Engrossing, fascinating study on the life of a dictator.

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	• The Private Life of Chairman Mao Li Zhi-Sui Random House, 1996 - 736 pages average customer review:based on 83 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Best biography ever written about a dictator

Dr Li, Mao's personal physician, wrote a fairly enticing and biased biography about one of 20th Century's most fascinating politician or mass murderer. The last of Mao's 20 odd years are mapped out brilliantly in this book, coupled with the doctor's own observations and opinions.

How this book came into print, was short of being a miracle. Never before has someone come so close to keeping a diary and writing every single minute detail of an egomaniac. Even the specifics of his physical and medical condition is being described vividly. (I didn't know Mao had a genital defect, and was impotent, all at once!)

The most tragic part of the book comes in between the chapters describing the disastrous Great Leap Forward, its subsequent famines and it climaxes with the purging of Mao's numerous deputies in the midst of the chaotic Cultural Revolution.

When I first saw this book in the library, I was a little apprehensive initially. But what lured me to it, was the sexual pretense that Mao enjoyed orgies with bevy of beauties. So I picked up the book. Little did I know, I would spend 3 weeks consuming it and I was so mesmerized, I couldn't put it down! Of course, 3 weeks wasn't enough for me to finish the thick tome. So I bought the paperback edition and it was worth every single penny.

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An excellent translation

The English translation is excellent. Dialogue is natural and conveys its meaning accurately, and descriptions have a solid literary value of their own.

As someone with only a rudimentary knowledge of Chinese history, I will not delve into the controversies surrounding this book too much. But I see no attempt on Dr. Li's part in "demonizing" Mao, as some reviews on this site have claimed. I think both pro-Mao and anti-Mao camps have used this demonization to promote their views. Mao hoarded his power and had little regard for the lives of the lao bai xing, the masses, but he was not an evil Hitler who set out to destroy them. As Dr. Li painstakingly lays out in his narrative, Mao's personality, motivations, and the politics within and outside of Group One are too complex for anyone to say, "Mao was a demon," or "Mao was a great man."

That said, no matter how pro-Mao you get, there is no ignoring the tens of millions of people that died during the "Three years of Natural Disaster," not to mention the countless, countless lives wronged and destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Those are facts that leave little room for interpretation, unless you deny that they ever happened, like some people do the Holocaust.

The point is, no memoir should be read as a fact-by-fact historical document. Every memoir suffers from the undependability of memory (hence the term "memoir"). But that does not mean there is no truth to be found, and the truth is often too complex to be wrung into one tidy interpretation. Anyone who does that is obviously more concerned with their own agenda than with the quest for truth.

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A Personal Look...

i picked this book up while i was in Hong Kong on a holiday. when i bought it, a friend of mine who lives in HK told me not to take it over the border into mainland china, that the book 'is illegal there'.

i always had a fascination of trying to understand modern china, it's meeting of 'old and new'...and in my search for this, i learned that in order to understand 'modern china' you have to understand a man named Mao Zedong.

this book took a lot of courage for Dr. Li to write...for those of you who haven't read it. it's bascially a compilation of a personal journal written by Dr. Li, who was Mao's personal physician from the beginning of the People's Republic of China until his death. as if it wasn't dangerous enough for him to keep a personal diary that critisized communist party leaders, which could get you arrested or shot....he actually wrote a book about his experiences.

Dr. Li gave me a perspective of Mao that no one else could know except for the inner circle of Mao's closet friends. the book is long, but very easy to read because it is all in the first person...
"i saw mao do this...."
"this person said this to me...."

when i finished reading the book, i felt like i really knew what Mao's personality was really like. not only did i learn of Mao's personality, but also of the top party elite. Important people such as Deng Xiaopeng, Dong Wangxing, and Zhou Enlai...who also had a BIG hand in the shaping of how china is run today.

Dr. Li gives firsthand accounts of what was really happening in the core of the chinese communist party during events such as May Day, and the infamous "Lin Baio Incident" or better known as the "gang of four rebellion".
the book is also very enlightening on the outside influences that had a hand in inside political struggles around mao's aides such as Mao's wife as well as personal observations on Mao's many mistresses.

this book is excellent for anyone with an interest in learning how modern chinese communist party politics were played out in the crucial moments of Mao Zedong's rule.

i highly recommend this book

J.

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Engrossing, fascinating study on the life of a dictator.

This book is a tremendously fascinating look at the life of one of the 20th century's most powerful dictators. There is no more comprehensive look into the mind of Mao than in this book by his own personal physician. I'm not sure if I approve of having a doctor spill the personal, often medical secrets of his patient, but the book is very engaging, never-the-less.

Even at so many hundred-odd pages, the book just flies by. Engrossing. I got a feel of what might have been going through Mao's head as he launched one disasterous campaign after another. Of what little regard he had for human life, and how many of his own comrades he was willing to sacrifice to retain power, for the sake of having power. Thoroughly revolting.

Dr. Li provides the reader with a portrait of the leader that only someone as close to him could have. I highly recommend this book.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

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