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    Empress Orchid
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    Empress Orchid
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    Empress Orchid
    Audiobook18 hours

    Empress Orchid

    Written by Anchee Min

    Narrated by Alexandra O'Karma

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The critically acclaimed author, Anchee Min, paints a fresh portrait of the last Chinese empress in this brilliantly fictionalized tale set during the waning days of the empire. Seventeen-year-old Orchid belongs to an aristocratic family that has fallen on hard times. Unexpectedly, she is chosen as one of the emperor's lesser concubines. Within the Forbidden City are thousands of women hoping to bear the emperor a son and become his empress. Orchid, determined and resourceful, schemes her way into the royal bed and seduces the emperor. But as the opium trade erodes the might of the Ch'ing dynasty, Orchid find herself at the center of a crumbling nation. A colorful depiction of one of history's least understood women, The Empress Orchid is another enthralling masterpiece for Anchee Min.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books Audio
    Release dateFeb 11, 2008
    ISBN9781436102353
    Unavailable
    Empress Orchid
    Author

    Anchee Min

    Anchee Min was born in Shanghai in 1957. At seventeen she was sent to a labor collective, where a talent scout for Madame Mao's Shanghai Film Studio recruited her to work as a movie actress. She moved to the United States in 1984. Her first memoir, Red Azalea, was an international bestseller, published in twenty countries. She has since published six novels, including the Richard & Judy choice Empress Orchid and, most recently, Pearl of China.

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    Reviews for Empress Orchid

    3.5/5

    624 ratings36 reviews

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    • 3/5
      It’s a lovely book but the reader is just awful. She masticates between every sentence and you can hear each roll of her wet tongue. It’s so off putting!!

      2 people found this helpful

    • 4/5
      A very readable account of the early life of the Dowager Empress Cixi. From relatively humble beginnings, she is selected as one of the concubines of the rather feeble, uninspiring Emperor.In the harem of the Forbidden City, there is rivalry...sometimes murderously so...among the womenfolk. Jealous over sharing her husband...and limited in the contact she gets to have with her own son, as the official wife takes precedence....Orchid's life is difficult.Yet as enemy nations wade in, as the Emperor falls ill and as palace officials jockey for position, her world becomes yet more difficult.Informative, rather horrific in places... Anchee Min falls into the trap of many historic novels on strong women, where the heroine feels a rather TOO 21st century, all-action female.But all set to read the sequel...
    • 4/5
      Orchid has lived much of her life in poverty, but at seventeen, she is chosen to be one of the Emperor’s seven wives/3000 concubines, and is swept into a life or luxury, power and intrigue she never could have imagined. Being a concubine is not quite what she would have thought. And Orchid (a.k.a. Tzu Hsi) is not your usual 19th century Chinese woman. This was really good. I don’t know very much Chinese history, so all this was new to me. She seems to be such an interesting, strong woman. This was fiction, though, so I don’t know for sure what details happened, but it is a great story. I believe there is a sequel, which I do hope to read as well.
    • 5/5
      Empress OrchidEntertaining and Unputdownable 4.5 starsFrom an unlikely peasant girl to the Empress of China. The novel paints a not so pretty picture of what life was like for a concubine turned empress in the Forbidden City. Min's storytelling is beautiful. Her style of narrating and historical references pulled me in. If you enjoy beautiful storytelling and historical fiction, this is for you. Lastly, I didn't know that there was another story (The Last Empress) that follows, until I finished. I look forward to reading it.
    • 5/5
      I loved it. The story of a girl overcoming hardships, set in the Forbidden City. She goes from nothing to becoming one of the most formidable women in China at the time. It's a work of fiction but is based on a real character, the Empress Dowager. This book only takes us through her early life though, before she becomes the Dowager empress and the story continues with the sequel. It was wonderful to soak up the atmosphere, pomp and ceremony from the pages and I can't wait to read what happens to her next.
    • 5/5
      Written really well and I really cared for the characters, especially towards the end.
    • 5/5
      I love historic fiction, especially when an author manages to bring history alive, and for me this is a stunning example where you almost get to walk about and breathe with the characters as their lives unfold and a great nation is brought to its knees. China’s last Empress Tzu Hsi (Empress Orchid of the title) is often portrayed as a fickle, ineffective and ridiculous woman, but here Anchee Min redresses the balance and presents her as one of the only sane people in a world gone mad. The images of poverty and cruelty she conjures up haunt me to this day.
    • 3/5
      I had high expectations for this book after hearing so much about it on GoodReads. It sort of fell short of those expectations though. I give it 3 ½ stars, which is not bad but I thought it was going to be a 4 to 5 star book.

      The story itself was very good and it certainly started very well. Orchid is a very likeable character and because of her humble beginnings and barriers she has to battle you can’t help but like her. As woman living during the Ch’ing Dynasty in 1852 Orchid has many hurdles to overcome, especially when she is chosen as a royal wife against the wishes of the king’s mother. Despite the opulent appearance of royalty, court life was brutal with all the back stabbings, mind games, political alliances, and even too much downtime. Prior to reading the book I knew very little about Empress Orchid or Empress Dowager Cixi as she was known in real life, so I decided to do a bit of research after reading this book. The impression that I got through this research was that she was portrayed in a negative light as a very shrewd strategist. If the fictional account of Empress Orchid, however, has any note of truth I can’t say I blame her for using her intelligence and cunning to gain a foothold to power. It’s what any true leader has to do in that type of political environment where nasty rumors, poison and paid assassins are weapons of choice against enemies.

      Min’s account of the Empress’s life gives the reader a better understanding of what lied behind this so-called shrewd woman. Starting from early on the fictional Orchid begins plotting with the help of her family on how to not only get the king to notice her, but to also remain his favorite. Not an easy task when you have a husband who boasts 7 Imperial wives and 3,000 concubines. Using her sexuality and keen intelligence she manages to position herself as his unofficial secretary to the king and produces an heir potentially securing her future. I won’t go into details, but Min follows the rise, fall and rise again of the Orchid’s power.

      The book was very descriptive and very lush in detail, almost to a fault. I understood the opulence of the empire, but really I didn’t feel I needed to know every detail and what this or that was covered in and what jewels were used. I found it distracting and not conducive to the plot at all. Also, the king was so whiney that he was grating on my nerves for most of the book and unfortunately, he was a prominent character. The ending though is what really disappointed me. In my opinion it was lame. All this build up and then I blinked and missed it. I did enjoy the book though and learning about the sacrifices that Orchid had to make and about political and court life, but it’s not one that I would highly recommend.
    • 2/5
      There are two basic schools of historical fiction, I think. The first kind wants you to understand what it was like to live in the time and place in question, and so drowns you in detail and asks you to learn to swim in it. (The platonic ideal of this school is Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series.) The second kind wants you to remember that the historical figures are people, just like you, and so makes everything as much like your own life as possible so that you can never forget this. This book is most emphatically of the second school. And I am not a fan.

      The writing is incredibly flat and emotionless - I appreciate the descriptions of all the beautiful gowns, but they should not be the most moving thing in a book about a woman who gives up an ordinary life in order to become first the Emperor's concubine and later the Empress herself. And then between trying to make all the characters seem as much like ordinary people as possible and the terrible flatness of the prose, Tzu Hsi comes off as very, very passive. I don't claim to be an expert, but from what I have read about the woman from history, "passive" is not the word.
    • 5/5
      A wonderful a first person historical novel based on the life of Dowager Empress Cixi, who ruled China in the waning days of the Qing Dynasty in the mid- and late-19th century. The novel actually only covers the first half of her life, as she rises up from an impoverished Manchu family to become the fourth level concubine to the Chinese Emperor; bearing his only son, she is able to become regent after her husband's untimely demise, probably due to stress because of his dire incompetence, as rebels and foreign powers invade the Empire. The book is well written and gives a relatively realistic look at life in the Imperial circle at the time, if somewhat simplified and occasionally pedantic, though not fatally so. The book reminded me of "Wicked", as Cixi has so often been cast as the evil Empress/Witch; this book seeks to humanize her, explain her motives in the given set of nearly impossible circumstances, though I think the author is a little more kind to her than Cixi is probably worthy. For instance, the history books say that Cixi performed a coup d'etat in overthrowing the Regent Su Shun, but in the book, Su Shun is the villain; I just don't know enough about the circumstances to judge, though it is probably certain that there were no innocents in that incident. The book leaves off as Orchid becomes Regent, and the following book, The Last Empress, tells the rest of the tale, and I can't wait to dive into that. This is the third novel by Anchee Min that I have read, and she is one of my favorites; if you like this, I highly recommend Becoming Madame Mao, who was a sort of 20th-century version of Cixi.
    • 4/5
      Very well written! Many fascinating historical points but also a well-written and entertaining character base and story.
    • 4/5
      This book drew me in mainly because of the interesting details about life in the Forbidden City. At times I had no idea where the book was going to take me, which helped to keep me interested. The story seemed a bit rushed towards the end and was by far my least favourite part but overall this was an interesting read that has me wanting to visit the Forbidden City. I was a tad confused by the very last part of the ending but I think that was because I was reading too much into it.
    • 4/5
      China is being raped by foreigners. Her ports are being thrown open to trades with countries that hold a sword to her throat, and she is helpless to make any kind of reform that would protect her economy and her people. Within this tumultuous period of China's history is the story of a concubine called Orchid. History will remember her as the manipulative, scheming, power hungry, and ruthless Empress Tzu Hsi, but in Empress Orchid, she shares with us a story of desperation, of the shattering of innocence, of sharing a man with thousands of other woman who are also vying for attention and love, of helplessly watching a once proud and powerful country being torn apart, one traitorous breath after another. The Forbidden City is a fortress with walls that are meant to keep the outside world at arms length. Through Empress Orchid we are able to experience the culture and customs of a world thousands of years old and whom few have access. The historical richness from the descriptions of the grand palatial residents to the decadent costumes, invites us to enter into a world of unparallel luxury and grandeur. Tzu Hsi may forever be immortalized as the wicked ruler who brought an end to the last dynasty of Imperial China, but at the heart of it all is still a woman who navigated her way through an arena that has long served to be the battle ground for men, and men alone. Regardless of the means or method, undoubtably her legacy as the last Empress has been imprinted upon the annals of China's glorious past.
    • 4/5
      Min was born in Shanghai and came of age in China during the Cultural Revolution, and still visits there regularly. Being able to read Chinese, Min was able to extensively research her period using primary sources, so I trust her depiction of late Ching dynasty China is fairly accurate. This is written as the first person account of one of China's last empresses, Tzu Hsi aka Red Orchid, who came to the Forbidden City as one of the Emperor's brides when she was seventeen in 1853. Min presents a sympathetic portrait of a woman that contemporary Chinese texts described as "a mastermind of pure evil and intrigue." It's a fascinating picture of a milieu of lavish riches, elaborate etiquette and palace machinations, a world where Orchid is one of 3,000 concubines and power, even survival, is dependent upon alliances with eunuchs such as her "first attendant" An-te-hai. Her era was that of the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion and did much to shape the China we know.I was riveted from the first page and through the first half or so of the book describing life in the palaces of the Forbidden City, and Min writes with a solid style, but I thought it later devolved into a romance novel. Ultimately I thought in trying to redeem this historical figure, Min whitewashes her a bit too much--and it's not that I've read any conflicting historical account of her. But reading between the lines, Orchid commits some ruthless, cruel acts. They're a bit breezily passed over in the novel as necessary to set an example or done against her will, but I wished Min had been more unflinching in her portrayal of the strong-willed woman who ruled China at the turn of the 20th Century.
    • 3/5
      An interesting insight into the life of the Forbidden City and in particular the women's role. Orchid manages to become one of the Emporer's wives and in so doing manages to drag her family out of poverty, however she then has to live without even seeing her family and endures a lonely and frustrating life. She works hard to become one of the Emporer's favourites and manages to involve herself in 'men's buisness'. It is a little slow sometimes and as is often the case with books set in foreign countries it can be difficult to remember various characters because of their names. I enjoyed it but was quite glad to finish it too. Read in Dec2010
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. A very interesting look into chinese history and culture. the imagery created paints a beautiful picture of the forbidden city. Empress Orchid is portrayed as a strong woman who becomes a great ruler.
    • 4/5
      I adored this book and it began me on a spate of historical fiction novels set in China. Min creates a fully-developed, sympathetic (most of the time) portrait of Empress Orchid, a powerful and yet ultimately very human ruler of China. I look forward to reading Min's next book.
    • 5/5
      Anchee Min's Empress Orchid gives the reader a glimpse into the life of an ordinary girl picked to become one of the seven wives of Emperor Hsien Feng in 1852. Though initially picked because of her beauty, and forgotten by the emperor after the newness wears off, Orchid becomes the emperor's most important wife because of her ability to comprehend official documents when the emperor cannot. This book follows Orchid's rise to power through her son, while serving as his advisor when the emperor becomes sick. With her faithful eunuch, Antehai at her side, Orchid deals with betrayal by her brother-in-law and the upcoming battle with the British. Orchid truly triumphs in a story that's rarely told from the female point of view of the Forbidden City.
    • 3/5
      A beautifully written account of the life of Orchid Yehonala. Written in first person, the reader is taken on this journey of pain, desperation, happiness and fear as Orchid becomes the favored consort of Emperor Hsien Feng. As a child, Orchid had a decent life until her father, the governor of Wuhu dies, and leaves the family in poverty. Living with an uncle, Orchid is intended to marry a mentally challenged cousin named 'Bottle' when the decree is issued that his is looking for mates. She soon discovers that life within the Forbidden City is nothing as she expected. And only gets harder as China begins to fall victim to outside forces attempting to take control of the country. 
    • 4/5
      "Love is survival, seduction is power, and treachery a way of life.."In this wonderful piece of historical fiction, we get a fictional account of the life of Orchid, the last empress of China. We follow her journey from poverty, to one of thousands of concubines, and eventually becoming one of the Emperor's seven wives. Life in the Forbidden City is tough and ruthless, and the way to the Emperer's attention and affection near impossible. As China's foreign problems increase, Orchid finds her life of loneliness getting even harder as she helplessly watches her country falling to pieces at her feet. I loved this book. I greatly enjoy reading about different cultures, and I especially enjoy reading about Asian culture. This combined with my love for historical fiction and romance made this novel a perfect fit for me.
    • 5/5
      This historical fiction vividly introduces you into the last empress' world. It affords an emotional and personal point of view that is often masked from the public. I would read more from this author.
    • 4/5
      A fascinating novel from the perspective of a concubine in the Forbidden City. I highly recommend it!
    • 4/5
      J'aime beaucoup ces histoires romancées qui redonnent vie à l'Histoire et en animent les personnages. J'ai découvert ici la vie dans la Cité Interdite, ses us et coutumes, la succession de l'empereur Xianfeng, la régence de Dame Yehonala et vu un aperçu des guerres d'opium. Un tableau vivant de cette fin de dynastie lors d'une époque turbulante, ce roman ne tombe pas trop dans le piège de l'eau de rose et l'intrigue est bien dosée. Moyen agréable d'en apprendre plus sur cette période!
    • 4/5
      Empress Orchid tells the tale of the early life of Empress Dowager Cixi, the last empress of China. She is a controversial figure, often blamed for the downfall of the Qing dynasty and Imperial China. It is somewhat accepted now that she may not have been as despotic as comtemporary press made her out to be, but she was definitely of a conservative and nationalistic political stance. Anchee Min's dramatisation of her early life is largely sympathetic and somewhat romantic.Orchid enters the Forbidden City at a long age, having been selected through open competition to be a concubine and wife to the Emperor Hsien Feng. Her early time in the compound are filled with loneliness and desolation as she remains unselected for the Imperial bed. She begins to play the system, resulting in becoming a favourite of the emperor, bearing him a male heir, and gaining exposure to the political and foreign pressures faced by the emperor.The book follows Orchid's life as the health of both the emperor and China itself decline. Orchid is forced to come into a more open role in order to secure the future of her son. We are treated to glimpses of a sympathetic, yet driven and manipulative character. Upon finishing the book, you aren't too sure who Orchid really was, whether she was truly a person capable of manouvers, or whether life in the Forbidden city had turned her into such a person.This is an excellently colourful book, packed with descriptions of the costumes and courts of the era. However, it also captures the sense of decline and confusion that must have been rampant in the China of the time.
    • 5/5
      This is a fiction novel based on the last Empress of China. I don't read alot of fiction books lately, but this was the book of the month for the online China books group I am a member of. So, I read it. I LOVED it! It was a really good read. And I must say, I would never want to be the Emperors wife or concubine! I'm surprised they all didn't go nuts!
    • 4/5
      'Empress Orchid' begins Anchee Min's two-part story of the life of the remarkable 19th Chinese dowager empress, Tzu Hsi, also known as Lady Yehonala and Empress Orchid. I profess no expertise in Chinese history, but Min's portrayal of Tzu Hsi is decidedly revisionist and more favorable than the standard history, which was apparently originated by English writers wishing to portray the empress and China in a negative light. Empress Orchid describes Tzu Hsi's sudden rise from low, but poverty-stricken nobility when she was chosen as a wife and one of the numerous concubines of emperor Hsien Feng. Orchid avoids fading into anonymity with the help of her eunuch slave who arranges for the emperor to visit her bed. Having prepared herself carefully for such a visit, she wins the emperor's attention long enough to bear him his only son. This event gives her the opportunity, but no more, to move near the reins of power. Anchee Min describes court customs and costumes in great detail, but the heart of the book focuses on Orchid's attempts to outwit her competition and ensure her son's place as heir to the title of emperor. While the court intrigue dominates the front story, China is under assault from the West and from the Tai Ping rebellion. The imperial party must flee the Forbidden City. As the story closes, Orchid's son is named emperor and she outmaneuvers her internal enemies in the regency. A humiliating peace is negotiated with the British and French to end the Second Opium War. One knows that Empress Orchid must have been a remarkable woman to achieve long-lasting political power in imperial China. Anchee Min's Orchid demonstrates persistence in fighting for her son's power (and thus her own as well). She is not portrayed as a sharp political operator, but rather a somewhat reluctant one. While this book was enjoyable and interesting in its own right, it mainly serves to set the table for the main course, the story of the long reign of the dowager empress which Min continues in The Last Empress: A Novel. As good historical fiction does, 'Empress Orchid' whets the appetite for more information. Some related works that appear quite interesting, which I have not yet read myself, include Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China by Sterling Seagrave and "Flashman ; the Dragon from the Flashman Papers, 1860" featuring the irrepressible Harry Flashman.
    • 2/5
      I really wanted to love this book. I loved the author's autobiography (RED AZELEA) and her novel (KATHERINE)about a foreign English teacher in China, so I expected EMPRESS ORCHID to bring together her amazing talent for prose narrative in English, enhanced with her first-hand research of Chinese sources, to bring to life the mis-judged history of Empress Dowager Tz'u Hsi. I anticipated some embellishments, but the total re-creation of Tzu Hsi as "Orchid", into a kind of modern woman-warrior, was too much for me. To ask the reader to believe that an uneducated female was able to "pick up" enough formal literary Chinese to be able to read court documents is stretching history way too far. Wouldn't it have made a more fascinating story to construe how Orchid was able to hold onto power so long in spite of being illiterate? The first third of the book is a masterful depiction of the sights, smells, sounds, social structure, of late 19th Century China, and would have gained 5 stars, but the rest devolved into conjecture after conjecture which mix like sour notes in an otherwise brilliant composition. It's a novel, but it's not a historical novel. Moreover, I $en$ed that the whole $tory was being pitched to the $maller mind$ of Hollywood in hope of a movie deal. I felt like the author let down her loyal fans while trying to ride her own popularity to chase the $$. The best part of Empress Orchid is the list of 5 tone-setting quotations from other sources in the facing page prior to the map (unnumbered pages). One of these quotes is from Sterling Seagrave from his book DRAGON LADY: THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF THE LAST EMPRESS OF CHINA, which refers to the fact that in 1974 most of the previously trusted scholarship on Tzu Hsi had been revealed as counterfeit. This led me to buy Seagrave's book, which explores the falsehoods of these earlier works, and turns into a fluid and fascinating narrative that is truly Biographical History. In short, you can choose to spend your precious time on 336 pages of a fictional romance novel (Empress Orchid), or 463 pages of intelligent, delicious historical biography (followed by 135 pages of fascinating notes and complete index). As a student of Chinese language, literature, and history, I recommend reading Seagrave's book first.
    • 4/5
      This book held my attention quite well, though it suffered slightly from telling more than showing. The writing was beautiful anyway. I'll definitely read the sequel, in any case.
    • 4/5
      What a great story!!! And a great uncompromising ending. For those who like to immerse themselves into foreign cultures, this is a great read.
    • 4/5
      Brilliant read and one I am looking forward to following up! Orchid is an endearing young woman trying to find a way to improve her lot and that of her family. The daughter of a minor official whose death threw the family on hard times, Orchid gets her break as the minor wife of the Emporer never thinking to rise any higher, grateful for the position. However her natural intelligence soon raises her above the others and she finds herself locked in a struggle for survival in a byzantian, machiavellian court setting.