A Dream of Red Mansions (Library of Chinese Classics
Chinese-English: 6 Volumes) (Chinese Edition)
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Product: Book
ISBN-10: 7-119-02411-6
ISBN-13: 9787119024110
Publisher: Foreign Languages Press
Country: China
Year: January 1, 1999
Edition: Bilingual
Size: 20.07 x 25.15 x 16.51cm
Number of pages: 3575
Weight: 5,602gr
Binding: Library Binding
ISBN-10: 7-119-02411-6
ISBN-13: 9787119024110
Publisher: Foreign Languages Press
Country: China
Year: January 1, 1999
Edition: Bilingual
Size: 20.07 x 25.15 x 16.51cm
Number of pages: 3575
Weight: 5,602gr
Binding: Library Binding
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A human subject that will never fade away 
»A Dream of Red Mansions« is a story focusing on a high spiritual love story that happened in a noble family, but what it wants to speak is much far beyond a love story theme. The author's attempt is to depict a macro-viewed picture which leads us to the very deep insight of life itself in complexity and profoundity, and not another Chinese classic writer have been more successful at doing this than him. From innocent to sophisticated, from prosperous to desolate, from enthusiastic to disillusioned; a dream losing at some moment of life course could have been anyone of us' experience, even though we are not nobles. Because of the dream losing, we grew up. After growing up, a decision needs to be made for our lifestyle. Usually we make the decision not only at our own will, some other matters must be considered such as the expectation, pressure, and restriction from family (elders) and society, as well as the advantages they might offer us. So, most of us would go for the social mainstream. Only a few become malcontents by their nature and personalities. And it is the way where the character the book is centered at, Baoyu, put his fate toward on. However, though Baoyu is unusual, his malcontent spirit was not awakened until he went through some unfortunate events, including the family's decline and the death of his beloved, Daiyu. So he is not a hero but another ordinary person. Like him, every character in »A Dream of Red Mansions« is ordinary, even they are perhaps attractive, strong-willed, kindhearted, or smart enough, not an exception to Daiyu, the most poetic, sentimental, and highly spiritual girl in the book. That is one of the reasons the readers always love this book so much, since all the characters have been fully humanized by the author's genius writing, they are not the fictional figures only, but like the real people living around us everyday. The love story between Baoyu and Daiyu is some kind of an inevitable tragedy, because Daiyu is naturally a tragic person. Not only her orphan background, her sensitivity and self-defense, but her purity and dignity, made her hard to find a proper room to live on in the society she lives, probably not even today's. She died at a young age, and the death itself is a tragedy, but what if she did not die young? Sadly, no other ending it would have been but another tragedy for her to keep growing old and living in the earthly world. Her unique character made the source of suffering to her love relationship with Baoyu, but Baoyu's spiritual life could only have been fulfilled by this relationship, because of her incorruptible soul beauty. She is his only soul mate, even though her love never made him peaceful. So to speak, their love story is some kind of an inevitable tragedy. Her death caused a painful impact to him, and brought him to a very deep thought about life's meaning. He realized there is always something beyond our control no matter how hard we try, that's destiny; nothing we can do but be humble while we face something relating to the destiny. Consequently, some power derived from this losing and realizing process pushed him toward another lifestyle. At end, he chose becoming a monk, retiring from the mundaneness, including his responsibilities to the family and society. It might make the readers sad, but it is not a tragedy since it is a choice made after spiritual awakening. A decision making after we realize something in question will lead us on the proper way to the proper lifestyle suiting us well. Every one may have a different choice from another's after going through some disillusion, we don't necessarily follow Baoyu, but we are still touched by his story. This is another great achievement the author made for »A Dream of Red Mansions«; he presented a life picture every reader can apply part of it to his own life. It is a very universal human subject that will never fade away all the times.
»A Dream of Red Mansions« is a story focusing on a high spiritual love story that happened in a noble family, but what it wants to speak is much far beyond a love story theme. The author's attempt is to depict a macro-viewed picture which leads us to the very deep insight of life itself in complexity and profoundity, and not another Chinese classic writer have been more successful at doing this than him. From innocent to sophisticated, from prosperous to desolate, from enthusiastic to disillusioned; a dream losing at some moment of life course could have been anyone of us' experience, even though we are not nobles. Because of the dream losing, we grew up. After growing up, a decision needs to be made for our lifestyle. Usually we make the decision not only at our own will, some other matters must be considered such as the expectation, pressure, and restriction from family (elders) and society, as well as the advantages they might offer us. So, most of us would go for the social mainstream. Only a few become malcontents by their nature and personalities. And it is the way where the character the book is centered at, Baoyu, put his fate toward on. However, though Baoyu is unusual, his malcontent spirit was not awakened until he went through some unfortunate events, including the family's decline and the death of his beloved, Daiyu. So he is not a hero but another ordinary person. Like him, every character in »A Dream of Red Mansions« is ordinary, even they are perhaps attractive, strong-willed, kindhearted, or smart enough, not an exception to Daiyu, the most poetic, sentimental, and highly spiritual girl in the book. That is one of the reasons the readers always love this book so much, since all the characters have been fully humanized by the author's genius writing, they are not the fictional figures only, but like the real people living around us everyday. The love story between Baoyu and Daiyu is some kind of an inevitable tragedy, because Daiyu is naturally a tragic person. Not only her orphan background, her sensitivity and self-defense, but her purity and dignity, made her hard to find a proper room to live on in the society she lives, probably not even today's. She died at a young age, and the death itself is a tragedy, but what if she did not die young? Sadly, no other ending it would have been but another tragedy for her to keep growing old and living in the earthly world. Her unique character made the source of suffering to her love relationship with Baoyu, but Baoyu's spiritual life could only have been fulfilled by this relationship, because of her incorruptible soul beauty. She is his only soul mate, even though her love never made him peaceful. So to speak, their love story is some kind of an inevitable tragedy. Her death caused a painful impact to him, and brought him to a very deep thought about life's meaning. He realized there is always something beyond our control no matter how hard we try, that's destiny; nothing we can do but be humble while we face something relating to the destiny. Consequently, some power derived from this losing and realizing process pushed him toward another lifestyle. At end, he chose becoming a monk, retiring from the mundaneness, including his responsibilities to the family and society. It might make the readers sad, but it is not a tragedy since it is a choice made after spiritual awakening. A decision making after we realize something in question will lead us on the proper way to the proper lifestyle suiting us well. Every one may have a different choice from another's after going through some disillusion, we don't necessarily follow Baoyu, but we are still touched by his story. This is another great achievement the author made for »A Dream of Red Mansions«; he presented a life picture every reader can apply part of it to his own life. It is a very universal human subject that will never fade away all the times.
The interminable Pinyin »debate« and related translation issues 
Romanization schemes for Chinese are notoriously imperfect, if for no other reasons than that 4 tones –- 5 if you count a null tone sometimes used –- are not immediately obvious to those who do not have a speaking knowledge of any of the Chinese dialects. Perhaps I am prejudiced, having learned Chinese primarily using texts that happened to (mostly) rely on the Pinyin system. However, it seems to me that Pinyin has the distinct merit of adhering most closely to the principles of most of the primary European languages (especially Spanish, Italian and other Romance languages) where vowel sounds are far more regular and predictable than they are in English, particularly. I can't comment (yet) on this particular translation, though I am working through several other bilingual editions that are part of the same Foreign Language Press publication project, and can give a few early impressions based on what I've read so far. These translations are commendable in that they seek to provide a full translation of the works in question, thereby attempting to avoid some of the cultural »hyperbole« that has been attached to some of these works by translators approaching the texts from outside the context of Chinese culture. As a native-born speaker of English, I did not begin studying Chinese until my late teens and will never have the complete understanding of the culture to argue persuasively over the finer points of these translations. However, on the intuitive side, I do not a certain defensiveness at times and an effort to provide translations that are either culturally acceptable to present-day political realities in the Chinese mainland regions, or that may simply be dodging some of the tougher editorial calls to be made. It is very clear, especially in some of the introductory matter that accompanies many texts in this series, that the final English version was approved by someone not a native speaker of idiomatic English. In most cases, the evidence appears in simple errors of literal translation of phrases that make perfect idiomatic sense in Chinese, but, rendered with too much literal faithfulness, are puzzling to say the least when they are rendered in English. I would agree with others who've commented that these texts are probably best for someone whose knowledge of Chinese is limited and is looking for an English »crib sheet« for entering into the Chinese originals (or in some cases, modern Chinese renditions of Classical Chinese texts, as in FLP's 2 volume translation of the works of Zhuangzi). Note, however, that the FLP translation of Zhuangzi is (unless I'm mistaken) the most complete translation presently available in English, and this is true of many other texts in the FLP's publishing project). As a student of Chinese language, I really don't care much what romanization method is used. They are all far from ideal. What I care about is that someone is making these texts available in English, even if the translations are not always the most poetic –- where poetry is called for.
Romanization schemes for Chinese are notoriously imperfect, if for no other reasons than that 4 tones –- 5 if you count a null tone sometimes used –- are not immediately obvious to those who do not have a speaking knowledge of any of the Chinese dialects. Perhaps I am prejudiced, having learned Chinese primarily using texts that happened to (mostly) rely on the Pinyin system. However, it seems to me that Pinyin has the distinct merit of adhering most closely to the principles of most of the primary European languages (especially Spanish, Italian and other Romance languages) where vowel sounds are far more regular and predictable than they are in English, particularly. I can't comment (yet) on this particular translation, though I am working through several other bilingual editions that are part of the same Foreign Language Press publication project, and can give a few early impressions based on what I've read so far. These translations are commendable in that they seek to provide a full translation of the works in question, thereby attempting to avoid some of the cultural »hyperbole« that has been attached to some of these works by translators approaching the texts from outside the context of Chinese culture. As a native-born speaker of English, I did not begin studying Chinese until my late teens and will never have the complete understanding of the culture to argue persuasively over the finer points of these translations. However, on the intuitive side, I do not a certain defensiveness at times and an effort to provide translations that are either culturally acceptable to present-day political realities in the Chinese mainland regions, or that may simply be dodging some of the tougher editorial calls to be made. It is very clear, especially in some of the introductory matter that accompanies many texts in this series, that the final English version was approved by someone not a native speaker of idiomatic English. In most cases, the evidence appears in simple errors of literal translation of phrases that make perfect idiomatic sense in Chinese, but, rendered with too much literal faithfulness, are puzzling to say the least when they are rendered in English. I would agree with others who've commented that these texts are probably best for someone whose knowledge of Chinese is limited and is looking for an English »crib sheet« for entering into the Chinese originals (or in some cases, modern Chinese renditions of Classical Chinese texts, as in FLP's 2 volume translation of the works of Zhuangzi). Note, however, that the FLP translation of Zhuangzi is (unless I'm mistaken) the most complete translation presently available in English, and this is true of many other texts in the FLP's publishing project). As a student of Chinese language, I really don't care much what romanization method is used. They are all far from ideal. What I care about is that someone is making these texts available in English, even if the translations are not always the most poetic –- where poetry is called for.
The greatest book of Chinese classical literature
If you want to know the true Chinese culture and society, you must read it!! The greatest book I have ever read. Although Cao Xueqin is not so famous as Shakespear or Charls Dickens in the western world, but I would say his masterpiece-A dream of red mansions-is among the greatest works of the world. Try to read the original Chinese edition, but if you can't, so this book is great for you to improve your Chinese to a very high,very decent level-although this maybe takes you a long long time and much much effort, but believe in yourselves!
If you want to know the true Chinese culture and society, you must read it!! The greatest book I have ever read. Although Cao Xueqin is not so famous as Shakespear or Charls Dickens in the western world, but I would say his masterpiece-A dream of red mansions-is among the greatest works of the world. Try to read the original Chinese edition, but if you can't, so this book is great for you to improve your Chinese to a very high,very decent level-although this maybe takes you a long long time and much much effort, but believe in yourselves!
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last update: 3/19/2010
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