GREEN MOUNTAIN, WHITE CLOUD

Romantic and spiritual love in ancient China occupy this latest (The River Below, 2000, etc.) from the distinguished Chinese author long resident in France.

The story takes place toward the end of the Ming Dynasty (early 17th century), when crime and corruption are rampant. One victim is our protagonist Dao-sheng. As a young violinist, part of a theater troupe, he dares to exchange glances and smiles with the beautiful Lan-ying, betrothed to the tyrannical Second Lord Zhao, who promptly condemns Dao-sheng to exile and slave labor. No matter: those few transforming moments were enough to convince Dao-sheng, a Taoist, that his and Lan-ying’s fates are linked by the shen, the most vital of all spiritual essences. Thirty years pass. The now-grizzled Dao-sheng is a healer and soothsayer who has been living in a mountainside Taoist monastery, and the time is ripe for another approach to Lan-ying. He travels to her city and sets up shop outside a Buddhist temple she frequents. The opportunity comes for Dao-sheng to minister to the sickly Lan-ying, who has been discarded by Second Lord after two miscarriages, forcing her to live in lonely isolation. The invalid remembers the former musician—they are indeed soulmates—and her joy over their reunion is as great as his. Dao-sheng restores her to health and to her former beauty. The contacts between them are delicate and restrained, climaxing with a joining of hands under a full moon, whereupon “the lovers floated into a separate state,” a phrase unfortunately banal-sounding in this translation from the French. Eventually, Second Lord, deathly ill himself after years of debauchery, figures out the situation. He tries to strangle Lan-ying but dies in the process, and she retreats to a convent while Dao-sheng returns to the monastery, sustained by his faith in their undying devotion.

Moments here of fairytale charm, but the air at such high spiritual altitudes may be too rarefied for many Western readers.