A guide to Dream of the Red Chamber for English speakers
I've been posting about a book called Dream of the Red Chamber for a while. I'm kinda obsessed with it but the tags here on tumblr are pretty much barren. I want to get more people to be interested in it, so here's something more informative with minimal screaming.
Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢) is a 18th century Chinese novel by Cao Xueqin. It isn't very well-known outside of the Sinophone aka the Chinese-speaking world, whereas where I come from it's considered a masterpiece and classic and is so well-known and holds so much cultural significance even the people who haven't necessarily read the book make references to it - like, basically everybody knows about the book. It certainly deserves to be known and loved by more people - that's why I'm making a post about it. This post is NOT going to be an attempt to cover everything, though, because there is just so, so much to the book; instead, I am creating a guide to make it easier for people to get started if they are interested.
What is Dream of the Red Chamber about? Why do people love it?
The best way to sum it up is calling it a family saga mixed with a bit of fantasy. It tells the story of the rise and fall of a big and powerful family, focusing on the story of the young girls, the maid servants, and the wives that all live together and run the household. The only male main character Jia Baoyu is a young heir of the family, who grew up among these women and girls. He loves and understands them, loves being surrounded by them, and deeply identifies with them. My dad, who is also a fan of the book, loves saying that Baoyu 'has the heart of a maiden'.
The book is funny and full of drama, and at the same time it's also poetic, tragic and profound, and the tragedy of the characters is written in such a kind way, as if the author wants you to love them and remember how wonderful and alive they are despite the fact that a gloomy fate will claim them all.
The book is also so queer in a way that no other Ming/Qing dynasty Chinese novels can compare. Obviously there are no modern queer labels because it was written in imperial China, but there are characters who are interested in both men and women, characters who are interested in no one, and affairs between boys and between girls; many main characters have the kind of relationships with their gender that make my Chinese transgender heart sing with empathy.
If you want to hear from English speakers who fell in love with the book and learn more about the context and literary/cultural value of the book, I recommend starting with 'Why is China’s greatest novel virtually unknown in the west?' by Michael Wood on The Guardian and 'Why you should read China’s vast, 18th century novel, Dream of the Red Chamber' by Josh Stenberg on The Conversation.
Dream of the Red Chamber is a long novel with many different versions and possibly hundreds of adaptations. How should I begin?
There are two translations that I know have received good reviews:
A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang. My partner is reading this version. It's a very faithful translation with footnotes to make up for the language and cultural barriers. (Note: the Yangs finished their translation in prison in China during the Cultural Revolution.)
The Story of the Stone translated by David Hawkes and John Minford. It's a translation that takes more artistic liberties than the Yangs version. For example it differs in the way it translates character names and its writing style. Hawkes wanted to recreate the experience of reading the novel in Chinese for English speaking readers, but it may also be harder for you to talk to those who read the book in Chinese about certain characters and details.
There is also a public domain translation by H. Bencraft Joly, which was first published in the 19th century, and you can find it on Project Gutenberg.
The 1987 36-episode TV adaptation Dream of the Red Chamber is well-loved and considered by many Chinese people to be the best adaptation of the book. Every later adaptation would be compared with the 1987 one and found lacking. I personally love this adaptation a lot, and I think out of all the adaptations I've seen (including TV series, films and Chinese opera) it has the best interpretations of the book and the characters. It also has the best songs, which were adapted from the poems in the book. You can stream the series with English subtitles on the Internet Archive.
If you want something shorter that covers the main romance plot line and includes a few iconic scenes from the book, I recommend the 1977 film adaptation The Dream of the Red Chamber casting legendary actress Brigitte Lin as Jia Baoyu (she also portrayed an iconic classic wuxia character as a trans woman in another film franchise, but I digress). You can find the film with English subtitles on Youtube.
This is not all, but it's a good start. If you ever decide to give it a go, it doesn't matter if you watch one of the adaptations first or read the book first. Don't stress, take your time, and enjoy the ride!
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