When love becomes a memory

Author: Du Zuan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: Chinese male poet, Malaysian female writer, a trembling heart in the dark, "I · Xiao Qiu Yun · April" — a Chinese male poet and a Malaysian female writer exploring the relationship between the spirit and the flesh! This is a story of an international love. In this era of highly developed communication and transportation, it may not be a very eye-catching theme. The protagonist "I" lives in Hangzhou, one of the most beautiful cities in China, and his love with the Malaysian female writer Ran Qiu Yun, separated by distance, eventually becomes a spiritual longing and a regretful recollection. I have read the preliminary draft of this novel several times. It was originally titled The Equator, and what initially interested me was this title. I once speculated that the geographical term the equator implies a kind of distance. We live north of the Tropic of Cancer, far from the equator, and can only feel its simplicity and passion through longing. I have explored the hidden depths behind the novel's emotional expressions—the secrets of personal inner life. Secrecy is not privacy; privacy is merely a fragment of private life, while secrecy permeates the dilemmas and pathways, joys and sorrows, perfection and imperfections of personal inner life. Reading this long novel, I have experienced a journey of inner life's ups and downs. It is a very simple and transparent novel, lacking the complex plots and intricate relationships often found in many long novels. It is simply a person's gentle narration and murmured self-talk. Written from the rare second-person narrative perspective, the novel tells of "I" and the Malaysian girl's spiritual love, my real life, marital experiences, and the various possibilities of love. The tone is filled with recollection, nostalgia, regret, reflection, self-consolation. Thus, this simple and transparent story—just as the saying goes, "when love reaches its depth, it naturally becomes intense"—becomes complex, giving the text richness. Because of this, I feel that When Love Becomes the Past has reached a certain height in the author's writing. It is a love story based on the author's personal experience, an exploration of the relationship between the spirit and the flesh, and a pure love story. The novel tells the legendary love story between a Chinese poet living north of the Tropic of Cancer and a Malaysian female writer living on the equator. They met, fell in love, and ended their love in a legendary way. Their love was expressed through thousands of love letters and a single meeting. The involvement of a beautiful and full-figured Hangzhou girl during this time made their love even more tumultuous. It is a lyrical novel. The story unfolds through "I's" recollections of the triangular love involving Xiao Qiu Yun and April. The author boldly adopts the extremely rare second-person narrative in a long novel, keeping the entire story immersed in full passion. It is a novel that makes it difficult to understand the author's true intentions until the very end, despite its simple story and plot. The author's ambiguous writing style attracts you to seek the story behind the novel, but even after finishing the entire text, you may still not be able to discern what is real and what is pure fiction.