Oct 12, 2004 01:30 PM
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(Updated Oct 12, 2004 01:30 PM)
A really romantic and a philosophical book that touched my heart very deeply!
Its the story of a woman ''Elizabeth'' and the last letter she received from her American-Chinese husband in China. Elizabeth is an American who falls in love with Gerard and settles down in China. They have one child who grows up in the chinese traditions and customs. The revolution in China splits the family apart with the American wife forced to leave china as it was not considered safe anymore.
Here's where the story of love, the heart-rending identity crisis of Gerard as an American or Chinese and his love for his ''mother'' land unfolds in the beautiful narration of Pearl S Buck.
The letters keep flowing back and forth across the globe taking long periods to reach 'coz of the war-stricken land. But they too trickle and stop with the last letter from her husband in Peking...He marries a Chinese woman to make up for his identity crisis. This is where tears fall freely for Elizabeth and Gerard and the tears they share with the moon as their medium of love.
Elizabeth's too many memories about her courtship with Gerard, her picture-perfect marraige to him and her serene love life unfolds to us with the beautiful depiction of the colorful chinese traditions and culture.
She keeps loving him and never settles down for any other man in her life. She takes loving care of Gerard's American father and spreads her warmth of love to him. The unconditional love of the woman puts her into a pedestal far from the reach of the maddening conditional world.
Though there were many beautiful un-nameable moments in the book, one that affected me the most during my read was the last meeting of Elizabeth and Gerard and the way they meet to hug for a lifetime...
Disaster of marraiges of convenience, faster rusting of relationships without love and the pure essence of love without conditions is the melody for this moving mail from Peking...
A must read ''Letter from Peking'' for the romantics and cynics, dreamers and the philos...:-)
