What do you think?
Rate this book
The Story of the Stone #2
The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Vol. 2: The Crab-Flower Club
"The Story of the Stone" (c. 1760), also known as "The Dream of the Red Chamber", is one of the greatest novels of Chinese literature. The second part of Cao Xueqin's magnificent saga, "The Crab-Flower Club" continues the story of the changing fortunes of the Jia dynasty. This volume primarily depicts a gilded year at the Rong-Guo mansion. Bao-yu and a bevy of young ladies move into Prospect Garden and devote themselves to poetry, riddles, and entertainments consisting of crab, flowers, rice wine, painting, cards, and firecrackers.
603 pages, Paperback
First published January 2, 1791
82 people are currently reading
2446 people want to read
About the author
Cao Xueqin
793 books242 followersXueqin Cao (Chinese: 曹雪芹; pinyin: Cáo Xuěqín; Wade–Giles: Ts'ao Hsueh-ch'in, 1715 or 1724 — 1763 or 1764) was the pseudonym of a Qing Dynasty Chinese writer, best known as the author of Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature.
It has been suggested that his given name was Zhan Cao (曹霑) and his courtesy name is Mengruan (夢阮; 梦阮; literally "Dream about Ruan" or "Dream of Ruan")[...]
It has been suggested that his given name was Zhan Cao (曹霑) and his courtesy name is Mengruan (夢阮; 梦阮; literally "Dream about Ruan" or "Dream of Ruan")[...]
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews
February 2, 2015
The Story of the Stone is an immensely fun, inviting, and enjoyable novel, but explaining why it is so is a bit of a challenge.
Indeed, any literal-minded summary of its content would make it sound immensely, almost parodically boring, like some sort of hypothetical novel Borges might imagine on a lark. I have now read over 1000 pages of this gigantic novel (the five-volume split is a choice made by the translator, it's really just one big thing), I'm still less than halfway through, and there is still nothing resembling a central dramatic conflict or a "plot" in any ordinary sense. The most notable development in the "plot" (so to speak) in Volume 2 is that . . . some of the main characters start a poetry club. The poetry club is not the site of any grand drama or a metaphor for some theme or other; it is simply the pretext for a bunch of scenes where the characters compose poems and poke fun at one another in a light-hearted manner.
Although there are some highly dramatic scenes in this volume -- which emerge shockingly from nowhere and then vanish away just as quickly, leaving tiny, barely discernible ripples in later chapters -- for the most part it is a chronicle of mundane domestic activity. The characters attend poetry club meetings, stroll over to each others' dwellings to hang out, celebrate holidays, talk over home economics and financial logistics (recounted to the reader in unsparing detail), plan garden parties and then have garden parties, call in doctors because they've caught minor respiratory illnesses, etc. There are something like 100 characters, many of them obscure relatives or servants of characters who are themselves somewhat obscure, who show up occasionally to ask for a loan or complete some sub-plot that started 30 chapters ago and then fade into the background; keeping track of all these people is impossible but also unnecessary, since most of their actions have no great significance. Thrilling!
So what exactly makes this thing so much fun? For me, it's the fact that it feels -- in certain ways -- more like real life than anything else I've ever read. The profusion of mundane events, the endless side-characters and side-stories which aren't significant (except sometimes they are), the way drama and violence appears in sudden outbursts rather than dramatic "arcs," the focus on the ups and downs of day-to-day friendship rather than grand thematic drama . . . it all feels exactly the way actual day-to-day life feels, in an eerie way I've never encountered in any other book. Reading Xueqin, I feel less like I'm reading an ordinary novel than dropping into some sort of virtual reality MMO world to hang out with the characters -- a persistent, plotless world in which anything can happen and what does happen is often mundane (but then, that's life).
It's a common trope for novelists to write as though they were recording real events -- e.g. the familiar frame narrative which presents the main text as a "biography" of the protagonist or an "account of notable events" or something. In most cases this is not very believable -- despite the "biographical" framing one can always envision the author sitting there thinking "hmm, what exciting misadventure can I get this character into next?" The Story of the Stone is unique in that it really does feel like a record of real events, despite its supernatural elements and sometimes implausible comedic episodes.
In fact, it's so "believable" that it would make more intuitive sense if it really were such a record; it's really hard for me to imagine Cao Xueqin actually planning out, on a scene-by-scene level, this complicated, lifelike, unstructured, and sometimes boring reality. "Hmm, I think we need another budget-balancing discussion before we can get to the next bit of banter between two of the 5 billion maids. Wait, it's been too long since someone got the flu! Oh, and maybe I'll have some guy beat up a dude for being gay somewhere in there. I wonder what's going on with maid #45923 around this time . . . "
I sound like I'm making fun of the book, and I guess I am -- but the reason the book is easy to mock is that it feels so much like real life, and real life really is quite often full of details that are nonsensical and pointless (or, more subjectively: that can't be put into any kind of dramatic or thematic framework no matter how hard one tries). I am eagerly moving on to Volume 3, not exactly because I want to know what happens next, but just because I want to keep hanging out in StoneWorld. And thankfully, I can do that for thousands more pages.
Indeed, any literal-minded summary of its content would make it sound immensely, almost parodically boring, like some sort of hypothetical novel Borges might imagine on a lark. I have now read over 1000 pages of this gigantic novel (the five-volume split is a choice made by the translator, it's really just one big thing), I'm still less than halfway through, and there is still nothing resembling a central dramatic conflict or a "plot" in any ordinary sense. The most notable development in the "plot" (so to speak) in Volume 2 is that . . . some of the main characters start a poetry club. The poetry club is not the site of any grand drama or a metaphor for some theme or other; it is simply the pretext for a bunch of scenes where the characters compose poems and poke fun at one another in a light-hearted manner.
Although there are some highly dramatic scenes in this volume -- which emerge shockingly from nowhere and then vanish away just as quickly, leaving tiny, barely discernible ripples in later chapters -- for the most part it is a chronicle of mundane domestic activity. The characters attend poetry club meetings, stroll over to each others' dwellings to hang out, celebrate holidays, talk over home economics and financial logistics (recounted to the reader in unsparing detail), plan garden parties and then have garden parties, call in doctors because they've caught minor respiratory illnesses, etc. There are something like 100 characters, many of them obscure relatives or servants of characters who are themselves somewhat obscure, who show up occasionally to ask for a loan or complete some sub-plot that started 30 chapters ago and then fade into the background; keeping track of all these people is impossible but also unnecessary, since most of their actions have no great significance. Thrilling!
So what exactly makes this thing so much fun? For me, it's the fact that it feels -- in certain ways -- more like real life than anything else I've ever read. The profusion of mundane events, the endless side-characters and side-stories which aren't significant (except sometimes they are), the way drama and violence appears in sudden outbursts rather than dramatic "arcs," the focus on the ups and downs of day-to-day friendship rather than grand thematic drama . . . it all feels exactly the way actual day-to-day life feels, in an eerie way I've never encountered in any other book. Reading Xueqin, I feel less like I'm reading an ordinary novel than dropping into some sort of virtual reality MMO world to hang out with the characters -- a persistent, plotless world in which anything can happen and what does happen is often mundane (but then, that's life).
It's a common trope for novelists to write as though they were recording real events -- e.g. the familiar frame narrative which presents the main text as a "biography" of the protagonist or an "account of notable events" or something. In most cases this is not very believable -- despite the "biographical" framing one can always envision the author sitting there thinking "hmm, what exciting misadventure can I get this character into next?" The Story of the Stone is unique in that it really does feel like a record of real events, despite its supernatural elements and sometimes implausible comedic episodes.
In fact, it's so "believable" that it would make more intuitive sense if it really were such a record; it's really hard for me to imagine Cao Xueqin actually planning out, on a scene-by-scene level, this complicated, lifelike, unstructured, and sometimes boring reality. "Hmm, I think we need another budget-balancing discussion before we can get to the next bit of banter between two of the 5 billion maids. Wait, it's been too long since someone got the flu! Oh, and maybe I'll have some guy beat up a dude for being gay somewhere in there. I wonder what's going on with maid #45923 around this time . . . "
I sound like I'm making fun of the book, and I guess I am -- but the reason the book is easy to mock is that it feels so much like real life, and real life really is quite often full of details that are nonsensical and pointless (or, more subjectively: that can't be put into any kind of dramatic or thematic framework no matter how hard one tries). I am eagerly moving on to Volume 3, not exactly because I want to know what happens next, but just because I want to keep hanging out in StoneWorld. And thankfully, I can do that for thousands more pages.
March 17, 2025
Such a historically fascinating classic.
April 18, 2020
My review of this second volume will take the form of the thoughts I had upon completing. I'm in the middle of the third part now, after taking my time with part 2, and the uniform texture of the novel is beginning to lull me. I did enjoy parts 1 & 2 of the book. After getting through 1200 pages, which is less than half of the entirety, I have mixed feelings overall. You hear so much about this seminal tome. One of the Great Five novels of China and so forth. I can understand how some scholars and readers consider it important, but from a modern standpoint, what value does it offer? What insight?
Trying to pinpoint answers to these questions is not as simple as reading any of the available analyses of the book. In my opinion Jin Yong wrote more Great Novels than any Ming author. The Story of the Stone is a little like War and Peace, without the War, in the sense that there are hundreds of characters, but most of them come from the same caste. Not a lot happens, at least so far, all told. To give you an idea if you are uninitiated, there is a lot of poetry-composition going on. There are various fights of the sort you find in Golden Lotus. Golden Lotus is one of the other 5 great novels of China. In it, you find a leisure-class Chinese man having his way with maidservants. Most of the characters in Story of the Stone are maids, gardeners, actors and servants in some capacity - or they simply do nothing, like Bao-yu, who is the main character, if there can be said to be one. His name means "precious jade," and there is a lot of symbolism surrounding his name. His characteristics are explored in the first part, which seemed to be more concerned with interior emotions. The second part had to do more with his interactions with the various inhabitants of his vast estate. We know from the product description that a fall is coming to the great family. The translator has not spared us this twist. Without this tension hanging over all the leisure-time of the novel, I'm not sure I would've decided to read the whole thing.
Reading this colossal novel feels similar to reading Anniversaries by Uwe Johnson, (which novel may very well take me years to complete). You can dip into it most anywhere, read as much or as little as you want, or stay engrossed in it for months. It is nothing like Outlaws of the Marsh, the other Great Novel of China I devoured in a week or two. Needless to say, Story of the Stone is not plot-driven. I am not even sure if it is accurate to call it a psychological novel. Many people have called it such. When I think of psychological novels I think of Dostoyevsky, wherein the reader dwells mainly in the narrator's head. We are treated to a somewhat distant third person narrator in this work. Take Golden Lotus, by comparison - there are many psychological games going on between the characters. In Dream of the Red Chamber, as it has been translated before, you have fewer sadistic moments, more sympathy, more innocent interaction. Most of it is quite mundane - serving tea, viewing a play, sending quirky messages between maids, little rivalries, almost no sex, almost no violence - yet...
It would have been nice to have a version of Xueqin reincarnate in every major point in history. Someone like Pepys, chronicling in aching detail every last thought and item flitting through their head, keeping account books for posterity. We didn't really get this for Ancient Egypt - or it has been lost. You can detect the building blocks of Chinese society in Story of the Stone. To a greater extent than in Outlaws of the Marsh, this is a representative tale of an age. The people it deals with are not traditionally compelling - by that I mean they don't commit more than the average number of crimes, blunders, etc. The concern of the writing is more documentary, but we still have accuracy, things no foreigner to the time and place could possibly know. What doilies and frills were used when and where, what materials they were made of, the hairstyles, clothing, traditions, trade, popular topics, gossip and more.
You get that touch of the surreal or fantastical in the first volume. None of it in the second. I'm part-way through the third and even now, it is growing increasingly sophisticated in its realistic depictions. The first part was slightly more entertaining, but if you are trying to be entertained, just go read Jin Yong. The value of Story of the Stone is perhaps its testament as a text of discovery. That is, how it describes a life in such detail, boldly recording the unnecessary tidbits which compose its framework - as the product of the author's own autobiographical constraints. It helps to understand the author's life through whatever introductions you can find. The more you catalogue his gargantuan accumulation of novel-contents the more you feel yourself immersed in the environment. That is an accomplishment in itself. While I disagree that it is a sublime example of the novel - I think more of the of Tale of Genji or Don Quixote in that regard - it is clearly one of the most detailed proto-novels, or Ur-novels.
I am sure many readers will disagree with me on several of the points I struggled to make in this pseudo-review. The Story of the Stone will likely mean something different to everyone. If you are disciplined enough to read the entire thing, you are destined to change in the course of the time it took you. When I get to the end of the next volume I'll summarize my thoughts, and see if my opinion of the author's artistry has changed. I will also point out that "the stone" from the title hasn't been mentioned again for about 1175 pages after being used as an enigmatic framing device. Dream of the Red Chamber is an equally inappropriate title. This book might have been title "the Chronicle of Precious Jade," but that's my two-cents. David Hawkes spent a great deal of time interpreting and translating this monolithic work. The Penguin edition is the most complete edition I have found in English. The 5 volumes include all 120 chapters. I've seen other versions with only 80. The last two volumes were meddled with by Gao E and other advisors of Xueqin. Xueqin never finished it, or if he did, parts were lost and rewritten by others. It is the lightly fictional story of his life, and by the time he got to the latter fourth, he had been reduced in circumstances so much that he lost his drive - Hawkes claims. The translator also points out most of the novel's flaws unnecessarily, which resulted from too many people messing with the final product. Any book dealing with 400 characters and written over decades is bound to contain some inconsistencies. It is completely consistent so far at least in my mind in how easy it is to read, to peruse, to linger over and to remember. I stopped trying to interpret its symbols and character motivations hundreds of pages ago.
Trying to pinpoint answers to these questions is not as simple as reading any of the available analyses of the book. In my opinion Jin Yong wrote more Great Novels than any Ming author. The Story of the Stone is a little like War and Peace, without the War, in the sense that there are hundreds of characters, but most of them come from the same caste. Not a lot happens, at least so far, all told. To give you an idea if you are uninitiated, there is a lot of poetry-composition going on. There are various fights of the sort you find in Golden Lotus. Golden Lotus is one of the other 5 great novels of China. In it, you find a leisure-class Chinese man having his way with maidservants. Most of the characters in Story of the Stone are maids, gardeners, actors and servants in some capacity - or they simply do nothing, like Bao-yu, who is the main character, if there can be said to be one. His name means "precious jade," and there is a lot of symbolism surrounding his name. His characteristics are explored in the first part, which seemed to be more concerned with interior emotions. The second part had to do more with his interactions with the various inhabitants of his vast estate. We know from the product description that a fall is coming to the great family. The translator has not spared us this twist. Without this tension hanging over all the leisure-time of the novel, I'm not sure I would've decided to read the whole thing.
Reading this colossal novel feels similar to reading Anniversaries by Uwe Johnson, (which novel may very well take me years to complete). You can dip into it most anywhere, read as much or as little as you want, or stay engrossed in it for months. It is nothing like Outlaws of the Marsh, the other Great Novel of China I devoured in a week or two. Needless to say, Story of the Stone is not plot-driven. I am not even sure if it is accurate to call it a psychological novel. Many people have called it such. When I think of psychological novels I think of Dostoyevsky, wherein the reader dwells mainly in the narrator's head. We are treated to a somewhat distant third person narrator in this work. Take Golden Lotus, by comparison - there are many psychological games going on between the characters. In Dream of the Red Chamber, as it has been translated before, you have fewer sadistic moments, more sympathy, more innocent interaction. Most of it is quite mundane - serving tea, viewing a play, sending quirky messages between maids, little rivalries, almost no sex, almost no violence - yet...
It would have been nice to have a version of Xueqin reincarnate in every major point in history. Someone like Pepys, chronicling in aching detail every last thought and item flitting through their head, keeping account books for posterity. We didn't really get this for Ancient Egypt - or it has been lost. You can detect the building blocks of Chinese society in Story of the Stone. To a greater extent than in Outlaws of the Marsh, this is a representative tale of an age. The people it deals with are not traditionally compelling - by that I mean they don't commit more than the average number of crimes, blunders, etc. The concern of the writing is more documentary, but we still have accuracy, things no foreigner to the time and place could possibly know. What doilies and frills were used when and where, what materials they were made of, the hairstyles, clothing, traditions, trade, popular topics, gossip and more.
You get that touch of the surreal or fantastical in the first volume. None of it in the second. I'm part-way through the third and even now, it is growing increasingly sophisticated in its realistic depictions. The first part was slightly more entertaining, but if you are trying to be entertained, just go read Jin Yong. The value of Story of the Stone is perhaps its testament as a text of discovery. That is, how it describes a life in such detail, boldly recording the unnecessary tidbits which compose its framework - as the product of the author's own autobiographical constraints. It helps to understand the author's life through whatever introductions you can find. The more you catalogue his gargantuan accumulation of novel-contents the more you feel yourself immersed in the environment. That is an accomplishment in itself. While I disagree that it is a sublime example of the novel - I think more of the of Tale of Genji or Don Quixote in that regard - it is clearly one of the most detailed proto-novels, or Ur-novels.
I am sure many readers will disagree with me on several of the points I struggled to make in this pseudo-review. The Story of the Stone will likely mean something different to everyone. If you are disciplined enough to read the entire thing, you are destined to change in the course of the time it took you. When I get to the end of the next volume I'll summarize my thoughts, and see if my opinion of the author's artistry has changed. I will also point out that "the stone" from the title hasn't been mentioned again for about 1175 pages after being used as an enigmatic framing device. Dream of the Red Chamber is an equally inappropriate title. This book might have been title "the Chronicle of Precious Jade," but that's my two-cents. David Hawkes spent a great deal of time interpreting and translating this monolithic work. The Penguin edition is the most complete edition I have found in English. The 5 volumes include all 120 chapters. I've seen other versions with only 80. The last two volumes were meddled with by Gao E and other advisors of Xueqin. Xueqin never finished it, or if he did, parts were lost and rewritten by others. It is the lightly fictional story of his life, and by the time he got to the latter fourth, he had been reduced in circumstances so much that he lost his drive - Hawkes claims. The translator also points out most of the novel's flaws unnecessarily, which resulted from too many people messing with the final product. Any book dealing with 400 characters and written over decades is bound to contain some inconsistencies. It is completely consistent so far at least in my mind in how easy it is to read, to peruse, to linger over and to remember. I stopped trying to interpret its symbols and character motivations hundreds of pages ago.
October 17, 2012
Reviewers often comment on this volume being completely immersive in the minutiae of the daily rituals of the ladies and their maids. I have completely lost myself in this book in the way that I see others reading “Twilight” or “Fifty Shades of Grey” – I have stopped calling and emailing loved ones, and I have stolen more time than possible at work to read this as an ebook. This volume primarily concerns a gilded year at the Rong-Guo mansion. With the Prospect Garden’s original purpose nullified (the imperial concubine has no visits scheduled for at least the next year and a half), Bao-yu and all the girls move in and devote themselves to poetry and day long entertainments consisting of crab, rice wine, painting, riddles, actors, and firecrackers. Behind the scenes there is infighting among the maids and tears all around. It’s remarkable how easy it is to keep track of the hundreds of characters, but this volume of the novel benefitted from extensive rewriting, while future volumes are often made obscure by inconsistencies from draft to draft. Having read a drastically abridged version twenty years ago, and having seen the two Shaw Brothers film adaptations (1962 and 1978), I am most impressed by what a nice guy Bao-yu is. I previously thought of him as a spoiled and impetuous brat, but the unabridged version shows how sensitive he is to the needs of his female cousins and maids, whom he treats as his equal. He’s charming in his devotion to others, especially when he is late for Xi-feng’s disastrous birthday party because he is busy saying prayers for her on the outskirts of town. I marveled at Xi-feng’s industrious nature in the first volume, but how quickly she became vain and greedy! I love how the lesser maids talk to her in a way that both flatters her but does not conceal their contempt for her amongst themselves. We have master translator David Hawkes for preserving the subtle intentions of such skillful language. Toward the end we get brought back to reality, first with the dramatic conclusion to Xi-feng’s birthday which ends with complete exposure of her marital woes and her beating her maid Precious, her only true confidante. The highest ranking servants benefit greatly from their proximity to their masters, but they are also the first to suffer when something happens. Xi-feng and Lian’s marriage is an interesting portrayal of marriage in the ruling class. The wives have to bear the brunt of the work and the burden of their husbands’ infidelities, while the servants have to hold secrets or incur their masters’ wrath. Another example of the excellent writing and translation: we are always aware of the pecking order in any situation. One more compliment to the translation, we have Chinese names for the ruling family, English translations for the servants (Aroma, Precious, Faithful, Skybright), and French names for the actors (Charmante, Élégante). This helps me keep track of everyone. In this volume we are more privy to the thoughts of major characters such as Bao-yu and Dai-yu, of course, and Aroma, Granny Liu, Precious, Xi-feng, Grandmother and Bao-chai. We continue to see the emotional hardship in the private lives of the maids, such as Aroma’s dilemma of whether to return to her family or stay and try to guide Bao-yu to adulthood. We also see the desperation of old women like Granny Liu and Nanny Li, though Granny Liu also has a great few chapters that are among my favorite. I was not prepared for her drunken walk of wonderment around the garden. And after seeing Bao-yu’s father exhibit the desire to fit in with the women of the family (particularly his unresponsive mother) during the riddle games of chapter 22, we see him revert back to his worst impulses in chapter 33, giving Bao-yu the beating that is usually one of the big scenes in any of the film adaptations. As unfair and sad as that situation was, I was almost moved to tears reading the touching scene between Dai-yu and Bao-chai when convalescent Dai-yu admitted her own shortcomings and realized that Bao-chai is actually a good friend. So beautifully written! And I was reading with bated breath as the ill Skybright summoned her strength to darn Bao-yu’s cape with peacock thread when no one else would try – how does a writer get someone to feel suspense over a thing like darning? This volume ends in a good spot: Cousin Zhen explains how little money is coming in to the Ning-guo house but it is not serious yet. Then he lays out how even less money is coming in to the Rong-guo house and that they have had to start dipping into their capital to pay for all their expenditures! He doesn’t even know how much they’ve been spending, but we do: paying off Golden’s family following her suicide, building the Prospect Garden, buying painting supplies for Xi-chun to make paintings of the garden, a mass influx of Xing/Xue/Wang in-laws, huge outlays for parties, including foolishness such as bringing in an acting troupe from the outside even though they have one staying there! Ultimately, what is it all for? (SPOILERS AHEAD) Very few outsiders show up for the Rong-guo house’s New Year’s bash, either due to embarrassment for being poor, illness/old age, or dislike of Xi-feng.
Read
April 20, 2021Will have more to say when I finish the last volume.
There is so much less of the fantastic and the dream state in this volume, and so much more about social interactions at all levels of society. The volume overall has the feel of comedy of manners . . . which is surprising considering that two characters are nearly beaten to death, and then there are the suicides. But the writing is so engaging, the focus on poetry and flowers and the minutiae of day to day interactions, and the cast is full of women. What they do and think matters.
There is so much less of the fantastic and the dream state in this volume, and so much more about social interactions at all levels of society. The volume overall has the feel of comedy of manners . . . which is surprising considering that two characters are nearly beaten to death, and then there are the suicides. But the writing is so engaging, the focus on poetry and flowers and the minutiae of day to day interactions, and the cast is full of women. What they do and think matters.
March 23, 2022
The second volume of 'The Story of the Stone' is, as the translation acknowledges in the preface, rather less exciting than the first. Whereas The Golden Days involved supernatural happenings and major household upheaval, The Crab-Flower Club largely chronicles parties, poetry contests, minor illnesses, and brief fallings-out. Bao-yu is perhaps less of the focus here and more attention is paid to the maids. There are a few significant incidents, notably
As with the first volume, I enjoyed the witty dialogue and details of the household routine. The material descriptions of fabrics, food, and furnishings are again copious and vivid, which sometimes becomes a little overwhelming. Nonetheless I found the translation compelling and readable. The preface also included thought-provoking comments from the translator on the challenges this novel poses:
Although I didn't find the second volume as memorable as the first, I definitely intend to continue with the novel. I hope to see more development of the main characters in the next volume.
As with the first volume, I enjoyed the witty dialogue and details of the household routine. The material descriptions of fabrics, food, and furnishings are again copious and vivid, which sometimes becomes a little overwhelming. Nonetheless I found the translation compelling and readable. The preface also included thought-provoking comments from the translator on the challenges this novel poses:
Admittedly the decision to draw a line between what may and what may not be amended is a somewhat arbitrary one, and to a textual critic the subjective arguments and rule-of-thumb methods of the translator-editor may seem arrogant and unscientific. But a translator has divided loyalties. He has a duty to his author, a duty to his reader, and a duty to the text. The three are by no means identical and are often hard to reconcile.
Although I didn't find the second volume as memorable as the first, I definitely intend to continue with the novel. I hope to see more development of the main characters in the next volume.
December 18, 2018
It is rare that I meet a book that rivals my #1 book of all time (War and Peace) but Cao Xueqin's The Dream of the Red Chamber (aka: The Story of the Stone) is it. Volume two picks up at chapter 27, right where the previous volume left off so you don't want to leave too much time between reading each volume. The lush adventures of the Jia family continue to unfold, and though The Crab-Flower Club lacks a lot of the magical components of the first volume, it makes up for it with detailed descriptions of the food, wardrobe, traditions, and beliefs of wealthy Chinese during the Qing Dynasty. The excitement continues; there are two suicides, adultery, three near-death beatings, and all while stealthy moves are made by Jia Zheng's lead concubine to position her son as the favored child.
While I did miss the supernatural overtones present in the first volume, like the magic mirror, the fairy of disenchant, and the mad monk and crippled Taoist, I found myself longing to be wrapped back into this story whenever I left it. By the time you start reading The Crab-Flower Club you 'll be comfortable enough with the confusing Chinese names to not falter when the author introduces a whole new bevy of characters, the Xue family, into the clan compound. This story is so rich that it is making me nostalgic for 18th century China… now that is some powerful writing! I'm 1000 pages in and I have three more volumes and over 1500 pages left to go and I can't wait to find out what happens to Bao-yu, Dai-yu, Bao-chai, and of course my favorite, Grandmother Jia.
While I did miss the supernatural overtones present in the first volume, like the magic mirror, the fairy of disenchant, and the mad monk and crippled Taoist, I found myself longing to be wrapped back into this story whenever I left it. By the time you start reading The Crab-Flower Club you 'll be comfortable enough with the confusing Chinese names to not falter when the author introduces a whole new bevy of characters, the Xue family, into the clan compound. This story is so rich that it is making me nostalgic for 18th century China… now that is some powerful writing! I'm 1000 pages in and I have three more volumes and over 1500 pages left to go and I can't wait to find out what happens to Bao-yu, Dai-yu, Bao-chai, and of course my favorite, Grandmother Jia.
December 16, 2018
The Crab Flower Club is the 2nd volume of the Story of the Stone (also titled The Dream of the Red Chamber). It continues the story of the teenager, Bao-yu, who I described in my review of the first book as “a lover, and not a fighter”.
In this book, we learn a lot more about him - he is very effeminate, and may very possibly be homesexual, although Cao Xueqin, deftly tiptoes around Bao-yu’s sexuality. Xueqin gives hints about it like when the doctor is visiting the servant, Skybright, who is convalescing in Bao-yu’s bedroom, the Doctor thinks Bao-yu’s is a girl’s room.
The best part of this installment for me was the Crab Flower Club, which is a poetry club that Bao-yu and his cousin’s start up to have poetry writing contests. The poems were very enjoyable and I wish there were actually more of them.
There was a lot of filler and fluff in between the action of the plot which was why I knocked off a couple stars from my rating. However, I’ll be reading part 3 next year. I’m anxious to find out what happens next to the Jia clan!
In this book, we learn a lot more about him - he is very effeminate, and may very possibly be homesexual, although Cao Xueqin, deftly tiptoes around Bao-yu’s sexuality. Xueqin gives hints about it like when the doctor is visiting the servant, Skybright, who is convalescing in Bao-yu’s bedroom, the Doctor thinks Bao-yu’s is a girl’s room.
The best part of this installment for me was the Crab Flower Club, which is a poetry club that Bao-yu and his cousin’s start up to have poetry writing contests. The poems were very enjoyable and I wish there were actually more of them.
There was a lot of filler and fluff in between the action of the plot which was why I knocked off a couple stars from my rating. However, I’ll be reading part 3 next year. I’m anxious to find out what happens next to the Jia clan!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 14, 2018
I really did not expect to enjoy this novel as much as I have so far. Of all the classic Chinese novels, I went into Dream of the Red Chamber, or The Story of the Stone with the most trepidation. There's no demons, no great battles, or magically gifted strategists, just the domestic life of one incredibly rich Chinese family. But this volume, like the last, has been completely enthralling. The characters feel so real, their concerns, their interactions, and their lives painted with a beautiful attention to detail. There's whole chapters of the young people participating in a poetry club that are worth it just for the perspectives on poetry and it's role as a social activity, let alone how the poems hint at the relationships of the characters and their fates, and how the different characters engage with the poetry.
March 28, 2025
Yeah sure "nothing happens" in the sense that the ten thousand things move with such constancy that stillness is the ultimate movement and movement the ultimate stillness. You could probably take Bao-Yu's example and hang out with grandma and practice poetry with the ladies more often.
April 2, 2025
oh to be the spoiled child of an aristocrat and sit around in a garden all day writing poetry
October 19, 2023
With a great focus on Chinese poetry, this second volume dives deeper into the day-to-day life of a rich Chinese family in the 18th century. Compared to the first volume (and the third one), not a lot really happens, which made it sometimes a bit of a drag. However, going into the third volume, the characters are a lot more fleshed out and the premise of the families going into financial troubles is slowly being revealed.
June 1, 2018
It's kinda silly how much I loved reading this, when spoiled Chinese aristocrats writing poetry really oughtta be boring. But then a scene comes along like Bao-chai and Dai-yu exchanging insults disguised as jokes, and Tan-chun speaks up:
And I literally said out loud, "Woof, girl!" and kept on chugging along.
Sure, I did miss the really weird parts of Volume I. So much nothing happens in this second volume. But that's okay, because there are also some tremendously tender moments of affection. Bao-yu doting on his maids to keep them warm; Xi-feng and Patience rigging a card game so Grandmother can win; Or Dai-yu taking Caltrop under her wing and making a real poet out of her. For all the back-biting these women and men in the Jia family do, they also express deep love in small, subtle ways.
--But, boy, there's also some sudden and violent bursts of life in between. People die or get beaten within an inch of death, and we just move on to the next scene. Constantly moving on forward, while leaving a little growing tinge of melancholy behind in the background. And it's that satisfying mix of fantasy, realism, sweetness, and godawful depression that makes me corny as Kansas in August for this story.
'Pinch her lips, Chai!' she said. 'You should hear what she's been saying about you.'
'I don't need to,' said Bao-chai. 'One doesn't expect ivory from a dog's mouth!'
And I literally said out loud, "Woof, girl!" and kept on chugging along.
Sure, I did miss the really weird parts of Volume I. So much nothing happens in this second volume. But that's okay, because there are also some tremendously tender moments of affection. Bao-yu doting on his maids to keep them warm; Xi-feng and Patience rigging a card game so Grandmother can win; Or Dai-yu taking Caltrop under her wing and making a real poet out of her. For all the back-biting these women and men in the Jia family do, they also express deep love in small, subtle ways.
--But, boy, there's also some sudden and violent bursts of life in between. People die or get beaten within an inch of death, and we just move on to the next scene. Constantly moving on forward, while leaving a little growing tinge of melancholy behind in the background. And it's that satisfying mix of fantasy, realism, sweetness, and godawful depression that makes me corny as Kansas in August for this story.
October 10, 2020
In this episode, Bao-Yu and the girls (though really, you could probably count Bao-Yu as one of the girls) start a poetry club.
You can see starting cracks and fissures in the family's illustriousness starting to form. A memo from the Accounting Department (the family has an Accounting Department), mentions here and there about monthly allowances (the younger ladies get about 1 tael of silver/month), and some extraordinary expenses.....
I stumbled upon a quote from Cao Xueqin about his writing this book, that he wrote it semi-autobiographically; He himself spent more time in the women's wings than the men's wings, and that he wanted to let "the virtues of the female chambers be made known and people entertained". It definitely passes the Bechdel test, it barely passes the reverse, Bao-Yu being the only male with any significant screentime.
Bao-Yu lives in a time when most (wealthy) households are sharply separated by sex - Grandmother Jia being peculiar (and, traditional family respect in China works much like the West, youngest-to-oldest, female-to-male, in order ascending EXCEPT, your own mom always trumps you so even the Emperor would have to kowtow to mom), she dotes on Bao-Yu and he gets to live with the girls, and get dressed up all fancy and have all kinds of cute accoutrements in his apartments. His dad doesn't care for this, but Grandmother Jia is the queen of the dynasty.
The poetry club makes some really, really rigid poems that even the translator was like "Here's a full explanation on how the verse works, I'll just do my best ok" Rymes matching Tones matching Chinese symbols matching Seasons etc... I was walking the Vancouver seawall in the Fall while reading Caltrop's moon poems section, and as I looked up I saw the most majestic evening view of Koma Kulshan (Mt Baker) in the distance and then faintly, to the north, the moon (a bit more in the distance). It was great timing.
I think some modern gender interpretations would really read Bao-Yu as at least gender non-conformist. He's a sweet and gentle boy, the excuse is always the grandmother's doting. He hates the language and manners and life of the "whiskered" males and prefers to hang with the girls (and, teenage-he, is still interested in those girls, mostly just Dai-Yu but that's not his leading motivation). He's got the same interests, they all go to the same garden parties.... Bao-Yu is very much more a princess than a prince, all I'm saying. Even a moment when Bao-Yu's seldom seen (main) male servant wishes to a shrine-ghost that Bao-Yu could be reincarnated as a woman in his next life; a little on the nose there.. (Cao Xeuqin says #transrights) #overinterpretation #hashtagsongoodreads
It makes for a hilarious scene when his maid Aroma is gone and Bao-Yu has to pay a doctor; He doesn't even know where she keeps his money, when they figure it out, woe they don't have any silver shears! Maybe this is about one tael....
And we get to know the domestics too. Though pretty much all their lives and what they talk about revolve around their masters, they are very, very well developed characters; you get to know the details of their contracts, their temperaments, just as much as the Family. Of the women characters, there is hardly any one-dimensional characters. And in a given, regular, day-to-day scene there could be probably about 20 people or so in the room, with eight of them having full dialogue. For the New Years' Scene there were probably around 200 people, all family and servants. It was basically a city festival.
For posterity, here's a list of all the people with speaking parts we've met so far. The first two are the Stone and the Flower, reincarnated as humans, Jia Bao-Yu the eldest son of the Jia family dynasty, and Lin Dai-Yu, now orphaned but adopted (not legally) into the family.
The next two are the Fairy Disenchantment who is met before they get reincarnated, and the Monk Sublimitas who first meets the stone at the very start of the book. For the rest, if they have a western Noun/Adjective style name they are usually a servant (a fine style choice by the translator, as servants would have been given those names on employment as work-names, and their meaning is important to their character); vis the Family whom their names were given when they were born, and tells nothing diegeticly about their character.
Jia Bao-Yu
Lin Dai-Yu
Disenchantment
Sublimitas
**OH I think it very important to note that "Swastika" is, for its setting, a very, very, peaceful name, and has absolutely none of the modern connotations.. I once met a woman, extremely friendly customer, elderly but proudly newly Canadian Citizen, from India. Her name was Swastika. Born in the early 30s. I'm not going to censor or remove it because that would be ludicrous, and I'm happy that David Hawkes didn't.
(Lolol I like the "I Own A Copy" section like I bought it New, now.... it's ... well broken in.)
You can see starting cracks and fissures in the family's illustriousness starting to form. A memo from the Accounting Department (the family has an Accounting Department), mentions here and there about monthly allowances (the younger ladies get about 1 tael of silver/month), and some extraordinary expenses.....
I stumbled upon a quote from Cao Xueqin about his writing this book, that he wrote it semi-autobiographically; He himself spent more time in the women's wings than the men's wings, and that he wanted to let "the virtues of the female chambers be made known and people entertained". It definitely passes the Bechdel test, it barely passes the reverse, Bao-Yu being the only male with any significant screentime.
Bao-Yu lives in a time when most (wealthy) households are sharply separated by sex - Grandmother Jia being peculiar (and, traditional family respect in China works much like the West, youngest-to-oldest, female-to-male, in order ascending EXCEPT, your own mom always trumps you so even the Emperor would have to kowtow to mom), she dotes on Bao-Yu and he gets to live with the girls, and get dressed up all fancy and have all kinds of cute accoutrements in his apartments. His dad doesn't care for this, but Grandmother Jia is the queen of the dynasty.
The poetry club makes some really, really rigid poems that even the translator was like "Here's a full explanation on how the verse works, I'll just do my best ok" Rymes matching Tones matching Chinese symbols matching Seasons etc... I was walking the Vancouver seawall in the Fall while reading Caltrop's moon poems section, and as I looked up I saw the most majestic evening view of Koma Kulshan (Mt Baker) in the distance and then faintly, to the north, the moon (a bit more in the distance). It was great timing.
I think some modern gender interpretations would really read Bao-Yu as at least gender non-conformist. He's a sweet and gentle boy, the excuse is always the grandmother's doting. He hates the language and manners and life of the "whiskered" males and prefers to hang with the girls (and, teenage-he, is still interested in those girls, mostly just Dai-Yu but that's not his leading motivation). He's got the same interests, they all go to the same garden parties.... Bao-Yu is very much more a princess than a prince, all I'm saying. Even a moment when Bao-Yu's seldom seen (main) male servant wishes to a shrine-ghost that Bao-Yu could be reincarnated as a woman in his next life; a little on the nose there.. (Cao Xeuqin says #transrights) #overinterpretation #hashtagsongoodreads
It makes for a hilarious scene when his maid Aroma is gone and Bao-Yu has to pay a doctor; He doesn't even know where she keeps his money, when they figure it out, woe they don't have any silver shears! Maybe this is about one tael....
And we get to know the domestics too. Though pretty much all their lives and what they talk about revolve around their masters, they are very, very well developed characters; you get to know the details of their contracts, their temperaments, just as much as the Family. Of the women characters, there is hardly any one-dimensional characters. And in a given, regular, day-to-day scene there could be probably about 20 people or so in the room, with eight of them having full dialogue. For the New Years' Scene there were probably around 200 people, all family and servants. It was basically a city festival.
For posterity, here's a list of all the people with speaking parts we've met so far. The first two are the Stone and the Flower, reincarnated as humans, Jia Bao-Yu the eldest son of the Jia family dynasty, and Lin Dai-Yu, now orphaned but adopted (not legally) into the family.
The next two are the Fairy Disenchantment who is met before they get reincarnated, and the Monk Sublimitas who first meets the stone at the very start of the book. For the rest, if they have a western Noun/Adjective style name they are usually a servant (a fine style choice by the translator, as servants would have been given those names on employment as work-names, and their meaning is important to their character); vis the Family whom their names were given when they were born, and tells nothing diegeticly about their character.
Jia Bao-Yu
Lin Dai-Yu
Disenchantment
Sublimitas
**OH I think it very important to note that "Swastika" is, for its setting, a very, very, peaceful name, and has absolutely none of the modern connotations.. I once met a woman, extremely friendly customer, elderly but proudly newly Canadian Citizen, from India. Her name was Swastika. Born in the early 30s. I'm not going to censor or remove it because that would be ludicrous, and I'm happy that David Hawkes didn't.
(Lolol I like the "I Own A Copy" section like I bought it New, now.... it's ... well broken in.)
October 9, 2023
Volume two of The Story of the Stone settles into a steady groove that doesn't much change throughout. Certainly less happens than does so in volume one. What we get is dramatically like a soap opera in that a lot happens but almost none of it has very much consequence. The Jia family is continuing to enjoy prosperity and life is beginning to settle for young Bao-yu who is slowly growing up. He spends his time with the young women of the family with whom small incidents arise almost every day, and sometimes larger ones although these often happen more or less off the page. The children decide to form a poetry club, the eponymous Crab-Flower Club, a choice that seems almost formal for Cao Xueqin in that it seems this is all about him flexing his abilities as a poet as well as novelist. No doubt a lot is lost in translation here, but Hawkes does render convincing poems and even conveys wonderfully the dynamism of the children's poetry competitions and jointly composed efforts. The real world of normal people begins to creep in more and more through the lives of the servants and their families outside the Jia mansion. And at the very end money troubles seem to become an issue for the family. This, I gather, will grant the much stronger dramatic thrust of the family's fall in volume three. In all, this is a less interesting volume dramatically than volume one, and often less inventive - no red chambers and fantastical visions, no monks who can converse with the magical stone. But what it lacks in these regards is made up for in the sheer fecundity of Cao's imagination and vision of the everyday - the everyday of the incredibly wealthy, that is. As the blurb to the edition mentions, this is a volume about things, and Hawkes does a wonderful job of making items that are obscure to the contemporary non-Chinese reader immediate and vivid. Perhaps it is just in knowing what comes in volume three, but I did sense throughout the second half of this volume that the immediate and pleasurable world of the Jia household is something that cannot hold forever, that is an illusion that can and will disappear in an instant.
January 19, 2019
3.5/5
This second volume was much more focused on its main premise than the first was, to both its benefit and its detriment. It was certainly easier to keep track of who what when where why and how, even with a sudden influx of new relations appearing in the cast of characters during the last quarter of the text, but there was very little, if any, fleshings out of the supernatural sort, and the supreme obsession with one locality of one stately household meant a lack of opportunity to inadvertently pick up info and concepts as the story moved across the foreign landscape. What held my interest most, morbidly enough, were the sordid intimations of familial strife fueled by various patriarchal grasps, some brutally intentional, some tragically nonsensical. Outside of these were the plentiful descriptions of food, clothing, and other carefully crafted creations, as well as the poetry and riddles of the titular Crab Flower Club itself, which demonstrated in the supplemental indices the trickeries of translation, especially when well versed contemporaries of Cao Xueqin himself never come to a consensus about some of the riddled solutions. The end of this volume is rich with both fantastically ceremonial ritual and intimations at incoming doom, which complicate the smooth timelines of visits and snow viewings and other activities of the occupation-less members of the Jia family, some of whom may survive the various beatings, suicides, and sicknesses, only to live long enough to witness their family's downfall.
I've read enough to declare (Wang) Xi-Feng, one of the main characters' (yes, both of them) married cousins, on both the mother's and the father's side in Bao-yu's case (the family trees get ridiculous here with the intermarrying between only two families), my favorite character. She's not at all perfect, but she is forceful yet playful yet proud yet rightfully full of herself worth, and she also sparks a great deal of the more active interactions in the text, whether it's teasing the family's most powerful matriarch, drinking enough to angrily confront her philandering husband, or planning and managing every last bit of the entirety of the Jie household's ceremonial events and less sensational day to day expenses. Bao-yu and his troop of cohorts both feminine get more screen time, but I still can't tell two or three of his other unmarried cousins apart, and outside the rare instances where the action doesn't take place in the main family compound, the events can start to bleed together in a threateningly monotonous fashion. Events such as suicides, both tragic and somewhat otherwise, and the complete shut down of concubinal machinations spiced up an otherwise heavily descriptive narrative of daily activities of the rich and well indulged. I enjoyed what poetry I could understand, and learned a great deal about the time and place's cultural structure, but I prefer a balance complacent pleasure and stuff less such, the latter often fleshing out characters far more than placid peace ever could, so while it is indeed malicious to say, I"m looking forward to the impending downfall. It will make one or more characters reveal their true colors when all the gilt and finery is stripped away, to say the least.
Two volumes down, three to go. I have a feeling/hope that the series will get more complicated as the character's fortunes dwindle, which, while sadistic, has already proven to grant the narrative needed holistic development when it comes to the people that are its major component. I'm still not too impressed by the two main characters, especially Bao-yu, as whatever mature integrity he displayed during the course of the second volume was severely undercut by a bout of cruel carelessness that rivals the vehicular manslaughter of drunk drivers and Bao-yu, of course, was not charged. He was punished in a sense, but it is almost completely mollified by the resultant coddling, so I'm hoping the third volume has a little less bark and a little more bite for Bao-yu, if no one else. I'm also hoping the phantasmagorical aspects come back a tad, as they were interesting for the purposes of foreshadowing as well as in their own right. Nothing will be gained b my continuing to hypothesize, of course, so onto The Warning Voice I go.
This second volume was much more focused on its main premise than the first was, to both its benefit and its detriment. It was certainly easier to keep track of who what when where why and how, even with a sudden influx of new relations appearing in the cast of characters during the last quarter of the text, but there was very little, if any, fleshings out of the supernatural sort, and the supreme obsession with one locality of one stately household meant a lack of opportunity to inadvertently pick up info and concepts as the story moved across the foreign landscape. What held my interest most, morbidly enough, were the sordid intimations of familial strife fueled by various patriarchal grasps, some brutally intentional, some tragically nonsensical. Outside of these were the plentiful descriptions of food, clothing, and other carefully crafted creations, as well as the poetry and riddles of the titular Crab Flower Club itself, which demonstrated in the supplemental indices the trickeries of translation, especially when well versed contemporaries of Cao Xueqin himself never come to a consensus about some of the riddled solutions. The end of this volume is rich with both fantastically ceremonial ritual and intimations at incoming doom, which complicate the smooth timelines of visits and snow viewings and other activities of the occupation-less members of the Jia family, some of whom may survive the various beatings, suicides, and sicknesses, only to live long enough to witness their family's downfall.
I've read enough to declare (Wang) Xi-Feng, one of the main characters' (yes, both of them) married cousins, on both the mother's and the father's side in Bao-yu's case (the family trees get ridiculous here with the intermarrying between only two families), my favorite character. She's not at all perfect, but she is forceful yet playful yet proud yet rightfully full of herself worth, and she also sparks a great deal of the more active interactions in the text, whether it's teasing the family's most powerful matriarch, drinking enough to angrily confront her philandering husband, or planning and managing every last bit of the entirety of the Jie household's ceremonial events and less sensational day to day expenses. Bao-yu and his troop of cohorts both feminine get more screen time, but I still can't tell two or three of his other unmarried cousins apart, and outside the rare instances where the action doesn't take place in the main family compound, the events can start to bleed together in a threateningly monotonous fashion. Events such as suicides, both tragic and somewhat otherwise, and the complete shut down of concubinal machinations spiced up an otherwise heavily descriptive narrative of daily activities of the rich and well indulged. I enjoyed what poetry I could understand, and learned a great deal about the time and place's cultural structure, but I prefer a balance complacent pleasure and stuff less such, the latter often fleshing out characters far more than placid peace ever could, so while it is indeed malicious to say, I"m looking forward to the impending downfall. It will make one or more characters reveal their true colors when all the gilt and finery is stripped away, to say the least.
Two volumes down, three to go. I have a feeling/hope that the series will get more complicated as the character's fortunes dwindle, which, while sadistic, has already proven to grant the narrative needed holistic development when it comes to the people that are its major component. I'm still not too impressed by the two main characters, especially Bao-yu, as whatever mature integrity he displayed during the course of the second volume was severely undercut by a bout of cruel carelessness that rivals the vehicular manslaughter of drunk drivers and Bao-yu, of course, was not charged. He was punished in a sense, but it is almost completely mollified by the resultant coddling, so I'm hoping the third volume has a little less bark and a little more bite for Bao-yu, if no one else. I'm also hoping the phantasmagorical aspects come back a tad, as they were interesting for the purposes of foreshadowing as well as in their own right. Nothing will be gained b my continuing to hypothesize, of course, so onto The Warning Voice I go.
November 5, 2024
Alex Comfort once compared Chinese fiction to Pepys’s Diary, “a perfectly translucent medium through which we see the characters in all their moral nudity.” ... The plot [of The Dream of the Red Chamber] is the familiar, recurrent one of so much great fiction, as it is a specialty of both Chinese fiction and philosophy of history — “When women rule, the house decays” — but also its contrary, a celebration of the matriarchy that underlies and sustains society. Like all great fiction, it is also the story of the immensely difficult achievement of personal integrity. The narrative works toward a transcendental meaning of life through that life itself, which so conspicuously hides all such meaning. The characters are all “fallen beings.” The hero is an unprepossessing, idle scholar-gentleman, timid, oversexed, unstable. The two young heroines are both hysterics... The action is confined almost entirely to the women’s quarters and consists mostly of vapors, tantrums, fugues, and quarrels. Time goes by. As in life - Kenneth Rexroth
I thought this Rexroth quote (from an essay in which he argues that Cao Xueqin's novel is the greatest fiction of all) summed up pretty perfectly the wonder and joy of this novel, which I am not even halfway through at the time of writing.
This second volume, artificially divided by David Hawkes and yet miraculously so clearly its own beast, is notable for being almost entirely directionless in terms of overarching plot. What do we get over its 600+ pages? Nine months of aristocratic leisure and fuss - endless festivities, feasts, celebrations, holidays and holy days; sumptuous descriptions of food, perfumes, clothes, furniture, flowers, painting (even the long inventories of supplies have their own aesthetic pleasure, one dictated list of paints includes "Canton indigo, oyster-shell white, safflower red, brush-stick gamboge" mmmmm); the titular "Crab-Flower poetry club", its meetings and workings, and the many beautiful, elusive and ridiculous verses its members produce; and of course a vast, panoramic cast rendered in exquisite detail. Despite Chinese critics often calling this work the 'tragedy of tragedies' there's no real sense of overarching impending doom hanging above us. This is not a gloomy work; and, more crucially, this is not in any sense a didactic work. As Rexroth points out above, the pathos of reading The Dream of the Red Chamber comes not from Tolstoyan intervention, from any sense of overt moralizing or gesturing towards received meaning. It occasionally feels Dickensian in its colour and richness, but there's far less clear cut sympathy doled out among its personages. Rather, the book succeeds in its astonishing fidelity to life. No one here is perfect - not Bao-yu (who I found irritating for the entire first volume but now love), his counterparts in the central love triangle, or any of his surrounding family members. They can be cruel, vindictive, tyrannical to servants, petty, annoying- and Cao does not try and manipulate your sympathies either toward or away from them as a result.
The upshot of this ruthless honesty is what can sometimes feel like a deeply socially conscious, almost modern novel. Bao-yu, unique in his femininity, exists entirely in relation to the women in his life. We see his female cousins and sisters more than any male friends, his maids far more than his pages, his grandmother, mother, and aunts more than any other relations. Apart from Bao-yu, the men in this novel exist as if behind a screen, occasionally intruding on what is otherwise an entirely feminine affair; and Cao doesn't flinch in showing what these male intrusions are usually like. Chapters 44 to 47 in particular contain two narratives, almost heart-rendingly painful to read, about male violence in the Jia family. Xi-Feng, drunk from her own birthday celebrations, returns home to find her husband Jia Lian with another woman (the wife of his manservant, no less). Jia Lian, in fury at being caught and humiliated, starts to beat Xi-Feng, swearing that he'll kill her. Eventually, cowed by his mother as Xi-Feng weeps, he skulks off, but after a short reconciliatory meeting between man, wife, and matriarchal mother they are again reunited, Jia Lian's behaviour forgiven as typical drunkenness. We are told also that the woman he was sleeping with killed herself in shame, but neither he nor anyone else seems to care. In the following chapter, one of the major patriarchs Jia She, an old lecher, decides he wants Grandmother Jia's main maid Faithful as his 'chamber-wife', and dispatches his own wife to negotiate for her. Faithful, horrified at a future at the mercy of this Weinstein-esque figure, is saved only by her mistresses' seniority, and there are heartbreaking passages on her terror over her future after Grandmother Jia's death revokes any protection. Neither Jia She nor Jia Lian are necessarily villains, however - they remain in the family, a part of celebrations, ceremonies and daily life. So too is Jia Zheng forgiven after beating his son Bao-yu nearly to death in rage earlier in the volume: it's just what happens, ugly but unadulterated by authorial judgment. The way this book portrays the dysfunction of families, the workings of power in and on bureaucracies, the difference in freedom and circumstance between rich and poor, master and servant, is just unparalleled in its grace and clarity.
But it's also a novel about literature, about aesthetics, about living the good life (as a rich Chinese lord ofc). Bao-chai's Crab-Flower Club was a constant joy to read about, as were the long discussions on the nature of good and bad poetry and the reading of scurrilous and 'pornographic' classic novels (pot-kettle moment but it's clearly self-aware). And it's funny rather than po-faced about this, too. A particular delight was the passage where Bao-chai's new maid Caltrop is allowed into the club and given reading assignments by Dai-yu. She goes "poetry-crazy", to quote Bao-yu, staying up late in the night revising compositions, reading lines by Du-Fu, and discussing literature to the point of other characters' exasperation:
"'You two are deafening me with your perpetual chatter' Bao-Chai complained. 'Imagine how ridiculous and unmaidenly it would seem to a man of letters if he heard that girls were treating poetry as a serious occupation*! Caltrop on her own was bad enough, but with a chatterbox like you on top of it, Yun, I'm finding it a bit too much. Everywhere I go it's "the profundity of Du Fu", or "Wei Ying-wu of Soochow's limpidity", or "the somewhat meretricious charm of Wen Ting-yun", or "Li Shang-yin's obscurity". Still, there are two important living poets I've so far heard no mention of.'(Also worth here pointing out just how good Hawkes' translation is, both in its comprehensiveness and readability.)
'Oh?' said Xiang-yun, all agog. 'Which two?'
'I've heard no mention of Crazy Caltrop's prodigious pertinacity or the linguipotent loquacity of Shi Xiang-yun'"
My phone is full of photographs of moments from this novel - the suicide of Golden, the drunken escapades of Grannie Liu, Skybright's ominous illness, the beautiful snow-day poetry meeting and their 'exhaust the rhyme one line at a time' contest, and that haunting coda of the final New Year celebrations in the hall of ancestors. Just astonishing stuff. I don't know how long it will take me to get there but I'm with this book as far as it goes.
*Though, ofc, this is the entire matter of the bloody novel
March 31, 2013
Well, it doesn't move fast, but it does move. This book mainly deepens and develops the material introduced in the first volume, more detailing of what daily life in this rich family is like, with more indications of the fall later to come. There is also a deepening and a complication of the relationships between some of the characters. I found this volume to actually be a little easier to read than the first. There are certainly some marvelous moments, though there were a few sections that dragged a little bit. All in all, not bad for something written almost three hundred years ago.
January 7, 2023
Lack of stories and hight points. But nice to know about the daily life of people in the past.
September 29, 2024
Even less happening than in volume 1, which is rather fun as you just lie back and let it drift around and enjoy the kids having a big poetry competition in the Garden of Green Delights.
December 24, 2021
Part 2 of 5. Waiting to finish the entire book before rating.
October 17, 2013
The following review is my review for all five volumes as a whole.
I'm going to put forth an argument that books can be compared to relationships. There are books that are guilty pleasures with no literary value beyond straightforward entertainment, such as potboiler mysteries or the much maligned Harlequin style romance. These are your one-night stands of the book world.
Then there are brief forays readers take out of curiosity or biblio-style peer pressure, such as best-seller lists or perceived literary acclaim. Examples of this could be a summer spent reading Swedish detective fiction, or reading the latest Young Adult series (Hunger Games Trilogy, perhaps) or whatever Oprah's new favorite thing is. These would be your "flings" or summer romances. They are short term pleasures which you may outgrow or simply move on from after finishing.
And then you have a book like "The Story of the Stone." This is a long term relationship. It sucks up your soul and being, and perhaps becomes a part of you. It is impossible to start another book after this without giving yourself time to process the experience, at least it was the case for me. When the final page of this journey is turned, you are physically and maybe even emotionally drained.
The Jia family, with whom you get to spend 2500 pages with, becomes an extended family of your own. At the core is Jia Bao Yu, a spoiled somewhat effeminate boy, who is more than just a boy. He is the human incarnation of a rock fashioned by a goddess in her efforts to repair the sky, but is never used. Left alone for eons, this stone begins to ponder the purpose of existence until it is given a chance to live as a human.
The story proper begins when Bao Yu is around 13. He is a member of a wealthy family who spends his days wiling away his time with his numerous girl cousins, maids and even a Buddhist nun. The narrative follows the daily life of his extensive family, their staff, and many hangers-on. An astounding number of characters make up the cast, from the 80 year old Lady Dowager who is the matriarch of the family, down to her great-granddaughter Qaio-Jie, but the amazing thing is the author's ability to make each of the many characters feel fully human and real, with hopes, desires, , talents and weaknesses of all their own.
As can be expected with such an immense novel, the narrative structure is complex. It is often episodic, bouncing around from one plot line to another. The main plot line concerns Bao Yu and the question of which of his two girl cousins he'll marry, the ethereal Dai Lin or the ideally modest and respectable Bao Chai. Surrounding this love triangle are the various soap operatic endeavors of the many family members, and surrounding the family dramatics is the decline of the family fortune and its rapidly growing debts. And above all of these worldly concerns is a spiritual and philosophical exploration from the Buddhist and Taoist point of view all of life is a fleeting illusion.
Ironically, despite the novel's length, it can be considered an unfinished or incomplete masterpiece. The original novel was never published in the author's lifetime. For thirty years the novel consisted of the first 80 existing chapters being passed around in manuscript form. The first printed edition, which came out in the 1790s was published with 120 chapters, with the editors claiming to have pieced together the remaining 40 chapters from fragments and the author's notes. The first 80 chapters make up the first three volumes of this translation, and the remaining 40 chapters make up the final two volumes. I'll leave the question of authorship of the final 40 chapters to the scholars. Whether it is different authors, or (as the translators suggest) perhaps the author died before revising the final 40 chapters, there is a decided difference between the two sections.
The first section is chock full of poetry and character driven narrative, while the second section is plot-driven, workmanlike and flat, as if there is a stated goal in wrapping up all of the loose plot lines in as tidy a manner as possible. The difference between the two sections is accentuated by the fact that one translator worked on the first 80 chapters, and another translator worked on the final 40 chapters. While there is a difference in translating styles, nothing is diminished from the impact of the book. It is a big commitment to read this book, but one well worth the experience. Bao yu and his family will linger for a long time in my imagination.
I'm going to put forth an argument that books can be compared to relationships. There are books that are guilty pleasures with no literary value beyond straightforward entertainment, such as potboiler mysteries or the much maligned Harlequin style romance. These are your one-night stands of the book world.
Then there are brief forays readers take out of curiosity or biblio-style peer pressure, such as best-seller lists or perceived literary acclaim. Examples of this could be a summer spent reading Swedish detective fiction, or reading the latest Young Adult series (Hunger Games Trilogy, perhaps) or whatever Oprah's new favorite thing is. These would be your "flings" or summer romances. They are short term pleasures which you may outgrow or simply move on from after finishing.
And then you have a book like "The Story of the Stone." This is a long term relationship. It sucks up your soul and being, and perhaps becomes a part of you. It is impossible to start another book after this without giving yourself time to process the experience, at least it was the case for me. When the final page of this journey is turned, you are physically and maybe even emotionally drained.
The Jia family, with whom you get to spend 2500 pages with, becomes an extended family of your own. At the core is Jia Bao Yu, a spoiled somewhat effeminate boy, who is more than just a boy. He is the human incarnation of a rock fashioned by a goddess in her efforts to repair the sky, but is never used. Left alone for eons, this stone begins to ponder the purpose of existence until it is given a chance to live as a human.
The story proper begins when Bao Yu is around 13. He is a member of a wealthy family who spends his days wiling away his time with his numerous girl cousins, maids and even a Buddhist nun. The narrative follows the daily life of his extensive family, their staff, and many hangers-on. An astounding number of characters make up the cast, from the 80 year old Lady Dowager who is the matriarch of the family, down to her great-granddaughter Qaio-Jie, but the amazing thing is the author's ability to make each of the many characters feel fully human and real, with hopes, desires, , talents and weaknesses of all their own.
As can be expected with such an immense novel, the narrative structure is complex. It is often episodic, bouncing around from one plot line to another. The main plot line concerns Bao Yu and the question of which of his two girl cousins he'll marry, the ethereal Dai Lin or the ideally modest and respectable Bao Chai. Surrounding this love triangle are the various soap operatic endeavors of the many family members, and surrounding the family dramatics is the decline of the family fortune and its rapidly growing debts. And above all of these worldly concerns is a spiritual and philosophical exploration from the Buddhist and Taoist point of view all of life is a fleeting illusion.
Ironically, despite the novel's length, it can be considered an unfinished or incomplete masterpiece. The original novel was never published in the author's lifetime. For thirty years the novel consisted of the first 80 existing chapters being passed around in manuscript form. The first printed edition, which came out in the 1790s was published with 120 chapters, with the editors claiming to have pieced together the remaining 40 chapters from fragments and the author's notes. The first 80 chapters make up the first three volumes of this translation, and the remaining 40 chapters make up the final two volumes. I'll leave the question of authorship of the final 40 chapters to the scholars. Whether it is different authors, or (as the translators suggest) perhaps the author died before revising the final 40 chapters, there is a decided difference between the two sections.
The first section is chock full of poetry and character driven narrative, while the second section is plot-driven, workmanlike and flat, as if there is a stated goal in wrapping up all of the loose plot lines in as tidy a manner as possible. The difference between the two sections is accentuated by the fact that one translator worked on the first 80 chapters, and another translator worked on the final 40 chapters. While there is a difference in translating styles, nothing is diminished from the impact of the book. It is a big commitment to read this book, but one well worth the experience. Bao yu and his family will linger for a long time in my imagination.
February 1, 2024
The amazing detailing of the myriad lives/relationships within a high status Chinese household continues... with this one being very much at the mundane end of the spectrum, with few big/dramatic "set piece" events, but rather dwelling on day to day domestic matters, with the formation of a poetry club thrown in. 3.5 stars but rounding up for historical importance/interest.
November 30, 2018
Reading these books is like examining in great detail and leisure, the unfolding of a long, flowing scroll of a complex, fine and delicate Chinese painting. There are wonderful threads of domestic minutiae:, the food, painstaking preparation by servants, retainers, maids, the exquisite gardens transformed throughout the seasons, sicknesses, illnesses, remedies, being cared for by relatives, cossetted by your servants who are closer to you than your relatives, performing public duties, celebrating festivals, birthdays, remembering your ancestors. And how fascinating to see the power and intelligence of women in the forefront of this story, for a change. Not many 15 year olds would be excited about joining a poetry club that requires you to write one to order in competition and then have everyone criticise your efforts afterwards! Was this common? Utterly engrossing.
October 12, 2012
Just as colorful and evocative as volume 1, but on the whole even more ethereal and with less plot. The mystic element has also disappeared, which is particularly disappointing: it gave the first volume a sense of going somewhere, perhaps ironically from a Buddhist point of view! At some point I will give volume 3 a try, however: things are bound to get more interesting as the Jia family's fortunes start to go downhill.
August 4, 2023
Why do all of these young people have such weak constitutions?
Yes, this volume does center around their poetry club, but there are tons of intriguing (and frankly, simply insane) things that happen as well.
Also Xi-Feng, my darling, gets a lot of undeserved flak in this one, but also sometimes she deserves it, so I'll give them that one. I've decided we would be friends and not enemies, but only because I know never to talk to her about money!
5/5, I wish I lived in the garden.
January 15, 2014
The amount of day to day details and events are incredible. In this volume; an imperial concubine visits the family, a poetry club is founded and death pays a visit.
March 23, 2017
It was clear from the first five chapters of volume one that this is the best book ever written, but 1000 pages in it hasn't let up. Read it.
August 23, 2025
Volume 2 of The Story of the Stone (or Dream of the Red Chamber), one of the Four Great Classical Novels of China, continues directly off from the first volume. Whereas the first volume introduces the aristocratic Jia clan and our massive cast, the second volume focuses on the deepening relationships between the members of the younger generation, particularly between Baoyu and Daiyu, whose budding romantic feelings for each other begin to complicate their once amicable friendship.
Whereas the Jia family reached its peak of glory in Volume 1, when Baoyu's sister Yuan-chun was chosen as an imperial concubine, there are now hints that the family coffers may not be able to support the clan’s lavish lifestyles for much longer. Like the first volume, this novel is filled with lush depictions of life in a noble household during the Qing Dynasty, filled with parties, domestic disputes, petty arguments, promotions, illnesses, births, deaths and marriages. In particular the number of parties thrown by the Jia Clan is truly insane (perhaps this is why they are going slowly broke). In between the endless parties, this volume is also enlivened by not one but TWO suicides, infidelity, a Chinese voodoo doll witchcraft and the beginnings of the possible love triangle between the three cousins Baoyu, Daiyu and Baochai. It's also in this volume that we get a closer look at how the servants of the Jia clan live, particularly Baoyu's maid Aroma, who is deeply respected by the family for her common sense and thoughtfulness.
The main plotline of this volume however is the formation of the Crab-Flower poetry club by the younger generation of the clan, whose members include Baochai, Daiyu, Baoyu, his three sisters Ying-chun, Tan-chun and Xi-chun, supervised by their kindly auntie Li Wan. For the closeted women of the Jia clan, this is a chance to hone their poetry skills, but for the author, this is an excuse to write an awful lot of poetry - not that I'm complaining. As per the first volume, I also enjoyed all of the poems in this volume, and was particularly impressed by how the author allowed each member of the club's personality to shine through their distinct poetic style.
Cao Xequin also uses the club to make a subtle statement here on women’s education and gender inequality - though the young women of the club are clearly better poets than Baoyu, who has been widely acclaimed as a talented young in his all male class, the girls can never hope to receive anywhere near the same recognition for their skills. Daiyu, as a poetry FANATIC, absolutely shines in these poetry scenes, proving to have a unique skill and talent for composing original or even experimental verse, but all of the poems are rather good (and short!).
Though all of the relationships between the characters are explored in greater depth, it is in this volume that we start to see the friendship between Daiyu and Baoyu transform into a deeper love. Unfortunately, Daiyu's personal insecurities and jealousy of his closeness with Baochai causes her to self sabotage her relationship with Baoyu times, leading to the two of them having a turbulent Will They or Won't They? relationship for most of the book. Though Daiyu's behaviour can be frustrating, I appreciated how she changed for the better after realising how immature she had been acting about Baoyu. By the end of the book, you could really get the sense that both Baoyu and Daiyu had matured considerably and were now leaving their childhoods behind.
Overall, I found Volume 2 stronger than Volume 1, in the sense that the setting and characters are now well established, allowing the novel to instead focus on the plot and character development. All the characters that were admirable in the first volume are equally so here, and the new characters introduced to the already massive cast were all interesting and well rounded. Compared to Volume 1, the prose and language was better for me this time around as well, probably due to my getting used to the descriptive style of the novel. Now that I've finished Volume 2, it's on to Volume 3, where I hope the romance between Baoyu and Daiyu (and love triangle with Baochai) will be resolved...
Whereas the Jia family reached its peak of glory in Volume 1, when Baoyu's sister Yuan-chun was chosen as an imperial concubine, there are now hints that the family coffers may not be able to support the clan’s lavish lifestyles for much longer. Like the first volume, this novel is filled with lush depictions of life in a noble household during the Qing Dynasty, filled with parties, domestic disputes, petty arguments, promotions, illnesses, births, deaths and marriages. In particular the number of parties thrown by the Jia Clan is truly insane (perhaps this is why they are going slowly broke). In between the endless parties, this volume is also enlivened by not one but TWO suicides, infidelity, a Chinese voodoo doll witchcraft and the beginnings of the possible love triangle between the three cousins Baoyu, Daiyu and Baochai. It's also in this volume that we get a closer look at how the servants of the Jia clan live, particularly Baoyu's maid Aroma, who is deeply respected by the family for her common sense and thoughtfulness.
The main plotline of this volume however is the formation of the Crab-Flower poetry club by the younger generation of the clan, whose members include Baochai, Daiyu, Baoyu, his three sisters Ying-chun, Tan-chun and Xi-chun, supervised by their kindly auntie Li Wan. For the closeted women of the Jia clan, this is a chance to hone their poetry skills, but for the author, this is an excuse to write an awful lot of poetry - not that I'm complaining. As per the first volume, I also enjoyed all of the poems in this volume, and was particularly impressed by how the author allowed each member of the club's personality to shine through their distinct poetic style.
Cao Xequin also uses the club to make a subtle statement here on women’s education and gender inequality - though the young women of the club are clearly better poets than Baoyu, who has been widely acclaimed as a talented young in his all male class, the girls can never hope to receive anywhere near the same recognition for their skills. Daiyu, as a poetry FANATIC, absolutely shines in these poetry scenes, proving to have a unique skill and talent for composing original or even experimental verse, but all of the poems are rather good (and short!).
Though all of the relationships between the characters are explored in greater depth, it is in this volume that we start to see the friendship between Daiyu and Baoyu transform into a deeper love. Unfortunately, Daiyu's personal insecurities and jealousy of his closeness with Baochai causes her to self sabotage her relationship with Baoyu times, leading to the two of them having a turbulent Will They or Won't They? relationship for most of the book. Though Daiyu's behaviour can be frustrating, I appreciated how she changed for the better after realising how immature she had been acting about Baoyu. By the end of the book, you could really get the sense that both Baoyu and Daiyu had matured considerably and were now leaving their childhoods behind.
Overall, I found Volume 2 stronger than Volume 1, in the sense that the setting and characters are now well established, allowing the novel to instead focus on the plot and character development. All the characters that were admirable in the first volume are equally so here, and the new characters introduced to the already massive cast were all interesting and well rounded. Compared to Volume 1, the prose and language was better for me this time around as well, probably due to my getting used to the descriptive style of the novel. Now that I've finished Volume 2, it's on to Volume 3, where I hope the romance between Baoyu and Daiyu (and love triangle with Baochai) will be resolved...
November 6, 2024
600 pages of pampered teens planning to write poetry and drink tea, and then writing poetry and drinking tea, punctuated by savage beatings and suicides which are instantaneously effaced by more poetry and tea drinking. It's like one of those nineties indie bands that were quiet quiet quiet quiet quiet LOUD quiet quiet quiet LOUD... but with a greater ratio of quiet to loud.
Xi-Feng continues to bring the spice to this otherwise fairly insipid hotpot, orchestrating pranks on good old Grannie Liu (who is a terrific sport) and getting violently shitfaced at her own birthday party. Behind the scenes she's busy keeping an increasingly precarious number of pecuniary plates spinning as the family's fortunes, imperceptibly to most, decline apace. The canary in the coalmine, as so often, is a memo from Accounting...
I'm still enjoying this even if my eyes glaze over at yet another description of a knick-knack or character's attire, or the arrival of yet another sub-clan of country cousins. I'm still in the dark about the identity of the vast majority of the characters, but it doesn't seem to matter. There's a hypnotic rhythm to this volume that makes it perfect for one-chapter-per-night reading.
Xi-Feng continues to bring the spice to this otherwise fairly insipid hotpot, orchestrating pranks on good old Grannie Liu (who is a terrific sport) and getting violently shitfaced at her own birthday party. Behind the scenes she's busy keeping an increasingly precarious number of pecuniary plates spinning as the family's fortunes, imperceptibly to most, decline apace. The canary in the coalmine, as so often, is a memo from Accounting...
I'm still enjoying this even if my eyes glaze over at yet another description of a knick-knack or character's attire, or the arrival of yet another sub-clan of country cousins. I'm still in the dark about the identity of the vast majority of the characters, but it doesn't seem to matter. There's a hypnotic rhythm to this volume that makes it perfect for one-chapter-per-night reading.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews