Such a sad book in so many ways, but also masterful because of the way it recreates the world of a particular context of China at a particular point in history. The love story is definitely not a traditional one; I had thoughts every now and then to Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera, given the decades over which this love story takes place. The characters are beautiful and tragic in both their strengths and, more poignantly, their flaws.