PDF Ebook City of Tranquil Light: A Novel, by Bo Caldwell
Never mind if you do not have sufficient time to head to the publication establishment and also hunt for the preferred publication to review. Nowadays, the online publication City Of Tranquil Light: A Novel, By Bo Caldwell is pertaining to provide convenience of reading behavior. You may not should go outdoors to search guide City Of Tranquil Light: A Novel, By Bo Caldwell Searching and also downloading the e-book entitle City Of Tranquil Light: A Novel, By Bo Caldwell in this write-up will give you much better remedy. Yeah, on the internet e-book City Of Tranquil Light: A Novel, By Bo Caldwell is a sort of digital e-book that you can get in the web link download offered.
City of Tranquil Light: A Novel, by Bo Caldwell
PDF Ebook City of Tranquil Light: A Novel, by Bo Caldwell
Find the trick to enhance the quality of life by reading this City Of Tranquil Light: A Novel, By Bo Caldwell This is a type of publication that you require currently. Besides, it can be your favored book to review after having this book City Of Tranquil Light: A Novel, By Bo Caldwell Do you ask why? Well, City Of Tranquil Light: A Novel, By Bo Caldwell is a publication that has different unique with others. You could not have to understand that the author is, how well-known the work is. As smart word, never ever evaluate the words from which speaks, but make the words as your inexpensive to your life.
Exactly how can? Do you believe that you don't need enough time to choose shopping e-book City Of Tranquil Light: A Novel, By Bo Caldwell Never ever mind! Merely rest on your seat. Open your device or computer system and be on-line. You can open or see the web link download that we gave to obtain this City Of Tranquil Light: A Novel, By Bo Caldwell By by doing this, you could get the online e-book City Of Tranquil Light: A Novel, By Bo Caldwell Reading guide City Of Tranquil Light: A Novel, By Bo Caldwell by on-line could be truly done quickly by waiting in your computer as well as gizmo. So, you could proceed each time you have leisure time.
Reading the book City Of Tranquil Light: A Novel, By Bo Caldwell by online could be additionally done conveniently every where you are. It appears that waiting the bus on the shelter, waiting the list for line, or other areas feasible. This City Of Tranquil Light: A Novel, By Bo Caldwell can accompany you during that time. It will not make you feel bored. Besides, this way will also enhance your life high quality.
So, just be below, discover guide City Of Tranquil Light: A Novel, By Bo Caldwell now and check out that swiftly. Be the very first to review this publication City Of Tranquil Light: A Novel, By Bo Caldwell by downloading in the web link. We have some various other e-books to check out in this website. So, you can find them additionally effortlessly. Well, now we have actually done to supply you the very best publication to read today, this City Of Tranquil Light: A Novel, By Bo Caldwell is truly appropriate for you. Never ever neglect that you require this e-book City Of Tranquil Light: A Novel, By Bo Caldwell to make much better life. On-line book City Of Tranquil Light: A Novel, By Bo Caldwell will truly give easy of every little thing to check out and also take the advantages.
"What ardent, dazzling souls emerge from these American missionaries in China . . . A beautiful, searing book that leaves an indelible presence in the mind." ―Patricia Hampl, author of The Florist's Daughter
Will Kiehn is seemingly destined for life as a humble farmer in the Midwest when, having felt a call from God, he travels to the vast North China Plain in the early twentieth-century. There he is surprised by love and weds a strong and determined fellow missionary, Katherine. They soon find themselves witnesses to the crumbling of a more than two-thousand-year-old dynasty that plunges the country into decades of civil war. As the couple works to improve the lives of the people of Kuang P'ing Ch'eng― City of Tranquil Light, a place they come to love―and face incredible hardship, will their faith and relationship be enough to sustain them?
Told through Will and Katherine's alternating viewpoints―and inspired by the lives of the author's maternal grandparents―City of Tranquil Light is a tender and elegiac portrait of a young marriage set against the backdrop of the shifting face of a beautiful but torn nation. A deeply spiritual book, it shows how those who work to teach others often have the most to learn, and is further evidence that Bo Caldwell writes "vividly and with great historical perspective" (San Jose Mercury News).
- Sales Rank: #544722 in Books
- Published on: 2011-10-25
- Released on: 2011-10-25
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.27" h x .83" w x 5.50" l, .62 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 320 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Caldwell (The Distant Land of My Father) draws from the biographies of missionaries in northern China during the turbulent first half of the 20th century in this mixed second novel. It traces the story of two young, hopeful Midwesterners--shy, bright Oklahoma farmer Will Kiehn and brave Cleveland deaconess Katherine Friesen--as they journey to the brink of China's civil war in the isolated town of Kuang P'ing Ch'eng: the "City of Tranquil Light." In the unforgiving "land of naught," they live the joys and perils of missionary life, including famine, spiritual rejection, the dramatic 1926 rise of Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang, and the forcible, often violent, exile of fellow missionaries. Throughout the unrelenting hardship, the remarkably stable couple remain in China, bound to their newfound roots and to the ideals of their larger mission. At times this novel seems more about rhetoric than relationships--the couple's unwavering dedication to each other and their mission is unbelievable at times--but Katherine's diary entries are emotionally deft, capturing the romance and anxiety of cultural estrangement.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Caldwell set her first novel in pre-WWII Shanghai. She returns to China in her second, inspired by the story of her missionary grandparents. Her fictionalized version begins in 1906 when Will, 21, and Katherine, a year older, join a group of Mennonite missionaries on their journey from Seattle to China––he an enraptured recruit, she a nursing student whose sister is married to the group’s charismatic leader. Several years later Will and Katherine marry, and are sent to Kuang P’ing Ch’eng, or the City of Tranquil Light, on the North China Plain, where they stay for nearly 25 years. Caldwell masterfully interweaves their remarkable sojourn—during which they run an ever-expanding church, establish an orphanage, and struggle with their faith when their cherished daughter dies of dysentery at 11 months—with China’s tumultuous history during those years marked by civil war. Caldwell perceptively explores the deepening faith shared by her grandparents while at the same time painting a vivid portrait of the country they came to love more deeply than their own. --Deborah Donovan
Review
“Deceptively quiet, this portrait of a couple in love with each other, their work, and their adopted country explores the deepest questions of faith while richly illuminating a lost time and place.” ―Andrea Barrett, author of The Air We Breathe
“City of Tranquil Light is just my kind of book. It is full of light, even at its darkest moments. I relished the hours spent with this dedicated and intrepid couple and will not soon forget them. Bo Caldwell has honored her missionary grandparents with her storytelling skills.” ―Gail Godwin, author of Unfinished Desires and Evensong
“What ardent, dazzling souls emerge from these American missionaries in China. Two great lovers hand their story back and forth, the husband writing from widowed old age, the wife speaking from the immediacy of a diary she kept during their decades in pre-Revolutionary China.... A beautiful, searing book that leaves an indelible presence in the mind.” ―Patricia Hampl, author of The Florist's Daughter
“A handful of books each year convince me of their firm grip on what, for want of a better word, I would call truth. Bo Caldwell has seized on this material, based on the experience of her grandparents, and somehow conjured a miraculous story, one full of passion, historical interest, and spiritual questing. The North China Plain is vividly evoked, and the main characters, Will and Katherine, will not easily be forgotten. City of Tranquil Light is a poem in prose form, and it will lift any reader's spirit as it lifted mine.” ―Jay Parini, author of The Last Station
“City of Tranquil Light is a remarkable evocation of another time and place as well as a deeply moving love story, but, most of all, Bo Caldwell's book is a profound meditation on the mysteries of belief. This novel is one that will linger in the reader's mind long after the last page is turned.” ―Ron Rash, author of Serena
“It is inspired, a beautifully written, often riveting, heatbreaking, heart-healing, wise and sweet-tempered novel.” ―America Magazine
“City of Tranquil Light is just my kind of book. It is full of light, even at its darkest moments. I relished the hours spent with this dedicated and intrepid couple and will not soon forget them. Bo Caldwell has honored her missionary grandparents with her storytelling skills.” ―Gail Godwin, author of Unfinished Desires and Evensong
“Bo Caldwell’s Will and Katherine Kiehn’s. . . quiet faith, love of their adopted country, and devotion to each other will stir all but the most callous readers. . . . The two books that came to my mind most often when reading this one were Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop and Marilynn Robinson’s Gilead. . . . Joseph Conrad and Barbara Kingsolver took us to the heart of darkness. Bo Caldwell arouses the hope, even the conviction, that beyond darkness of all kinds lies a heavenly city―a city of tranquil light.” ―Shirley Showalter, Christian Century
“Throughout the unrelenting hardship, the remarkably stable couple remains in China, bound to their newfound roots and to the ideals of their larger mission. . . Katherine's diary entries are emotionally deft, capturing the romance and anxiety of cultural estrangement.” ―Publishers Weekly
“A tale of enduring love between this couple, their love for China and its people, and their love for their God.” ―Library Journal
“Luminous, heart wrenching and intricately detailed” ―Santa Cruz Good Times
“. . . plainspoken and tender . . . makes for a lovely sustained chant.” ―San Francisco Chronicle
“A luminous slice of place and time. . . a sensory experience. . . Historical fiction fans, those who appreciate missionary stories, and those who enjoy a good novel will find City of Tranquil Light an absorbing, engaging read.” ―Christianity Today
Most helpful customer reviews
50 of 51 people found the following review helpful.
Portrait of faith
By Pippa Lee
"I have learned to do what God places in front of me, whatever that is," Will Kiehn says as he explains to Hsiao Lao, the bandit chief, his commitment to help anybody in need, be that a sick old farmer or an injured thief. Those same words could also sum up Will's life story in "City of Tranquil Light."
In 1909 Will and his wife, Katherine arrived in Kuang P'ing Ch'eng (City of Tranquil Light), in the North China Plain to establish a new Mennonite church. Little did they know then that they would stay there for nearly 25 years and would come to think of China as their home. Author Bo Caldwell, tells their story through Will, a widower now, in his eighties, and living in a retirement home in California, as he vividly remembers the trials and tribulations of becoming a pastor and of earning the trust of the inhabitants of Kuang P'ing Ch'eng. Caldwell cleverly intersperses Katherine's diary entries with Will's narration thus bringing up her in-the-moment feelings to his remembrance of the events they lived through together. And they lived through a lot: personal losses, bandits, famine, earthquakes and civil war.
Caldwell was inspired by her grandparents' missionary experiences for this book and even gave their last name to her protagonists. Her portrait of missionaries in China is one of individuals who answered God's call and strove to serve Him --despite many sacrifices and hardships-- with passion. In Kuang P'ing C'heng, Will preaches the Word of God while Katherine provides medical care in her clinic. Rather than trying to impose their beliefs, Will and Katherine work selflessly in the hopes that through their words and actions others will come to accept God. Their mission is clear (as Katherine was reminded in her early days in China): "We are here to offer the gift of faith, not remake their way of life, even when the change seems necessary and right."
Although a historical novel, thankfully, Caldwell only includes enough facts to place her characters within the context of China's historical events. Her focus on the characters, their triumphs and sorrows, their faith and their doubts is what makes this novel a satisfying book. Caldwell wrote this story in part because of the bad rap missionaries get in fiction. With this book, she dispels the exploitative image and succeeds in reminding the readers that there were a few who sincerely reached out to others in kindness and compassion, in other words, those who stayed true to God's call.
26 of 29 people found the following review helpful.
a decent historical novel
By atavism
The City of Tranquil Light tells the story of two American missionaries who fall in love with each other and their paths in life while working in early 20th century China. The book is narrated primarily by Will, with intermittent diary entries from his wife, Katherine. Both Will and Katherine are characterized primarily by their Christian faith, and as the bulk of the plot revolves around their missionary work, quite a lot of space is devoted to contemplation of God and accounts of proselytizing. There are non-Christian viewpoints expressed by minor characters, but they are few and far between. Still, the book itself is not a propaganda piece, and the Christian element is not overwhelming to readers who do not follow the faith.
The author does a good job of creating the character of Will, but Katherine isn't as fleshed out and isn't nearly as compelling or relatable. The turbulence of pre-revolutionary China and the desperation of war and famine move the book along and add tension and suspense. While the novel isn't amazing, it was interesting to read from a historical perspective. I'd recommend it to people interested in China's history.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
A story that touched my heart
By PT Cruiser
One of the things that impressed me the most about this story of an American husband and wife who were missionaries in China was their amazing patience, trust in God and their love for each other. The saga begins in the early 1900's, beginning with Will Kiehn who is a young farmer on his dad's land in Oklahoma and his meeting a missionary who is on his way back to China. Will finds him fascinating and is drawn to the idea of living in China as a missionary. He leaves soon after and meets his wife-to-be, Katherine, in Seattle just prior to boarding the ship that will take them to China.
Will becomes a preacher and Katherine a nurse, treating simple maladies as well as increasingly difficult ones. There is such a shortage of supplies in inland China where they live and any kind of medical doctor, that people ending up coming from miles around to be treated. Walking seems to be the primary way of moving between villages. Will asks Katherine to marry him at Christmas a little over a year after they arrive in China.
Will and Katherine ended up spending 27 years in China, and it became the country that they identified with, learning to speak Chinese and living among the people with very few supplies and no real luxuries. I was amazed at their patience with the conditions and their faith in God that seemed to keep them going. They were gentle souls in most ways but fierce in their determination to make things better.
Bo Caldwell did an excellent job of bringing their experiences, based on those of her grandfather and several other missionaries, to life. She tells the story in both Will's words and in Katherine's diary entries over the years. I had the feeling that I was there among them and could feel their love for each other. It was also a wake-up call that we all need now and then to make us realize how well we live and how much we have compared to many people in other parts of the word.
City of Tranquil Light: A Novel, by Bo Caldwell PDF
City of Tranquil Light: A Novel, by Bo Caldwell EPub
City of Tranquil Light: A Novel, by Bo Caldwell Doc
City of Tranquil Light: A Novel, by Bo Caldwell iBooks
City of Tranquil Light: A Novel, by Bo Caldwell rtf
City of Tranquil Light: A Novel, by Bo Caldwell Mobipocket
City of Tranquil Light: A Novel, by Bo Caldwell Kindle
No comments:
Post a Comment