Wild Swans.

My bookshelf contains an eclectic assortment of volumes: philosophical classics, history, biography, travel, novels, mystery stories for light reading, and a set of contemporary feminist books in philosophy and theology which I read as part of a book club. I have selected three volumes which I liked best. Their styles and topics are widely different, yet each book (one by a Chinese woman, two by Americans) is a commentary on women's experience and suggests that reflection upon that experience can illuminate our understandings of the inner life, prayer, and ultimately, God.

Perhaps the most fascinating was Wild Swans by June Chang (Doubleday, Anchor Books, $14,524 pp.). Chang, whose given name, Er Hong, means "second wild swan" (her mother was the first), recounts her own story in the context of her family, notably her mother and grandmother, whose combined experiences spanned most of twentieth-century China. The country moved from the Manchu Empire during her grandmother's childhood, through the Japanese occupation during World War II and the civil war between the Kuomingtang and the Communists which marked her mother's developing years, to the author's own experiences during the regime of Mao Zedong. The book ends, in fact, shortly after Mao's death when Chang receives a scholarship for study in England.

The book is gripping, not only because it provides an insider's commentary on the cataclysmic events of twentieth-century China, but especially because it reveals the souls of three strong Chinese women who dealt personally with uncertainty, physical pain, and deprivation. Each was a survivor in her own way. I found myself wondering about the inner life that sustained these women. It was surely not based on religion (at least for Chang and her mother, devoted Communists). It seemed to be born of a fierce commitment to family, a strong sense of survival, and an appreciation for things of the spirit: books, art, music, ideas. The traditional culture and the family culture shaped them as much as the commitment to communism so firmly embraced by June and her mother. They showed themselves to be idealistic, creative, tough, and courageous over and over again. As her grandmother remarked after her mother once defied soldiers threatening her, "You have your grandfather's blood in your veins."

Er Hong recounts a personal quest to define her own ideas and place in the world even while both were dictated to her. Her gradual awareness that things were not as she had been told, and her willingness to let that awareness develop even when her thoughts had to be hidden, eventually led her out of China. Having made the decision to stay in the West, she wrote the book after a visit from her mother who revealed much more of the family's stories.