Comments

1. Ryukendo says:

   January 8, 2016 at 2:13 am

   Hey, first time commenter here. Your blog is incredibly interesting, and I thank you for coming up with such great material literally all the time.

   The Story of the Stone is one of my favourite works of literature, ever, right beside some of the best sections of Shakespeare, or, to compare across modalities, some of the most intense and sublime achievements of Bach… However, that said, it will take a great deal of preparation before a western reader can get used to it, especially as the familiar concepts of narrative drive are not executed in the same way in pre-modern Chinese novels. Also, some familiarity with the outlines of Chinese philosophy, and the realities of Chinese history, will make the worldviews, the nuances and allusions of the book much easier to understand.

   If I might take some liberties, I strongly recommend that you read the book My Country and People by Lin Yutang, before you read Honglou Meng. Lin Yutang was a nominee for the nobel prize for literature from Republican-era China, the lapsed son of a Christian minister, and the last person who could communicate the Chinese intellectual and literary tradition to the West in its own language, before it all was swept away in the tide of a thoroughly disruptive revolution… people trained to interpret the world through the refined glasses of Taoist Aesthetics and Confucian Classicism/humanism, do not really exist any more. He was truly last of his kind; its truly a miracle, and a benefit to all the world, that such an intellectual was as fluent in English as in classical Chinese.

   I hope this will make the experience of Honglou Meng much more pleasant and accessible, so that this great work is not ruined by initial unfamiliarity, as it is for so many Western readers.
2. Isegoria says:

   January 8, 2016 at 12:35 pm

   Thanks for the kind words and the thoughtful recommendation, Ryukendo.

   Incidentally, right after I said I should add The Story of the Stone to The List, I realized that I had a copy somewhere on one of my many heavily laden shelves. An old high school friend had unloaded it on me after college, since I was on the short list of people who might want a Chinese classic.