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A review by mafiabadgers
Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
First read 01/2025
There's a decent introduction from translator Karen S. Kingsbury, giving some background on the circumstances of Chang's upbringing and the demands made by the political climate of her writing. Also some insight into Kingsbury's motives for translating in the way she has done.
I hadn't been expecting Chang's Preface to the Second Edition of Romances (an early collection of her work, from these stories come, barring Red Rose, White Rose) to be anything particularly remarkable; instead, its meditations on fame, on the enduring nature of Chinese folk opera, and the end of life as we know it were startlingly powerful and melancholic. By the time I reached the first novella, my hopes were high.
Aloeswood Incense: The First Brazier, five stars.
A young woman convinces her wealthy but scandalous aunt to fund her education. The implicit deal is that Weilong will be dressed up by her aunt, made to attend her parties, and will generally boost her social cachet. The story of being dragged into the power games and seedy life of the elite and coming off the worse for it is an old one, but here it's utterly engrossing. We see the evils of English colonial rule in Hong Kong paired off with the ailing mores of traditional Chinese society, crashing up against a fashionable Westernisation. Hearts are broken, reputations endangered, the young grapple with the old: this novella is everything literary fiction dreams of being.
'Jasmine Tea', four stars.
Today, Nie Chuanqing would be written as either an incel or a deeply repressed trans woman. Perhaps he's both. Either way, it's an intensely fragile masculinity explored in this story; a little uncomfortable to read, but compellingly done.
Love in a Fallen City, four stars.
A very confusing opening, with a panoply of characters referred to as Third Master, Third Mistress, Seventh Sister, and so on, but I gather this is a Chinese custom so I ought to give it a pass. Aside from Sixth Sister Bai Liusu, these characters soon drop out of the story, so it's really not so bad. Liusu, having divorced her abusive husband, now lives with her family, who have very little warmth for her, their disdain compounded by their financial hardships (as a point of reference, they retain their servants). She decides to remarry, and the novella is mostly about her attempts to secure not just the affections, but also the hand, of a well-off but somewhat fickle man, Fan Liuyuan. It feels not dissimilar to a Jane Austen, and I don't think that's entirely due to my ignorance: both this and, say, Pride and Prejudice are very much about women's economic insecurity in a male-dominated world, and their dependency on securing a good marriage. Love is far more cynical than Pride, though.
I don't know how it compares to the Chinese, but the English title is excellent, as fallen can refer either to a state of moral decay (making it an excellent name for the collection—it could easily be given to any of the stories), or a fallen city in the military sense. Eventually it is the 1941 fall of Hong Kong to the Japanese that breaks through social convention and fecklessness to bring about a lasting relationship between Liusu and Liuyuan—for a while. "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." The death of thousands brings about a sort of joy for the lucky couple, but in the end, Chang is far too good to close her story with a trite message about silver linings. This remains "a tale too desolate for words—oh! why go into it?"
The Golden Cangue, one star.
As the only part of the collection translated by Chang, I was looking forward to this one; unfortunately, despite having the shape of a good story, I found it very difficult to follow (at least partly due to my unfamiliarity with Chinese naming conventions, I'm sure). There were a few moments when the prose really worked, but for the most part it was unremarkable. Disappointing, but oodles of potential—overall an interesting piece, then, and a glowing commendation of Kingsbury's translation.
'Sealed Off', four stars.
"The military situation that creates this interlude is presented very obliquely; all that we know is that the authorities have shut down, or cordoned off, all or part of the city. The authorities, in this case, are probably the Japanese occupiers or (more likely) the Chinese puppet government that answered to them." (from Kingsbury's Notes) This is a really strong short story about the occupants of a tram that's been shut down on the street. They can't leave, but none of them are overly fussed about this. Whether or not they'll miss dinner seems to be their biggest concern. There's almost something apocalyptic about it, that life is continuing in its little ways while events with huge ramifications happen just out of view. It brings back memories of the pandemic, though of course, being shut in a tram with a group of strangers is the last thing you'd want under those circumstances. Two characters fall beautifully, passionately in love—but only for a moment. The tram moves on, and everything is left behind.
Red Rose, White Rose, three stars.
If you like stereotypically literary work about people having affairs with each other, you'll love this. It's not my thing. Lots of stuff about 'this is what men are like, this is what women are like', and I've never cared for that, but I have to concede it's well done.
There's a decent introduction from translator Karen S. Kingsbury, giving some background on the circumstances of Chang's upbringing and the demands made by the political climate of her writing. Also some insight into Kingsbury's motives for translating in the way she has done.
I hadn't been expecting Chang's Preface to the Second Edition of Romances (an early collection of her work, from these stories come, barring Red Rose, White Rose) to be anything particularly remarkable; instead, its meditations on fame, on the enduring nature of Chinese folk opera, and the end of life as we know it were startlingly powerful and melancholic. By the time I reached the first novella, my hopes were high.
Aloeswood Incense: The First Brazier, five stars.
A young woman convinces her wealthy but scandalous aunt to fund her education. The implicit deal is that Weilong will be dressed up by her aunt, made to attend her parties, and will generally boost her social cachet. The story of being dragged into the power games and seedy life of the elite and coming off the worse for it is an old one, but here it's utterly engrossing. We see the evils of English colonial rule in Hong Kong paired off with the ailing mores of traditional Chinese society, crashing up against a fashionable Westernisation. Hearts are broken, reputations endangered, the young grapple with the old: this novella is everything literary fiction dreams of being.
'Jasmine Tea', four stars.
Today, Nie Chuanqing would be written as either an incel or a deeply repressed trans woman. Perhaps he's both. Either way, it's an intensely fragile masculinity explored in this story; a little uncomfortable to read, but compellingly done.
Love in a Fallen City, four stars.
A very confusing opening, with a panoply of characters referred to as Third Master, Third Mistress, Seventh Sister, and so on, but I gather this is a Chinese custom so I ought to give it a pass. Aside from Sixth Sister Bai Liusu, these characters soon drop out of the story, so it's really not so bad. Liusu, having divorced her abusive husband, now lives with her family, who have very little warmth for her, their disdain compounded by their financial hardships (as a point of reference, they retain their servants). She decides to remarry, and the novella is mostly about her attempts to secure not just the affections, but also the hand, of a well-off but somewhat fickle man, Fan Liuyuan. It feels not dissimilar to a Jane Austen, and I don't think that's entirely due to my ignorance: both this and, say, Pride and Prejudice are very much about women's economic insecurity in a male-dominated world, and their dependency on securing a good marriage. Love is far more cynical than Pride, though.
I don't know how it compares to the Chinese, but the English title is excellent, as fallen can refer either to a state of moral decay (making it an excellent name for the collection—it could easily be given to any of the stories), or a fallen city in the military sense. Eventually it is the 1941 fall of Hong Kong to the Japanese that breaks through social convention and fecklessness to bring about a lasting relationship between Liusu and Liuyuan—for a while. "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." The death of thousands brings about a sort of joy for the lucky couple, but in the end, Chang is far too good to close her story with a trite message about silver linings. This remains "a tale too desolate for words—oh! why go into it?"
The Golden Cangue, one star.
As the only part of the collection translated by Chang, I was looking forward to this one; unfortunately, despite having the shape of a good story, I found it very difficult to follow (at least partly due to my unfamiliarity with Chinese naming conventions, I'm sure). There were a few moments when the prose really worked, but for the most part it was unremarkable. Disappointing, but oodles of potential—overall an interesting piece, then, and a glowing commendation of Kingsbury's translation.
'Sealed Off', four stars.
"The military situation that creates this interlude is presented very obliquely; all that we know is that the authorities have shut down, or cordoned off, all or part of the city. The authorities, in this case, are probably the Japanese occupiers or (more likely) the Chinese puppet government that answered to them." (from Kingsbury's Notes) This is a really strong short story about the occupants of a tram that's been shut down on the street. They can't leave, but none of them are overly fussed about this. Whether or not they'll miss dinner seems to be their biggest concern. There's almost something apocalyptic about it, that life is continuing in its little ways while events with huge ramifications happen just out of view. It brings back memories of the pandemic, though of course, being shut in a tram with a group of strangers is the last thing you'd want under those circumstances. Two characters fall beautifully, passionately in love—but only for a moment. The tram moves on, and everything is left behind.
Red Rose, White Rose, three stars.
If you like stereotypically literary work about people having affairs with each other, you'll love this. It's not my thing. Lots of stuff about 'this is what men are like, this is what women are like', and I've never cared for that, but I have to concede it's well done.