I’m a sucker for love stories and hopeless romantics. Needless to say, the mother and father in “Homebase,” caught my direct attention with every letter, every heart, and every darling throughout the text. While reading “Homebase,” I couldn’t stop hoping for another ‘I miss you, I’m lonely without you,’ type of dialogue. I found the way the husband spoke to his wife or about his wife to be so breathe-taking, so passionate, and so heartfelt that I wanted a book focused primarily on their love story alone. It was all so beautifully written that I even bent a few pages so I would have no problem going back to read them again.
In the beginning we read, “A few months after they were married, my mother received a letter from her father telling her that China was closed to her” (page 10). I read that and thought how sweet a love could be to choose love over one’s family. As the novel continues the father/ husband explains a vision he had about hawks tearing apart his beloved. He said, ‘The hawks that tear our flesh are disturbed by the perfect day, the pure sun that warms the wounds, I am singing and they cannot tear us apart’ (page 14). I couldn’t believe a man could write this, or feel so strongly about a woman he loved. What he is saying here is that no matter what comes their way, their love will rise above. He’s saying that their love is stronger than cruelty of the cold, the hawks, and all else. It makes me very joyful to know the husband doesn’t lose faith in his love.
Throughout the novel the husband proves himself to be a genuine sweet guy and kudos for that. It’s really pleasant to have a man not afraid to share his heart, especially seeing that in today’s time a man is mostly far too egotistic to go that far. The father/ husband had also said, “The earth went around before my eyes. I could feel it. I saw the jupiter… The jupiter was a vision of the heart, it was one man’s love” (page 18). I read that and thought it was magical I wanted to be the wife if only for a second in time. Here this man was comparing a planet to love, as if without doubt love could be that powerful. I was really impressed by those lines, I wish a guy would say that to me.
The husband didn’t stand out to me most because of his wild tales of going through caves or the making of railroad tracks. I was really taken to the part of the husband who was a lover, and lonely without his wife. I think that the husband and wife’s story would make for an amazing book alone, the story of two people staying together though world’s apart. Tell me that isn’t hopeless romance? I love to read love stories, and perhaps that is why the husband stood out to me the most.
This clip reminds me of the two lovers from "Homebase." From two different worlds, torn apart, love through letters... ya know, hopeless romance kind of deal.
First of all, I am also a hopeless romantic and enjoy love stories too. I enjoyed how the mother and father wrote letters to each other as well and thought their relationship, although not detailed that much was still really cute. I really liked reading the letters they wrote to one another and the word “darling” in the letters did stand out to me too. I do wish they would have gone into more detail about the relationship between the mother and father since it was only mentioned briefly and I wished there were more letters between the couple because the moments shared between them with the letters was really sweet and adorable. The letters truly showed their love and passion for each other.
ReplyDeleteI think a book about the mother and father’s love would have been a great idea and would have definitely gone more into detail about their romance than “Homebase” did. Even a film about their love story would be a nice idea, in my opinion. I also went back and read some of their letters again too. During the line “A few months after they were married, my mother received a letter from her father telling her that China was closed to her”, I felt that it was sad that she could now never return to her country anymore if she so chose to and that she would probably never see her family in China ever again but I did think it was romantic that she chose her true love over her family too, despite their disapproval of the couple’s romance. It reminded me of those forbidden romances seen in love stories and romance films.
I really admired how strong and true the couple’s love was for each other and you could clearly tell they were soul mates and I liked how the couple stayed loyal, faithful and true to one another even when they were apart because nowadays that seems like such a rare thing to see. I personally think people who do marry should marry because they truly love each other and if they truly love each other, they should stay loyal, true and faithful to each other. I also love how you used "The Notebook" video as an example of the couple's love. In a way the couple's love does remind me of the love Allie and Noah share in "The Notebook" because they still continue to love each other even when they are miles away from each other and haven't seen each other in a long time and of course, the fact that both the husband in "Homebase" and Noah from "The Notebook" wrote letters to their true loves.
Ah, romance.
ReplyDeleteI think it's important that Wong provides a counter-example to the "lonely bachelors" that characterize much of Chinese American history in the West. His parents' love story is a celebration of, and tribute to, them. It also helps us to understand Rainsford's mother's overwhelming grief when her husband dies, and Rainsford's grief when he loses both his mother and father, whom he calls his "lovers."