LOVE IN A FALLEN CITY
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LOVE IN A FALLEN CITY
Who doesn't love to read of troubled relationships? Described as a book of Chinese customs with English manners, that's what you'll find in this collection of novellas and short stories. Notably, the romantic discords mirror the changes taking place in China at the time Eileen Chang was writing. With the onset of WWII, Chinese customs waned while Western influences became more prominent. Chang loved the creative tension between dualities: physical versus spiritual love, the East against the West, loss of tradition and the challenges of modernity. Many of the stories use the archetype of the seducer and the fallen woman. Chang’s characters, often in the “throes of love,” navigate these opposing forces.
The titular story depicts a young divorcee, Bai Liusu, who falls in love with Fan Liuyuan, a wealthy playboy. Of course they have their troubles, but eventually they get a place together in Hong Kong. Happiness is thwarted, though, because that’s also when the bombing starts:
Amid the wreckage, Liusu and Liuyuan find that “when one person seems to have two bodies, danger is only doubled . . . She knew Liuyuan felt the same way. Now all she had was him; all he had was her.”
As they rebuild their lives, one night Liusu reflects,
“In this uncertain world, money, property, the permanent things—they’re unreliable. The only thing she could rely on was the breath in her lungs, and this person who lay sleeping beside her. Suddenly, she crawled over to him, hugging him through the quilt. He reached out from the bedding and grasped her hand. They looked and saw each other, saw each other entirely. It was a mere moment of deep understanding, but it was enough to keep them happy together for a decade or so.”
Many kinds of love are present in Love in a Fallen City, but we see that, actually, the dualities we think of – love included – exist all at the same time.
Written by So Textual
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