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frasersimons 's review for:
I found this riveting and interesting, but I also have very little knowledge to pull from regarding every aspect of the story, so I think this is specifically for a reader like me. I wasn’t particularly annoyed by fast-and-loose time jumps, presumably because of the access to the information available where there isn’t much inference made.
I thought it goes without saying that the story about this man is just a matter of fact and not the author “siding” with what took place. Several instances of his overt ignorance and racist attitudes are made to draw attention to what he was like and show him for who he was. And how each country operated, ie. flooding China with opium, financing their entire economy off the reciprocal relationship that destroyed many lives. It is simply how, based on information found, the proliferation of tea in the UK happened, as well as plenty of other flora and fauna that is taken for granted in the locale today.
If you’re a laymen like me to the subject, I imagine you’d find just as much enjoyment from it as I did. The author does a great job putting together an enticing story primarily from the life of one man, peripherally adding other components for context. If you want the character to be a good person and likeable I would stay clear. Every indication, such as pretending to be a foreign Chinese man himself, ignoring customs and integral aspects of the culture, to get what he wants, extrapolates how the west interacted with the east generally. As it’s a matter of fact chronicled in his own stories and he was a representative, the embodiment of the kinds of business practices trade companies forged.
Where it did get cringe worthy, for me, was the author narrating the audiobook (presumably also on the page, but I didn’t follow along, I alternated) and she spoke in dialect and broken English, which I think was quotes directly from sources. But it was… yeah, not great. Paraphrasing stuff like that would have been a leg up, over replicating the caricature broken English Fortune wrote down. Otherwise, I think it tries to stay balanced and allows for him to show himself and the culture as what it was. As swashbuckling and ingenious as he was at stealing tea, he’s also an encapsulation of the East India company on several fronts, botanists, and “adventurers”. A good choice for the framing of the story, I think.
I thought it goes without saying that the story about this man is just a matter of fact and not the author “siding” with what took place. Several instances of his overt ignorance and racist attitudes are made to draw attention to what he was like and show him for who he was. And how each country operated, ie. flooding China with opium, financing their entire economy off the reciprocal relationship that destroyed many lives. It is simply how, based on information found, the proliferation of tea in the UK happened, as well as plenty of other flora and fauna that is taken for granted in the locale today.
If you’re a laymen like me to the subject, I imagine you’d find just as much enjoyment from it as I did. The author does a great job putting together an enticing story primarily from the life of one man, peripherally adding other components for context. If you want the character to be a good person and likeable I would stay clear. Every indication, such as pretending to be a foreign Chinese man himself, ignoring customs and integral aspects of the culture, to get what he wants, extrapolates how the west interacted with the east generally. As it’s a matter of fact chronicled in his own stories and he was a representative, the embodiment of the kinds of business practices trade companies forged.
Where it did get cringe worthy, for me, was the author narrating the audiobook (presumably also on the page, but I didn’t follow along, I alternated) and she spoke in dialect and broken English, which I think was quotes directly from sources. But it was… yeah, not great. Paraphrasing stuff like that would have been a leg up, over replicating the caricature broken English Fortune wrote down. Otherwise, I think it tries to stay balanced and allows for him to show himself and the culture as what it was. As swashbuckling and ingenious as he was at stealing tea, he’s also an encapsulation of the East India company on several fronts, botanists, and “adventurers”. A good choice for the framing of the story, I think.