself. She eventually meets this doddering ancient and through him discovers the truth about her own – and Sir Edmund’s – past. But really, this is not where the story's fascination lies, so far as I'm concerned. It is the flashbacks in time, e.g. to Tiananmen Square, 1989, or to meeting Master Happy Fish in an obscure Daoist Temple, and the wonderful observations and asides that populate the book that made it a beautiful, hilarious and sad tale.
Do not come to The Empress Lover with any preconceptions of what a novel should be. I advise you to simply enjoy the ride. In fact, why not take Master Happy Fish's advice:
“A line is the shortest distance between two points. A line is a succession of points. Stand on a point and see the line. If it’s a fishing line, then go fishing.” (p.191)
January 27, 2016
My experience of reading books set in China is limited. I read The Good Earth by Pearl Buck (1931) ages ago, and I’ve read some of that genre of Chinese émigré writers now living in the West who write stories of female oppression (Wild Swans and the novels of Amy Tan come to mind), and also the Nobel Prize winning Gao Xingjian’s One Man’s Bible about life under the Cultural Revolution). I’ve read novels by contemporary dissidents such as Yan Lianke and Liao Yiwu, and also Sheng Keyi.) But Jaivin’s is the first I’ve come across which is written with the eye of a contemporary Western insider who has developed an intimate knowledge of Beijing over many years. The insights into Chinese life are fascinating.
The story focusses mainly on the female narrator, Linnie, a woman of uncertain identity. Of Eurasian appearance with an unknown father, she leaves Australia in middle age when her foster parents die, and returns to Beijing where she has traumatic memories of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and the memory of a lover called Q. Fluent in Chinese, she makes a scratchy living as a film translator, writes an unpublished novel called The Empress Lover about the Sinologist Sir Edmund Backhouse (1873-1944), and casts an acerbic eye on the rampant consumerism around her. One day she receives an enigmatic letter which offers the prospect of finding out who her father was.
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2016/01/27/th...
The story focusses mainly on the female narrator, Linnie, a woman of uncertain identity. Of Eurasian appearance with an unknown father, she leaves Australia in middle age when her foster parents die, and returns to Beijing where she has traumatic memories of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and the memory of a lover called Q. Fluent in Chinese, she makes a scratchy living as a film translator, writes an unpublished novel called The Empress Lover about the Sinologist Sir Edmund Backhouse (1873-1944), and casts an acerbic eye on the rampant consumerism around her. One day she receives an enigmatic letter which offers the prospect of finding out who her father was.
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2016/01/27/th...
April 27, 2014
Dao for beginners
this book is too short by at least 50%. to call it a romp is to undersell it. but to focus on the sheer intellectual and knowledgeable understanding is to not do the central theme justice. where to go next. after reading Jaivan's book I fear I can't read Nicole Mones yet!!
perhaps another Jaivan book.
this book is too short by at least 50%. to call it a romp is to undersell it. but to focus on the sheer intellectual and knowledgeable understanding is to not do the central theme justice. where to go next. after reading Jaivan's book I fear I can't read Nicole Mones yet!!
perhaps another Jaivan book.
November 4, 2016
This novel tells both a modern story and an historical tale based around the main character, Linnie, who is of mixed English (Australian) and Chinese background. Linnie lives in modern China, making a living as a translator. She doesn't know who her father is, nor does she know about her background.
She receives a letter hinting at her father's identity. When she investigates, she discovers a mystery involving Sir Edmund Backhouse, an Englishman, who visited China in the late 1800's, and who claimed to be the lover of The Empress Cixi. Backhouse claimed to have sired a son, who is then claimed to be the father of LInnie.
I loved the sections written by Linnie, but thought that those narrated by Backhouse were less true. This is a fascinating novel.
She receives a letter hinting at her father's identity. When she investigates, she discovers a mystery involving Sir Edmund Backhouse, an Englishman, who visited China in the late 1800's, and who claimed to be the lover of The Empress Cixi. Backhouse claimed to have sired a son, who is then claimed to be the father of LInnie.
I loved the sections written by Linnie, but thought that those narrated by Backhouse were less true. This is a fascinating novel.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 3, 2014
An odd arty little novel as I might have expected coming from the Australia Council. She takes some trouble to confuse the boundaries between truth and fiction to explore a complicated China where the fact and fancy are often interchangeable. This felt a bit like a good yarn or tall tale an interesting person might tell at a dinner party. It's engagingly told but I confess I felt a bit lukewarm over the meandering structure. I suspect I'll remember the information about Beijing and forget the story.
September 19, 2016
It wasn't the worst book I read this year, but I would put it in the bottom five. The story doesn't take off. The plot goes back and forth, mixing completely unreal characters with moments in history... Doesn't go deep in any of the facts... I just kept on reading to find the connection between the main character and the non-fiction character and in the end, the story is completely bogus. I just lost five days with this book...
January 5, 2016
Almost unknown for me to discard a book before the end; however, that's what I've done with this book. Positives are that Linda Jaivin is clearly very smart, and I enjoyed her insights into life in China and her featuring quite interesting real characters. However, I found the story never took off, the humour was clunky and the writing poor.
February 3, 2025
I liked the insights into the life of an ex-pat writerly type in China in this time period and there seemed to be a lot of semi-autobiographical detail thrown in, but also confusing with the switching between time periods and people, and possibly trying to be too clever. Have to believe in the elixir of youth for the story to overcome biological facts.
August 15, 2014
A captive tale of life's many a kindred. The entwine of historical and contemporary writing delivers the the compelling parallel of identity and imaginings.
January 7, 2015
Great, startling, fun, evocative of a forgotten era.
May 24, 2014
This is too random & connected to not be real.
April 17, 2017
Curious exploration of China through two experiences : that of Linnie, from 1989 onwards, and that of her unlikely ancestor, Backhouse. Backhouse's reminiscences of his youth, including the salacious details of his relations with the dowager/regent empress provide an unreliable backstory to Linnie's ancestry. In turn, as these revelations are exposed she explores her own experiences of Tiannemen Square in 1989, where truth is also disguised and she herself has created an alternative history.
Having little knowledge of Chinese history, I feel a little inept at assessing this one. I did get a little confused as to who was providing the perspective at various times, and the variety of characters didn't always make sense to me, but the detail regarding Chinese life was clearly informed and insightful, and the book quite readable.
Having little knowledge of Chinese history, I feel a little inept at assessing this one. I did get a little confused as to who was providing the perspective at various times, and the variety of characters didn't always make sense to me, but the detail regarding Chinese life was clearly informed and insightful, and the book quite readable.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews