Is beauty a commodity to be bought by the highest bidder?
Catherine Lim's book is about a beautiful woman, Mei Kwei, who is born in poverty in colonial Malaya (before it became Malaysia). She is rejected by her father who is disappointed that she isn't a boy. But because of her beauty, she brings the family wealth when two rich men want to marry her. She spends her whole life trying to please men: her father, her husband, her rich lover. Yet she cannot marry her one true love. He is a priest who will not leave the Church for her.
In the fairy tales, Beauty is out of reach of any man but a prince. Only a prince deserves her. In this book, Beauty can be bought if the man is rich. She meets her prince only to find he is out of reach.
the Friends Chapter 15
15 years ago
3 comments:
And if her true love had left his vocation to be with her, what kind of life would they have had? Tolstoy's Anna Karenina gave up all [husband, children, place in society] for love and then was barred from polite society which was her milieu, her "work"; she excelled at being a leading hostess/matron in upper-middle class society. When she killed herself by walking into a train, Captain Vronsky still loved her. Mei Kwei's priest may have realized that true love is not enough for a complete life,so he chose his vocation over his love. He would have agreed with Sigmund Freud that "everyone needs love and work; and of the two, work is more important".
Love and work. Work and love. Ah, work! Somehow it doesn't_sound_ quite right. I take it Sig wasn't a romantic either.
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