Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion
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The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Vol. 1
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Golden Days, The - Buddy Read
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Katy, Old School Classics
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Jan 10, 2021 09:26PM
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I will be starting this within the next 3 or 4 days, and to finish it might take me into February...
The many names of this work! I read it calling it The Dream of the Red Chamber and would recognize The Story of the Stone, but Golden Days is a new one for me. It's just the first part, right?
Nente wrote: "The many names of this work! I read it calling it The Dream of the Red Chamber and would recognize The Story of the Stone, but Golden Days is a new one for me. It's just the first part, right?"Yep. Each of the five volumes of this most popularly recognized Anglo translation has its own name. The changing of names reminds me of the Journey to the West/Monkey title debacle, but I also remember that, in the case of this work, there were actual reasons for both TSotS as well as TDotRC. I believe it came down to the posthumous editors figuring out the author's intentions, but I forget the specifics.
yeah as I understand it there are 120 chapters (although some debate over whether the latter 40 were written by a different person than the first 80!) and the Hawkes translation is split into 5 volumes thusly:The Golden Days; chapters 1-26
The Crab-Flower Club; ch27-53
The Warning Voice; ch54-80
The Debt of Tears ; ch81-98
The Dreamer Wakes; ch99-120
the whole thing is about 2,500 pages (which might put some people off!) so I think it's a good idea to just start with vol1 and see whether you like it...
(plus you can bag 5 books for your goodreads total if you shelve them separately!)
...which I finished at end of January, review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
and while rather domestic/small-scale I continue to enjoy this series and intend to go on to Vol.3 The Warning Voice maybe next year...
Books mentioned in this topic
The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Vol. 3: The Warning Voice (other topics)The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Vol. 2: The Crab-Flower Club (other topics)
The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Vol. 1: The Golden Days (other topics)


