Do Not Say We Have Nothing is an epic saga following an extended family through the Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen Square protests, and their aftermaths. Going in, I was so excited to read about these periods in Chinese history that I had known so little about. But ultimately, this book fell completely short of my expectations.
How could the author have taken such historic moments and made them be so dull and tedious to read, I just can't comprehend it. Thien's style of randomly interspersing different members of the family at different times through the narrative without clearly marking changes in time or perspective made the transitions hard to follow. There are a lot of characters in this book, with each person often having multiple names or nicknames, which didn't help add clarity.
The prose is inundated with long musings and stories within stories, written in an overly complex metaphoric and philosophical style that devolves into nonsensical meaningless ramblings. This is everywhere, slowing down so much of the narrative and making it almost impossible to follow at times. The characters are also musicians, so there are tons of references to classical music that I didn't understand.
Once you sift through all the nonsense, there are nuggets of gold in this harrowing tale of what the Cultural Revolution did to families and loved ones, often causing people to turn against those closest to them in order to save themselves. I am just so disappointed that the tedious and overdone style of writing completely buried the amazing narrative that this could have been.
Readaroo Rating: 2 stars
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