Gao E

I started reading this novel a number of months ago after reading an article that suggested it as a good place for westerner's to start familiarizing themselves with Chinese literary culture (and that it has a role something roughly akin to that of shakespeare in English-- ie, the original source of all kinds of idioms, allusions, and recycled story lines) . Such a completely different world and mindset from what I'm used to -- I actually quickly gave in and got a commentary/guide to help me get the allusions and implications I was clearly just not getting.

That said it was a fun read as a (very soap opera-y) story, and a great window into another world, and how that world approached all the normal questions of life in ways so fundamentally differently (and yet not) from those of us in the West.

I'm now excited to go read more (the three kingdoms, maybe? Or, shift gears and try the analytics?). Regardless, and highly unusual for me, I fully expect to want to pick this up again in a few years.

(2024 Review # 1)… (mer)

The last couple of chapters contain an absurdly happy ending — notwithstanding all the unhappiness already recorded — but in general I have a lot of sympathy for Gao E’s production of chapters 81-120. Considering the magnitude of his task, to wrap up a story that seemed to be going nowhere yet everywhere, to document the dissolution of a dynasty, to please the fans — he did OK.

For much of my trip through DoRC I was focused on various supporting characters. Xi Feng, Skybright, Xue Pan, Tan Chun all won me over. But looking back on it all, the one I miss most is young Bao Yu. I loved his haplessness, his last-minute excuses and dissimulations, his sudden “aiyos” whe he realises he’s screwed up which are like Bart Simpson’s “d’oh”. His kindness and real concern for his servants, not an educated veneer but real humanity. And in the end this is what tears him away from the world, his connection to it.

It’s been a wonderful, enriching experience. The second volume is on a par with the second volume of Proust, very similar in its themes too. The slowly melting ice of the third book with its sudden violent cracks is brilliant. The sheer confusion of who’s who, replenished by infusions of new characters who inevitably fall ill, have their pulses taken through curtains, are prescribed incredibly complicated compounds and then either recover or perish. To quote Blackadder, “the endless, bloody, poetry!” Although the poetry translated by Hawkes was generally amazing. The earthly paradise of the garden in its halcyon days.

Sometimes boring, sometimes compulsive, almost always convincing, the Story of the Stone, like all great stories, is the story of life itself… (mer)

The dream ends. I went into this having heard that volume five is little more than tying up loose ends, and while that's not false (the character of Vanitas even admits it), and while the arc of the plot could definitely have been traced out from the end of volume three, this is still a basically satisfying and often moving conclusion to one of the greatest works of literature ever made. I don't know what to do with myself now that it's over; this really feels like a book that you never stop reading.… (mer)

The accumulated weight of everything is given its due as all the little plots come together pretty neatly - especially the frame story - and it's nice how the climax is concerned with perhaps the largest plot-strand of Bao-yu's court examination. However, a few of the key characters aren't given fair treatment - especially Aroma and Xi-Feng, whose fates are a little too hastily conveyed. Though one could argue the curtness with which they are dismissed is tragic in itself, I would've liked to have seen a little more time spent on them. They're two of the most sympathetic and complex characters (and my favorite characters) and they deserved more than what they were given. Sad,… (mer)