Asian Addicts Anonymous

I really ought to go to bed, but I thought I’d stop in and pop out a really quick review while I was thinking of it…

Today I got “Chinese Posters: Art from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” by Lincoln Cushing and Ann Tompkins, and today I read it from cover to cover. …This was only possible because it was a readable coffee table book, rather than the normal sort of coffee table book where, two paragraphs in, you’d rather shoot yourself in the foot than be forced to go on.

The book starts out with a series of essays that I was only vaguely scanning at first (There’s a really wickedly cool section on Americans and their reactions to the posters worth slowing down for.), until suddenly I found myself rather involved: it appears Ann Tompkins lived in China for five years of the Cultural Revolution, and her perspective is a smidge different than darn near anything else I’ve ever read on what that time period was like. She actually experienced the positive aspects, and those are the aspects she covers. If you like random tidbits of Chinese history, this book is worth it just to read what she has to say.

…Granted, her version almost feels like propaganda in and of itself. Fascinating? Yes. Completely pure feeling? Maybe not so much.

Anyway, the whole point of the book is to present a collection of propaganda posters from the Cultural Revolution with as little political commentary from the writers as possible. Each poster is presented in full colour, with a title, date, and artist/publisher, and there’s a short essay before each section to put the posters in perspective.

So what’s good about this is that you get an idea of what the chapters of posters are about. They’re not just thrown together in some pattern that only the authors understand. Also, the titles being listed helps, because a lot of propaganda posters are just pretty with no meaning if you don’t, you know, have any clue as to the subject.

What’s annoying is that it seems like there’s more to the posters than is being explained. Some have full translations, but a lot seem like there’s more to be typed out. Does all of that Chinese really only translate out to three or four words? And what’s the specific context? And what the heck are some of these slogans even referring to? …I want more info, please!

(Also, the binding broke when I got to the last page: the glue snapped off so the cover separated from the book. I smushed it back together, but now I’m afraid to open it again.)

But, really, they did an awesome job with their project (even going so far as to explain the technical process of getting the posters into a book format). I like how the chapters are organized and introduced, I like that the titles are listed, I like that there are plenty of essays to make sense of things, and I like that the posters are in colour and mostly of a perfectly acceptable size (one or two are far, far too tiny).

If you like propaganda art, this is a great book to check out. If you like Chinese cultural history, this is an awesome snack to enjoy without having to get too buried in meaty technicalities and details. So go check it out!

…But not right now. Right now it’s time to go to sleep!