Product Description

A group of foreigners in the provincial Chinese town of Shishan find the status quo upset when the young middle-class Helen Frances arrives and falls in love with the Hon Henry Manners. But while she tries to resist betraying her solid but dull fiance, the Boxer rebellion threatens them all.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #852197 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 720 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Adam Williams knows China well and The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure is notable as much for his vivid sense of the land and its people as for being a thumping good melodramatic yarn.

Old-style historical novels tend to see things in black and white--Williams is as fascinated with the cultural misunderstandings and downright oppressions through which Europeans made themselves hated in China as he is with the martyrdoms and heroisms involved in the European experience of the Boxer rising. He has a passionate sense of the complexities--a mystical peasant rebellion found itself co-opted by criminal elements and by an upper class which saw the rebels as shock troops who could be used against Europeans and then disowned.

His sympathies are as much with the ruthlessly pragmatic Mandarin, who believes that he can control the situation by a few regrettable sacrifices, as with the saintly medical missionary Airton, who believes himself incapable of compromise with evil. In spite of its hairsbreadth escapes, sudden reversals and fights on moving trains, Williams' novel is adult in the best sense--the damaged, intense affair between British agent Manners and Helen, the girl he seduces and comes to love, has real passion. --Roz Kaveney

Review
James Clavell left a huge gap in Far Eastern epic storytelling on his death in 1993 and, 10 years on, it looks as if he finally has a fitting successor with the appearance of Williams's novel on the Boxer rebellion of 1900. Beijing-based Williams, an Englishman with a long family history in China, convincingly gathers under thunder-clouds, real and implied, his cast of western missionaries, railway builders, Chinese functionaries and a newly arrived English girl. Soon all their lives will be irrevocably changed, including that of conniving Mother Liu and her torture-inflicting son who run the brothel after which the book is named. Williams intermingles romance, peril and murder in the old China and spikes it with emotion and a spirit of adventure. Heavenly pleasure indeed!

Choice
'Essential summer read . . . well-written, colourful historical novel of epic proportions with vivid, engaging and diverse characters.'

Customer Reviews

Complex, thought provoking but basically a thriller
It took me a while to get to grips with this book. The first few hundred pages are a rather long introduction to the historic setting but after this you are plunged into quite a frightening and thrilling story. A group of people living in China peacefully and happily suddenly find themselves under complete attack. All the Chinese people seem to turn against them and their lives are brutally threatened. I could not put the book down, almost reading the last 400 pages in about 4 days. Also I must say that whilst the book is gory in parts the history has rumours of far worse events.

The most interesting aspect is that the author has really brought both sides to life. I started to understand the viewpoints of both the foreigners and the Chinese. The Boxers issue is something we glazed over in school and almost universally it was biased against the Chinese. In this book you see the missionaries patronising, the merchants conning the people and you see the greed and on the other hand you see the ruthlessness and the brutality of the Boxers.

I don't think it was perfect, parts were too slow sometimes I found the characters a little bit predictable but the book has got me intrigued and I am now reading a history book on the Boxer rebellion and I am trying to get my head around the history and the world events of that time. It is perhaps quite relevant because China is now trying to open up and change once more.

The Chinese Dr Zhivago
Adam Williams has written the Chinese equivalent of Dr Zhivago. This is an exciting, heartbreaking and inspiring book. Identifying with both foreigners and Chinese embroiled in the madness of the Boxer Rebellion gives one the sense of seeing into the heart of China. In an age when China is in the forefront of commercial and political thinking around the world, a story such as this that centres on China’s relationship with the West will resonate with a wide audience.

Adam Williams manages to avoid stereotypes, particularly in revealing his Chinese characters. There is a touch of Joseph Conrad in Adam William’s writing, for, as in Conrad’s stories, even his heroic characters are flawed and human. Conrad also wrote in his middle age about an exotic world he had come to know in an adventurous youth. It seems that with all the years that Adam Williams has lived in China he is well able to take a similarly authentic perspective. I generally don’t like fiction; yet what Adam William’s has shown us, by donning the transparent mask of fiction, are real people in a very real China.

His prose is rhythmical and the descriptive passages are poetic, yet his writing is simple. In age of formulaic political thrillers “The Place of Heavenly Pleasure” is so refreshing. I hope Mr. Williams is writing a sequel.

A Cracking Good Read! Best Novel of the Year!
Mr. Williams has penned a first rate historical novel. The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure is a gripping yarn about Chinese and foreigners in a small Manchurian city on the eve of the Boxer Debacle. Mr. William weaves a tale that gets full marks for historical and cultural accuracy. Both old China hands and newcomers to China will be enthralled with the sophisticated treatment of the diverse set of characters. The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure is destined to be a classic among the literature about Old China. What a fabulous debut!