The Last Rose of Shanghai: A Novel

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A marvellously evocative representation of Shanghai written contemporaneously by one of Japan’s leading experimental modernists, a member of the New Sensationalist group of writers. It reads like a hardboiled noir with fog, rain and dark, dangerous streets. Riichi spent time in Shanghai and his novel reveals the city as a melting pot of cultures, nationalities and ideas. He shows us Shanghai’s Japanese community before the second world war, the positive interactions between Chinese and Japanese intellectuals and artists, as well as the large number of often-grim Japanese-run cotton mills and silk filatures. Aiyi is a young Chinese woman from a prominent family who has arranged her upcoming marriage to Cheng, a controlling man with traditional values. She defies Chinese customs by owning her own jazz club, One Hundred Joys Nightclub. With Cheng’s opposition and a wartime economy, Aiyi struggles to keep her club from failing. Ernest, a pianist, and his young sister arrive in Shanghai from Berlin, destitute and hungry. With so much antagonism against the refugees, no one will hire a foreigner, let alone a Jew. After Ernest gives Aiyi an audition playing her favorite song, “The Last Rose of Shanghai,” she takes a chance in hiring him, hoping her patrons will overlook who he is and allow his piano to enthrall and entertain. Ernest, after suffering under Nazis in Germany, is subjected to brutality from the club’s patrons, a jealous Cheng, and cruel Japanese soldiers. Ernest and Aiyi find solace and happiness together, but that changes when they are separated after Germany persuades the Japanese to take action against the Jews.

There's too much of telling in the writing and yet, many important details aren't told. Time jumps happen like nobody's business. I had high hopes for The Last Rose of Shanghai by Weina Dai Randel. High enough that I semi-broke one of my personal rules, which is to avoid World War 2 historical fiction. This was a beautifully written novel and it was apparent that the author did significant research. The two main characters were so well written that I felt their pain during the war and their happiness at being together. I learned a lot about the war in China and the treatment of the Chinese by the Japanese soldiers. This is a beautiful story about the pain and sorrow of the war but the overall feeling is one of love and redemption. This romance is one of the two main sources of tension throughout the story. Aiyi’s got a boyfriend/fiancé already, but it’s an arranged match, and she’s not exactly in love. But her family is traditional and looks down on foreigners. Ernest, being Jewish, comes from a much different culture and is an outsider in the city.

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The plan is to select and read a book every month, then discuss the work during the month’s last week (to give everyone time to read it!). I will post some questions/quotes to get things started, but I would love for this to grow into an open discussion with and between you all. Whenever possible I hope to have the author, or another prominent voice on the subject, join the conversation. I was totally captivated for the first 20%. I loved the writing, it was metaphorical but not too much that it detracts from the story. Aiyi Shao is a young heiress and the owner of a formerly popular and glamorous Shanghai nightclub. Ernest Reismann is a penniless Jewish refugee driven out of Germany, an outsider searching for shelter in a city wary of strangers. He loses nearly all hope until he crosses paths with Aiyi. When she hires Ernest to play piano at her club, her defiance of custom causes a sensation. His instant fame makes Aiyi’s club once again the hottest spot in Shanghai. Soon they realize they share more than a passion for jazz - but their differences seem insurmountable, and Aiyi is engaged to another man. Born and raised in China, Weina came to the United States in her early twenties. She holds an M.A. in English from Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas.

While the plot reveals a lot about Shanghai history and culture, it also contains a lot of stereotypes about China. The only person to see Shanghai in a positive light was Ernest. From Aiyi, all we get is cliches.The Moon in the Palace depicts Empress Wu’s sharp, persistent spirit but does not neglect to make her believably naive and vulnerable, an untried girl among ruthless women. The intrigue and machinations of the imperial court come to life under her hand, a vast and dangerous engine with each piece moving for its own reasons.” — Shelf Awareness (starred review) Another major issue for me was what I saw as a series of historical inaccuracies. The characters can all conveniently talk to one another, often in fluent English, though they all are from different countries. They talk like modern-day people, too, despite the fact that they're supposed to be living 80 years ago and be from different cultures with different levels of formality and ways of speaking. On at least two occasions, a character is said to be eating a bagel with peanut butter. Peanut butter is hard to find in China today, so I can't imagine it was a common thing in 1940s Shanghai. There is a bit at one part near the end of the book where a character is living in a slum with no running water yet has a plastic stool, and plastics weren't really produced until the 1950s. For example, there’s the usual barrier of Aiyi being engaged to another man. But more important than that is the fact that Ernest is also on the run from Japanese soldiers, who suspect him of killing one of their own, and the powerful Japanese commander has threatened to shut down Aiyi’s beloved nightclub unless she turns him in. Thus, Aiyi’s motivation for staying away from Ernest has only a bit to do with the usual barriers of family honour and duty, and much more to do with who she is as a person who values her financial independence, and takes great pride in what she has accomplished with her night club. The book is beautifully written. I wasn’t aware that Shanghai was a safe harbor for European Jews early in the war. About 20,000 Jews settled in Shanghai from 1938 to 1941, but the living conditions for the Jewish refugees in Shanghai deteriorated over the course of the war due to pressure on the Japanese from their German allies. The descriptions of life in Shanghai, including the luxury living of jazz clubs and fancy hotels as well as the settlements and ghettos, were captivating and allowed me to visualize the time and place. The book is also well-researched, and the author does a great job of exploring the relationships and distrust among the Chinese, Japanese, and foreigners who are all co-existing and trying to survive in the war-torn city. I did think the love story between Aiyi and Ernest got quite dramatic at times (blindly running into battle zones more than once to find each other!), but I found them to be really enjoyable characters and I cared for them from beginning to end. In any case, Ernest can play jazz piano exceptionally. He ends up working for Aiyi, making her club a sensation. Predictably, they fall in love.

A powerful story of the relationship between a Shanghai heiress and a Jewish refugee... one readers will never forget." ―Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman with the Blue Star The best of the Shanghai-set novels by China’s leftwing realist writers of the 1930s – who also included Lu Xun and Ba Jin – which accentuated the harsh and often brutal capitalist face of the city and offered an intimate portrait of working-class life. Ernest, a gifted Jewish pianist fleeing Europe and other protagonist of the novel, provides readers with a perspective into the world of Jewish refugees in Shanghai. Could you share how you conceived of the character and some of the research you did to ensure his experiences fit the historical reality of refugees in the city?First, though I give the author credit for writing in a language that is not her first, the writing is not particularly enjoyable. I've always heard that one of the principal rules of writing is "Show, don't tell." This book has a whole lot of telling and very little showing. Aiyi, our first-person narrator, spends tons of time telling us about how rich she is, what lavish jewelry and clothing she wears, about her nightclub and her servants and the reputation of her family. And yet there are instances when the reader has to infer that something has happened because it isn't explicitly stated that it has. I'm thinking of one part here in which a character is shot by a soldier; the book says that the soldier has a gun and that the character is bleeding, but it never actually explains the connection. I did greatly enjoy the unique historical setting and learning about the events in Shanghai in WWII. I knew that the Japanese had invaded Shanghai but wasn't aware of all the other international pressures in Shanghai at the time. I also had not realized that Shanghai was such a huge refuge for Jews fleeing Europe. I really enjoyed getting a look into the effects of WWII on a region of the world that you don't often get to read about during that time frame. Weina Dai Randel is the Wall Street Journal bestselling, award-winning author of four historical novels, Night Angels, The Last Rose of Shanghai, The Moon in the Palace, and The Empress of Bright Moon, historical novel series about Empress Wu (Wu Zetian), China's only female emperor. In contrast, Aiyi and Ernest’s respective story arcs are really strong. I loved watching Aiyi fight to maintain her power and financial independence at a time when women still dealt with bound feet and social expectations about their role being limited to the home. I enjoyed watching her negotiate with the powerful Jewish magnate Sassoon, and seeing her outwit Japanese soldiers and her domineering oldest brother, all to hold on to the business she’d worked so hard to build. I was especially captivated by the tension between how much she was willing to sacrifice for Ernest’s sake, because of her love for him, and how much she’d refuse to give up to ensure her own future. I found Aiyi to be a complex, compelling heroine, and I was totally into seeing her story unfold.