Love in a Fallen City (2007; stories originally written in 1943-47)
Eileen Chang (1920-1995)
Translated by Karen S. Kingsbury
324 pagesChinese society experienced traumatic changes during the first half of the twentieth century. As the Qing dynasty ended in 1912 with the founding of the Republic of China, ancient traditions were giving way to western influences. In the midst of this cultural upheaval came the Japanese invasion, in 1937, and a brutal occupation that deteriorated into a harsh struggle for survival for the Chinese people. Even after the defeat of the Japanese in 1945, the remaining years of the decade saw China descend into a long civil war.
The Chinese writer Eileen Chang lived through these dramatic and difficult years, and they colored her work. Born in Shanghai, in 1920, she spent much of the first thirty years of her life both there and in Hong Kong. In the 1940’s, while studying English literature in Hong Kong during the Japanese occupation, she began writing stories and essays, taking care to remain below the radar of the occupation regime.Love in a Fallen City collects together a half-dozen of her stories from that period. (It also contains an Introduction by the book’s translator Karen S. Kingsbury, with biographical information, and a short Notes section that provides context for some terms in the stories that may be unfamiliar to a western reader.) Chang’s stories reveal the challenges faced by both men and women as the strict cultural norms of their parents slowly, fitfully gave way to more western notions of romance and love. Where before families had carefully arranged the meeting and nuptials of a couple, now some young men and women could choose for themselves; but they might also suddenly find themselves judged and trapped by old standards and customs to which many in Chinese society steadfastly held. For some this resulted in a paralysis of choice mixed with fear, while for others it became a time of reckless abandoned.
In the opening story, Aloeswood Incense: The First Brazier, a girl from Shanghai is living with her family in Hong Kong and attending university. When her family decides to return to Shanghai, she resolves to find a way to stay in Hong Kong and continue her studies. She approaches a wealthy, divorced aunt who lives in the city, but who has long been estranged from the family for her socialite behaviors, and asks to live with her. Though the aunt takes her in, the girl soon realizes that her aunt has motives beyond simple familial obligation. As she becomes increasingly caught up in the charms and risks of her aunt’s social world, and the barely hidden schemes in which her aunt involves her, the girl struggles to maintain her balance.
An awkward boy is befriended by the attractive daughter of one of his professors in Jasmine Tea, but doubts the depth of her feelings. Hints he has found of an earlier relationship between his dead mother and the girl’s father further complicate his relationship with her.
In the title story Love in a Fallen City, a woman has divorced her husband and moved back in with her family; the family resents having the extra mouth to feed, and yet also refuses to try and help her re-marry. She realizes that she must take matters into her own hands, and when she is attracted to a man who had been picked out for her younger sister, but who seems to show an interest in her, she makes her move. But does he seriously want to marry her, or simply have an affair?
The only one of these stories to be translated by Chang herself, The Golden Cangue follows the life of a woman whose family has married her into a more well-to-do family, but to a husband who turns out to be a sickly, tubercular cripple. (A cangue is a heavy wooden collar enclosing the neck and arms, and resting on the shoulders; it was used in Asia to humiliate petty criminals.) On her own in the family and frustrated by her situation, the woman turns bitter and vindictive, simply waiting for her husband to die so she can inherit his money. When this finally comes to pass she receives enough for her, and her son and daughter, to live on comfortably, but has become so scarred by the experience that she alienates everyone around her, believing that no one cares for or loves her, and that they are only after her money.
In a demonstration of Chang’s elliptical reference to the Japanese invasion and occupation in these stories, Sealed Off opens inside a Shanghai tram filled with passengers as it comes to a halt one evening rush hour when unnamed authorities unexpectedly seal off parts of the city. A businessman heading home discovers that a pestering nephew is also on the stuck tram. Not wanting to talk to him, the man quickly switches seats to sit next to a young woman with whom he then strikes up a conversation. Initially cool to his sudden attentions, she gradually opens up to him; but what are his motives with her, and how deep his interest?
The final story, Red Rose, White Rose, centers on a man who has studied in England and returns to China to take up a job in Shanghai. He moves in with a friend and, despite having a reputation as someone who can remain unaffected in the presence of a beautiful woman, falls in love with the friend’s wife. But he finds her too flirtatious and not very smart, and he worries about the scandal of an adulterous relationship, so he leaves her and settles for an arranged marriage. Increasingly unhappy with his new wife, he begins questioning the path he has chosen, his behavior becoming erratic and destructive. How can he regain his former peace of mind?
In each of these stories Chang mixes incredibly rich and colorful descriptions of life in early 20th century Hong Kong and Shanghai with the inner thoughts of her characters and their often pointed dialogue, as they verbally spar with one another, each trying to discover the other’s true motives while not revealing their own. The stories are written as though someone is remembering back to these times, and in fact some of the stories open with a brief paragraph or two which set-up a narrator telling the story to someone sitting with them. Although there is a main character in each story, whose path and thoughts Chang generally follows, she also switches at times to the point of view of another character, and their thoughts, before returning again to the main character. This technique deprives us as readers of the typical sympathy toward the main character over others in the story; here we find that each character struggles with and feels trapped by their own confused desires in the world of changing norms in which they live. And each discovers their own way of dealing with this struggle.
The wonderful stories in Love in a Fallen City provide us a window back into the tumultuous world of mid-20th century Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Other reviews / information: Eileen Chang also wrote the novel Love, Caution, which was recently made into a movie, directed by Ang Lee; watch the trailer here.
Others of her stories, including some in this collection, have also been made into movies in China.
Born Zhang Ying, she also went by Zhang Ailing (Zhang being the family name).
This is yet another wonderful selection from the NYRB Classics collection. See their review of the book here.
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf
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