This book, then, is reasonably detailed, eloquent when it wants to be, and dove-tails the inter-national events it covers with the life of its subject efficiently enough. But there appears to be little new in the history it presents, and though the life of its subject was eventful, and saw her in contact with sensational events, that life wasn't in itself especially important, and only at moments in her youth particularly spectacular.
Olga Yunter probably did do the things that are described here, and may well have even had many of the innumerable thoughts and feelings attributed to her. But she wasn't a significant player in world or even local affairs, and the story of China in the 1930s, dramatic as it was, has been told many times before, in both historical and fictional form.
For these reasons I found this book less wonderful than, for example, the great historian of China, Jonathan Spence, found it. In addition, the incipient drama that emerges from time to time sometimes fails to catch fire. Olga, for instance, decides to leave her husband Fred to his own devices in post-war Shanghai. But before long we encounter them living together in the UK, in an Oxford suburb. Her promised "new start" doesn't really happen, and there are several other would-be turning points and dramatic moments that in the event prove less thrilling than they'd earlier been made to appear.
Everyone has a family, and every family has its stories, larger-than-life characters and legends. It's true that not all families have members who experienced revolutions and foreign invasions, though regretfully all too many do. This book, however, reads like family history claiming to be some more significant discourse.
Of course it may well be the case that, as Andy Warhol said, we all deserve to be famous for at least 15 minutes. But it isn't immediately apparent why the subject of this book deserves to occupy anyone's attention for all that much longer, Jonathan Spence notwithstanding.
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