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WAR TIDE by Lin Taiyi

WAR TIDE

By

Pub Date: Nov. 1st, 1943
Publisher: John Day

Modern China-the older generation against the younger-and even with the younger generation, conflict in viewpoint in regard to marriage and women. Lo-Yin, by force of circumstances, has had to take over the management of the affairs of her family: Royal Pearl, bride of Lo-Yin's aviator brother, typifies the old school Chinese girl; Dragon Eye, friend of Lo-Yin, joins the army, but is swayed chiefly by her human contacts rather than the ideals for which she fights. Through the story, the family of Lo-Yin is forced by the tide of war, not only to change their thinking, but to move from the ancestral home first to Hankow, then on to Chungking. One gets a certain sense of life under bombing, there's a brief trip to front line and hospitals, there's a rather moving thread of plot connected with the shock to a small boy of having all he holds dear destroyed before his eyes. But the war -- its threat -- its ""tide"" is the control of the story. Thin plot -- no buildup of atmosphere -- the difficulties of Chinese names -- the superficiality, to Western minds, of the emotional interrelations, all will tend to make the market a limited one.