IN ONE OF MANY MEMORABLE SCENES in The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, Wang Anyi’s ravishing novel of Shanghai, a character called Old Colour lies on the rooftop outside his dormer window, staring up at the night sky. It is 1985, and Shanghai is rapidly transforming into a modern city. Old Colour is only twenty-six, but he already mourns the loss of the city’s elegance and wishes he could turn back time to experience the Shanghai of the 1930s and ’40s. As he stares into the darkness, warped images of past and present begin to appear before him: “One after another, they rolled over the horizon formed