BOOK REVIEW: THE ANACONDA IN THE CHANDELIER: WRITINGS ON CHINA
By Perry Link/Paul Dry Books
Reviewed by: Martin Petersen
The Reviewer — Martin Petersen is a CIA veteran, Asia expert, and a Cipher Brief Expert. He is the author of City of Lost Souls, A Jack Ford Shanghai Mystery, which was recently named Earnshaw Books Best Seller of 2024
REVIEW — Perry Link is a distinguished American China Scholar and Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies at Princeton University. He is a Chinese linguist of the first order and is an authority on contemporary Chinese literature, especially the writings of Chinese dissidents.
Link is also a thorn in the side of the Chinese government. He is well connected—and regarded—in the Chinese dissident community, and had a major role in getting Fang Lizhi, perhaps China’s most famous dissident, to safety in the American Embassy in Beijing after the Tiananmen Incident of 1989. The Anaconda in the Chandelier is Professor Link’s characterization of a smothering fear that the average Chinese, and especially Chinese intellectuals, live under every day.
The book itself is a collection of short pieces Professor Link has published elsewhere since the late 1990s. They are all fairly brief and all have the same theme—the oppressive nature of the Chinese Communist system. This accounts for the first two-thirds of the book. The final third is about his joy in teaching Chinese and an appreciation of Chinese fiction, poetry, and humor. That is the best part of the book.
This is not a book for the casual reader or someone with a general interest in China. Frankly, I found it a hard read, not because of the core message, but because each of the short essays that comprise most of the book make the same point over and over until I found myself thinking, “I get it.”
I do not disparage Professor Link’s passion or take issue with many of his observations. He certainly knows the dissident community and what daily life is like for those in China who find themselves at odds with government and party authorities. Many of the essays are eloquent, but the cumulative effect for this reader is not what the publisher sought.
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