FINISHED READING - 1000 Years of Joys & Sorrows by Ai Weiwei

Two remarkable lives are bound together in this book, two different artists from different eras, but the same family  Who both suffer at the autocratic hands of the Chinese Communist Party.  Ai Qing, was Ai Weiwei's Father, an internationally renowned poet, whose political opinions would mean the CCP would stop him from being able to write, and be published. Then to be sent into exiled isolation, with his family barely eeking out a living in a hovel dug into the earth. Accused by Mao Zedong of being a rightist he became a non person. Ai Weiwei can remember the cost, the sight of his own Father being prevented by his Mother from taking his own life. In many ways this half remembered biography of his Father is more deeply affecting because it is seen from one remove. For though Ai Weiwei was occasionally present in this story, much of his Father's life has been researched. It comes second hand. Ai Weiwei admits there was an emotional distance between himself and his Father, and this is certainly communicated in the recollection of it.

The second half of the book is Ai Weiwei's autobiography. His own lived experience of the devious machinations of the CCP. It therefore bares a different emotíonal signature, because it is more deeply rooted in his experience. Recounting the repeated attempts to silence him, and the infamous eighty one days under arrest. He tells you all that led up to it, that time under arrest and its aftermath. The affect it had on his family. His son Ai Lao turning out to be preternaturally sage like in his utterances. 

Ai Weiwei does comes across as quite a tough cookie, very persistent, and really astutely nimble in his responses to tricks in his interrogator's questioning. Sharply aware of the consequences in saying or not saying, in agreeing leading to the wrong thing. But then he has incredible integrity, courageously brave in his artistic practice, with his online campaigns to highlight the hypocrisies, corruptions and various oppressions of the communist governmernt. His compassion for others is also hugely admirable, coming across as a quite ordinary, relatable figure. A fascinating, often horrifying, yet salutory book to read. As we too appear incrementally to be heading in a similar authoritarian direction.

CARROT REVIEW  - 7/8