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Well, I finished it last night - spurred on by the approaching deadline for returning it to the library.
I enjoyed the book and found it very interesting. Cixi was certainly an impressive woman, particularly considering the society in which she lived, with all its rules and protocols, and the position of women in that society. She was of course flawed - aren't we all? - and I thought that Jung Chang was perhaps prepared to cut Cixi a bit more slack than I would over things such as poisoning the Emperor so he didn't outlive her, having his favourite concubine thrown down a well to get rid of her, having someone executed by bastinado, and so on. However, she did mention these actions rather than omitting them from the narrative. I agree with her that Cixi was not the monster she has been portrayed to be.
Cixi was smart and could see the advantages that other nations had over China in terms of education, industrialisation, constitutional monarchy and so on. But although she had started setting things in train to move to a constitutional monarchy, she wouldn't ride in a car because the chauffeur wasn't able to drive while kneeling, and needed to sit with his back to her, which she found totally unacceptable. Would she really have coped with a change to mere respect rather than grovelling submission?
The book was obviously well researched and well written, but I don't think Jung Chang is in the same class as Han Suyin.
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