Why must love end this way?

Does love have to diminish us?

These two books devote so much of themselves to love. Their stories and concerns are very different, but both left me shaken. They are about more than romance, of course. That is simply the part I want to write about here.

The Jade King

Huo Da’s novel, whose Chinese title means A Muslim’s Funeral, follows three generations of a Hui Muslim family. I moved from the devotion of the craftsman Liang Yiqing, through the entanglement of Han Ziqi, Liang Junbi, and Liang Bingyu, to grief for Han Xinyue.

Ziqi and Junbi

Their marriage grows out of circumstance. Having first related to each other as siblings within the same household, they become husband and wife almost as a matter of course. To me, the foundation feels more like family affection than romantic love. I struggle to find a spark between them.

Especially in the chapters centered on jade, an unspoken wall seems to stand between them. They cooperate and keep up appearances, but the warmth is missing.

Ziqi and Bingyu

Their relationship begins amid danger and misunderstanding, when they believe Junbi has died. Love grows in that crisis, though I found the development a little abrupt. Was I mostly seeing Bingyu’s admiration for Ziqi? Still, the book does give them a love of their own, and Xinyue is its living witness.

Compared with Ziqi’s fragile, largely hollow marriage to Junbi, I preferred this relationship. I found it difficult to support his decision to stay in the family home. Wouldn’t it have been more moving for him to leave with Bingyu and Xinyue and start again?

Then I caught myself. The order in which I had encountered the story was doing some of the work. How could I expect Junbi to accept her husband’s relationship with her own sister as though nothing had happened? Understanding it would be hard enough; accepting it would be harder still.

Perhaps I wanted them to run away partly because I had already seen the later unhappiness of Ziqi and Junbi’s marriage. That made the alternative look so much more appealing.

I wonder whether the author intended Bingyu as I saw her: an independent woman awakening to a different kind of life, brave enough to pursue love and break through what confines her. Her courage hurts to watch, too.

Xinyue and Chu Yanchao

This relationship between a student and her teacher stayed with me most. Their names seemed almost to foreshadow it. Wild geese return, tides come back, but the moon in Xinyue’s name will not rise again.

Their love feels the most direct, the most intense, the most enduring, and the saddest. It is cut short by her death. Even at the end, she thinks of him. Ten years later, he is still keeping faith with her at her grave. Those who love for a long time seem to suffer wounds that are deeper and harder to forget.

A friend says I still have illusions about love. I think that is true. I don’t understand, or don’t want to understand, why these relationships must disappear without a happy ending.

I was angry with Junbi for allowing her beliefs to separate Tianxing and Rong Guifang, and helpless before the marriage arranged for Tianxing and Chen Shuyan. I know that people part, and that romantic love may eventually turn into family affection or end altogether. I still want to believe in its beauty. I want to discover it, pursue it, and experience it with some optimism. At least for now, I don’t want to give up that recklessness.

Strait Is the Gate

André Gide’s novel stays even more closely with love, through Alissa, Jérôme, and Juliette.

I cannot understand why Alissa and Jérôme love each other and yet arrive at this ending. Is pursuing love only a way to become a better version of yourself? I kept thinking of Luo Xiang’s reminder to love particular people rather than an abstract idea of people.

They choose not to meet so that letters can preserve their spiritual connection and better serve their souls. I found it absurd. Is their restraint really for each other, or is there something selfish in it? If faith becomes a prison, I would rather do without it. Is this narrow gate selecting believers, or lovers?

Near the end, Juliette asks whether someone can keep a hopeless love alive for a long time, whether daily life can keep blowing against it without putting it out. I didn’t think she was asking only about Jérôme’s love for Alissa. I felt that Juliette had not let go of Jérôme either.

In that persistence, Jérôme reminded me of Chu Yanchao. Two very different stories, and again someone who cannot stop loving.