Nanjing 1937

the long version

"Set on the eve of the Rape of Nanjing - when Japanese troops invaded the historic capital city, massacred hundreds of thousands, and committed thousands of rapes - Nanjing 1937 is a tender and humorous story of an impossible love and a lively, detailed historical portrait of a culture on the verge of rupture.". "The novel centers on the life of Ding Wenyu, a privileged, womanizing, narcissistic professor of languages, and traces the course of the affair that transforms him from outlandish rake to devoted lover. Throughout the story, Ding's often comically unabashed "romantic offensive" toward a much younger woman, Ren Yuyuan (with whom he brazenly falls in love on the day of her wedding to another man), echoes the acts of war unfolding around him as the Japanese close in, even as he himself remains largely oblivious to the coming onslaught."--BOOK JACKET.