A Many Splendored Thing

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

Henceforth, these book reports will be a time-saving device. You need not read entire books anymore. Read these condensed versions instead. You'll have that much more time for your own blog.

Now onto the book. Today I read "A Many Splendored Thing" by Han Suyin.

This book was published in 1952. It was made into a movie in 1955, called "Love Is A Many Splendored Thing". It has a trite plot (read "romantic chick flick"), so there have been many similar movies made since, such as "Up Close and Personal" and "Bridges of Madison County".

The plot is, two lovers can't be together, due to various circumstances. This book is especially appropriate for an American movie plot due to thought-provoking subplots-- pro- or anti- war sentiments can be thrown in, and political correctness, too. The female, Han Suyin, is Eurasian (Chinese and English), and she's a doctor (a very rare profession for females in the late 1940's). She is a widow with a young daughter. Her late husband was a promising Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist) officer, killed in the civil war in China, of course. The male, Mark Elliott, is married with two kids. He is a war correspondent based in Asia. He travels a lot, and his family does not stay with him. Little is said about his family.

Suyin and Mark are introduced to each other at a dinner party in 1949 in Hong Kong, amidst the backdrop of the imminent Communist takeover of China. There is apprehension that the danger will spread to prosperous Hong Kong; prosperous because the colony trades with everyone, regardless of political persuasion. The colony is also a generous haven for refugees, even leprous refugees.

Many astute people, such as missionaries and wealthy foreigners are fleeing the region altogether, purchasing passports, returning to the democratic, civilized countries from whence they came. One such individual is the author's younger sister, Suchen, the black sheep of the family. Suchen, also Eurasian and a rebellious type, fears for the safety of herself and her young, ill daughter, because she works for a European firm, and her own traditional Chinese family is abusive to her. Suchen eventually convinces Suyin to permit her to flee to America. Chinese custom dictates that she needs her older sister's permission. The rest of the family (numerous siblings, cousins, uncles, aunts, etc.) accepts its fate, and stays in Chungking. It is cowardly to flee. They let Fate do what it will.

Suyin, being half-Chinese, and a doctor, is dedicated to helping the people of China. She wants to return there to accept her fate. Since Mark works for a free-press newspaper, and the Chinese government is in the process of kicking out all people who would accurately report what's going on, he would not even be allowed in, to stay with his lover there.

However, Suyin changes her mind after seeing the cultish Communist brainwashing. She becomes afraid she herself will turn against her lover and consider him an enemy, and of course, that is intolerable. So she stays in Hong Kong, and they continue the romantic fantasy that they will one day be together. The author spends endless pages debating love, peace and happiness.

In the summer of 1950, Mark is assigned to report on the conflict between China's Soviet-aided sister Communists, and America's freedom-loving people, in the two Koreas. What do you think happens? He writes Suyin a letter every day, until the day he dies as a casualty of the war, a couple of months later. She writes this book about their romance. Ho-hum.