Wang was born in an intellectual family in Beijing in 1952. He was sent to a farm in Yunnan province as an "intellectual youth" at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1968. In 1971, he was sent to the countryside of Shandong province, and became a teacher. In 1972, he was allowed to return to Beijing, and he got a job as a working in a local factory. He met Li Yinhe in 1977, who was working as an editor for "Guangming Daily", and she later became his wife. He was accepted by Renmin University of China in 1978 where he studied economics and trade and got his Bachelor's Degree. He received his Master's Degree at the University of Pittsburgh in 1988. After he returned to China, he began to teach at Peking University and Renmin University of China. He quit his job as a college lecturer in 1992, and became a freelance writer. On April 11, 1997 he died suddenly of heart disease at his apartment.
There is no plot whatsoever. The letters to his wife were beautiful and poetic, yet simplistic. The letters to his friends were boring. Overall, I found most letters to the same receiver repetitive and it quickly got boring.
In the era of underdeveloped communications, letters are a necessary way to communicate. However, from today’s point of view, these remaining letters are not only of significance of the times, but also full of romance. The first half of the book is about love, second half about life. In that era of innocence, there were very few people like Wang Xiaobo who confessed their love this affectionately. There is no gorgeous rhetoric, but all words came from the bottom of his heart. Wang Xiaobo’s love, Li Yinhe’s feminine characteristics, unique and delicate expression, coupled with shared suspicions, are vividly reflected in their love letters.
This is one of the best interesting books written by a husband to his wife. He used to say that everyone is a book and we all need to pick up the best one to read. His wife said that he was the most wonderful, interesting and pretty book she had ever seen. I think she is right. If you wanna see how a Chinese husband shows his emotion to his wife in a funny, romantic and meaningful way, you cannot miss it.
I read some of Wang's novels from my dad's bookshelf before reading this book for the first time in high school (around 2005). I borrowed it from a friend, a girl who told me that she just really loved the Wang Xiaobo-Li Yinghe combo (when I asked if she was a fan of Li, because she had most of Li's books including the unpublished ones...). It was such a cute and Romantic book that I still remember passing the book around and discussing about it in class breaks. One of the girls said, seriously, "Wang just makes THE perfect husband!" and most of the class agreed (we only had 5 or 6 guys in class, so almost every girl in the class just loved it. Not surprisingly, many years later, words from the love letters are all over the Internet and Wechat posts(some didn't even acknowledge the author, meh!).
Recently I had another read of the book. It feels slight different from the last time. My impression of Wang Xiaobo (from his novels) were mainly about his black humor, sharp observation on his fellow citizens and put it artfully in the novels. Reading the lover letters gives a pretty much different view of the same person. He was such an "atypical" Chinese (I am being unintentionally mean haha, because it's almost saying most other Chinese are romantically inexpressive and not fun......) and a main reason for it was because he READ intensely and talked about what he read in the letters (which is adorable). I know people usually don't use words like "adorable" reviewing a book, but if you read this collection of letters, you would imagine the witty little boy inside of Wang through his words.
-You are a very adorable person, and you deserve a really great guy. I really hope that I am that guy.
-Would you like to know how I feel for you? It's just simply liking you from the bottom of my heart, seeing that everything you do is just nice, feeling unhappy if you love another guy more than you love me. If you love another guy I would cry, but I would still love you.
-No matter how average I personally am, I always reckon that my love for you is beautiful.
-I'm so scared that you would figure out that I am an idiot.
-I wanted to just keep laughing/joking (at everything) everywhere in this world, include laughing/joking at myself too, and keep doing this until I'm dead. But now I want to be serious, because you are a serious person. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I think the reason that people love these letters is precisely on the fact that we can all relate to his affection for his girl, but few of us are able to express it like him. The title of the book "Loving You is Like Loving Life" comes from this letter as below. I personally also think that it is how Li Yinghe felt about her loving husband when the book was published 7 years after his sudden death.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hi Li Yinghe!
After breaking up last night, I am very sad. I am such a stupid person for getting this disgusting mark (note: I guess, as a 'mark' for meeting Li's mother) that would disgust any living being, how shameful! In addition, you were heartbroken too. So, it makes me much more heartbroken.
I feel that you are struggling over some decisions. It maybe my shameless assumption - like ugly frogs, so if I got it wrong, don't feel bad. I would eat up those ugly frogs if that is the case. But if you really can't make up your mind, let me do it for you then.
Your mom doesn't like me. She is a nice person, so what is the point of making her angry. Additionally, such thing (note: referring to her mom not liking him) is not something you deserve. There are many more good people who don't like me. Why it is you who have to suffer from so much pain!
As for me. I love you. I loved you when I first saw you. I love you that I forget about being selfish. It's just like someone had a pigeon that flew away, and he would still wish it a good journey. So you may just fly away from me too. I will be sad, and I will be happy, but honestly I don't know how it would end.
Let me say a few more sentences to make you angry, so that you would dislike me. Those would be petite bourgeoisie-sh words! You are already 26/27, and can no long be together with a camel (note: I guess, again, referring to himself, lol). If that is the case, it's better to just think for yourself.
[Note: I'm omitting the parts about his own sorrows as a 16 year old and how he thinks about having to give up ideas he valued. Then he suggested blaming himself together so that she could stop feeling sad...]
However, would I stop loving you? No. Loving your is like loving life. Never mind, let's stop talking bullish*t.
An old fellow came to talk me into writing about some anti-Japanese invasion events in Jiaodong, for which he has primary resources. Do you think I would love to write it? If I'd like to write this, I'd also love to hang myself. But if you are unwilling to break up, I'll go and write about it. After all, I don't want you to be bothered any more.
I love you a lot, really. When you want me to do anything, I'd go crazy. Am I a bad person? Should I go and try start over again?
But forget about the later part of this letter, they do not count. Please think about the first part, and reply to me soon. I had very bad handwriting this time, because I wrote it up in the balcony.
And, no matter how you may think about it, we are still friends. There is no reason to change that, isn't it?
What a sweet story between Xiaobo and Yinhe. The other surprising thing I just found is that Xiaobo was a coder while he was writing. He even programmed a software to help his typewritings.