topics: |  fiction | china

A lyrical tale of love under the dark brooding fear of the communist
regime; what is permitted, and what is not - and how life finds its
way despite all hurdles.  In this case the hurdle is that the Lin Kong
cannot remarry until he has divorced his previous village wife, who is
a peasant woman with tiny feet resulting from a bound-foot childhood.

The story evolves in a small-town hospital in Muji, where Lin and Manna
become sweethearts but not lovers (because they are "good" law-abiding
citizens).  They are waiting for Lin to get his divorce (which is possible
either with his wife's agreement or after eighteen years).  In between,
suitors for Manna crop up, Lin's country cousin whose wife had died, and
a powerful Commissar who needs another wife (and Manna is officially
recommended by the Hospital).  In each of these cases, Lin is agreeable to
the idea.  In between the ex-soldier Geng Yang befriends Lin and one day
rapes Manna - much later in the story on he emerges as one of the new
commercial magnates in the boom China.

The story is modern in its sparse, sparing tone, and attuned with the
theme of a love grown weary and listless, reaching a fulfillment neither full
nor filling.
    The book is winner of several awards including the 2000 PEN/Faulkner
award.  Jin is professor of English at Emory.

Excerpts

She had been waiting, waiting, only for a beginning or an ending
between them.  But his life seemed to have been caught in a circle
that he could not escape so as to establish a starting point again.
Love did not help.  The possibility of love only filled him with
despondency and languor, as though he was sick of the soul.  If only
he had never known Manna; if only he could slide into his old rut
again; if only he could return to an undisturbed, contented
life. [79-80]

Before they stepped off the bridge, Liang spat into the water.
A red carp, about two feet long, came up on the surface and swallowed
the phlegm.  Manna made a mental note - Lin would have never done
that. [116]

[Manna] went on, "In the matter of love, I ought to follow my heart.
Even birds may not become mates if you put them together in a cage not
to speak of human beings.  So don't talk about looking for another
man again." [119]

Even an emperor isn't free to divorce his wife. [123]

A good marriage was full of moments of cats and dogs. [Fights] [124]

---
[Lin Kong reads all the love letters Manna Wu's earlier love, Mai Dong
had written her]

In his heart, he was eager to go through the letters, though he didn’t show
his eagerness. Never had he seen a love letter except in novels; never had he
written one himself. Now he could see a real love letter.

Yet having read all the letters, he felt a doubt rising in his mind.  What
troubled him was that the desperation Mai Dong had described was entirely
alien to him.  Never had he experienced that kind of intense emotion for a
woman; never had he written a sentence charged with that kind of love.
Whenever he wrote to Manna, he would address her as "Comrade Manna," or
jokingly as "My Old Lady."  Maybe I've read too much, he reasoned, or maybe
I'm too rational, better educated.  I'm a scientist by training -- knowledge
chills your blood.  [252]

---
The moon was glistening on the willow and maple crowns; beetles and
grasshoppers were chirring madly. The leaves and branches, heavy with dew,
bent down slightly, while the grass on both sides of the road looked spiky
and thick in the coppery light of the street lamps. A toad was croaking like
a broken horn from a distant ditch partly filled with foamy water. Lin felt
weak and aged; he was unsure whether he cared for the twins and whether he
would be able to love them devotedly. Watching their covered faces, somehow
he began to imagine trading places with them, having his life start
afresh. If only he himself had been carried by someone like this now; then he
would have led his life differently. Perhaps he would never have had a
family.

---
It was so good to have a trustworthy friend in whose arms she could cry
without feeling embarrassed, without being afraid of the kind of
ridicule unleashed by the hostile world, without worrying about
becoming the target of endless gossip and mockery, and without having
to say, "Forgive me." [286]

---
[Lin is debating with himself]
We waited eighteen years for each other, didn't we?  Doesn't such a
long time prove we love each other?

No, time may prove nothing.  Actually you never loved her.  You just
had a crush on her, which you didn't get a chance to outgrow or to
develop into love.

The voice went on, Yes, you waited so many years, but for what?

He found his mind blank and couldn't answer.

Let me tell you what really happened, the voice said.  All those years
you waited torpidly, like a sleepwalker, pulled and pushed about by
others' opinions, by external pressure, by your illusions, by the
official rules you internalized.  You were misled by your own
frustration and passivity, believeing that what you were not allowed
to have was what your heart was destined to embrace... .

It dawned on him that he had never loved a woman wholeheartedly and
that he had always been the loved one.  This must have been the reason
why he knew so little about love and women.  In other words,
emotionally he hadn't grown up.  His instinct and ability to love
passionately had withered away before they had an opportunity to
blossom.  If only he had fallen in love soulfully just once in his
life, even though it might have broken his heart, paralyzed his mind,
made him live in a daze, bathed his face in tears, and drowned him in
despair!  [294-5]