The Odyssey and The Tale of Genji: on human nature, customs, and literary tradition

In an earlier blog post, I wrote “I actually had more trouble trying to understand the characters in The Tale of Genji (about 1,000 years old) than the ones in the Odyssey (about 2,700 years old).” My friend Susan asked why that was, so perhaps I’ll write a bit about the subject.

The Odyssey is—if we have to boil it down to one word—about homecoming. The only thing strange about is the concept of xenia—hospitality and guest-friendship—because why does Odysseus’s household have to keep feeding the suitors and allowing them to eat up the estate in his absence? Athena’s involvement is perhaps also a bit strange, but not that strange if you think of her as a character—the gods are like human beings, just with power—and if you’re used to the depiction of the gods’ interferences in Greek tragedy. Everything else is familiar: Odysseus’s urge to go home and his companions’ unthinking recklessness and Poseidon’s anger and Telemakhos’s hatred of the suitors and Odysseus’s caution upon his return and Penelope’s suffering and so on are all familiar.

The Tale of Genji is closer to us in time, but more alien. It requires us to adjust to that world, but many things remain baffling and incomprehensible, if not downright reprehensible: on the one hand, men and women at the Heian court who aren’t married to each other can’t even have a conversation except through servants, and upon further acquaintance, behind screens; but on the other hand, someone like Genji has sex with everyone and nothing seems out of bounds, as he has sex with (or even forces himself on) his first cousin and his best friend’s lover and his own stepmother and other relatives, and he even abducts an eight-year-old and raises her to be his perfect wife.  

Not only so, the characters don’t have names! As the narrator is a lady-in-waiting, like Murasaki Shikibu, she has to refer to them by titles or nicknames or some other ways—we have to keep track of hundreds of characters without names (unless you take the easy way and read another translation instead of Royall Tyler’s). 

That doesn’t mean that The Tale of Genji can’t be appreciated, or even loved, by readers used to Western culture and tradition. It is among my Top 10 novels (or at least was, when I last made the list over a year ago). Once you (manage to) get past the weird stuff in The Tale of Genji, many experiences and feelings are—to use a word lots of readers seem to like—relatable: love and jealousy and heartbreak and suffocation and disappointment and envy and loneliness and fear and grief, etc. Murasaki is especially good at writing about death, grief, women’s suffering, and the impermanence of everything. Her novel simply requires more efforts from the reader. 

But it’s not just that 11th century novel, I also had a hard time when I was exploring 20th century Japanese novels. It’s a different tradition, with different styles and expectations. The only Japanese writer I wholeheartedly embrace is Akutagawa (at least the 18 short stories I’ve read). With all others, there are barriers and the novels often seem blurry to me, as someone interested in characters, details, and metaphors: the characters often seem blurry, without the vividness and complexity of characters in Western novels (except for the main characters in Kokoro and Botchan); descriptions tend to be impressionistic; metaphors are generally rare (Mishima and Abe Kobo excepted); but above all, I’m baffled by the (lack of) sense of pacing and tension, either because it has an odd structure and ends so abruptly (such as Kokoro), or because of its evenness of tone and lack of emphasis (like some novels of Kawabata and Tanizaki). I love Japanese cinema, which I know the best after American and British cinema, but Japanese literature remains for me a challenge. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out I have more difficulty with Japanese plays than with the ancient Greek plays.

It is perhaps for the same reasons—different tradition, different styles and expectations—that I took quite a while to get into Hong lou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber) from 18th century China, even though I’m familiar with Chinese culture, whereas I took to the 17th century Don Quixote immediately. Descriptions in Don Quixote may be crude—to use Nabokov’s word—but descriptions in Hong lou meng are all catalogues, awkwardly listing qualities or different aspects of someone or something like items. More importantly, Cao Xueqin often doesn’t go very far in depicting characters’ thoughts: sometimes he writes down some thoughts and one expects him to go further, but he doesn’t. Reading Hong lou meng, I had to make an effort and readjust my expectations. 

Where am I going with all this? My point is that it’s important to think of works of literature as part of a tradition. This is why I didn’t randomly pick up a single play from ancient Greece and stop, I read Aeschylus and Sophocles and Euripides and Aristophanes. This is why, with my interest in Western literature, I’m now going back to its foundation. This is why I advocate for teaching Shakespeare and the Western canon in school. This is why, when I explore literature outside the West (especially before the 20th century), I keep in mind that it’s a different tradition and try to explore multiple works and multiple writers. 

All that said, isn’t it amazing that the Odyssey is so relatable—to use again a word I don’t particularly like—after something like 2,700 years? 

PS: I recently read Cyclops by Euripides but didn’t blog about it, as I had nothing to say. 

Can we comment on a translation without knowing the original?

1/ Amidst all the shock and horror on twitter over people never having heard of The Odyssey, arose a new quarrel about Emily Wilson’s translation (is it woke? is it badly written? or are detractors simply ignorant?). A few white knights have come to the rescue, saying that those who don’t read ancient Greek don’t get to have an opinion and call it a bad translation. 

Isn’t that just a way to shut down conversation?  

Of course, the opinions of people who can read the original are more valid—they can talk about accuracy and fidelity (or lack of)—but others can still comment on other aspects of the translation: how it reads in the target language, whether it’s good prose/ poetry, if it ends up being translationese, and so on and so forth. After all, do we not make a judgement when we compare passages in order to pick a translation to read? 

Also, we may not be able to criticise Emily Wilson if we only have her and Fagles (who I have heard has a habit of embroidering the text), but why can’t we if we have multiple passages in multiple translations—by Lattimore, by Fitzgerald, by Fagles, by Rouse, by Butler, by her? 

2/ So I’m not going to feel guilty about taking a dislike to, and telling others not to read, Washburn’s translation of The Tale of Genji. I don’t speak Japanese, true, but having compared Waley, Seidensticker, Tyler, and him, I can see what Washburn’s doing and I don’t like it. 

3/ Nor am I going to feel bad about my dislike of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. But it’s not an entirely ignorant view—Gary Saul Morson has pointed out what’s wrong with their literalist approach. 

4/ Knowledge is sometimes a hindrance, though. I would never be happy with any translation of Truyện Kiều. Would any Vietnamese? 

5/ I guess Chinese speakers feel the same about translations—especially of Chinese poetry—into Western languages. 

I don’t speak Chinese, but I read Hong lou meng in a Vietnamese translation and occasionally glanced at the English text by David Hawke and could see some of the changes he made—Bảo Ngọc’s (Baoyu) building “Di hồng viện”, “hồng” (“hong”) meaning red, became “Green Delights” because of different connotations of the colours in the two cultures; his nickname “Di hồng công tử” in the poetry club became Green Boy.  

6/ I know a Vietnamese intellectual whose translations I would never criticise to his face. I know what he would say. He would ask about inaccuracies and I would have no responses. He would talk about the two schools of translation (that John Rutherford calls the cavaliers vs the puritans) and I would have no arguments. But no amount of rhetoric will persuade my ears that his translations are well-done, because his sentences in Vietnamese would follow the sentence structure and order of English or Spanish or whatever the source language—it ain’t natural Vietnamese. 

7/ I do think we should not criticise a poet if we cannot read them in the original. My friend Himadri (Argumentative Old Git) is irritated by Nabokov casually dismissing Tagore as a mediocrity, and I can see why. Criticise novelists and playwrights and other prose writers if you like; but I don’t think we can dismiss poets who wrote in a language we do not read. More is lost in translation. 

(I am of course talking about poets who are highly esteemed and influential). 

Anyway, Happy New Year!

In Search of Lost Time Vol.1: love, obsession, jealousy

I have complaints.

Before we get to that, it must be said that I do think Proust is a great writer, which you can see in my previous 5 blog posts about Swann’s Way. I absolutely love “Part 1: Combray”, with which many readers seem to struggle, and I do think that “Part 2: Swann in Love” is a great study of obsession and jealousy.

My problem with Proust is personal, and seems to be a clash of sensibilities. 

First of all, Proust is exhausting. He goes on and on and on about Swann’s obsession with Odette, and his jealousy. Swann’s Way is not a big volume—on my kobo, it is 445 pages, and Part 2 is about 184 pages or so—and yet it feels very long. Why do I find Proust, though not Tolstoy, so long and exhausting when both writers are interested in details and subtleties? I asked myself.* A major difference between Tolstoy and Proust is that Tolstoy moves rather quickly between characters and between groups of characters, and he inhabits everyone’s mind, whereas Proust’s underlying tempo is slow, and mostly stays in one character’s mind for a long time, either the narrator (unnamed but generally called Marcel for convenience), or Swann. Everyone says Swann is like Marcel, or at least his obsession with Odette will be later paralleled by Marcel’s obsession with Gilberte and Albertine (Proust writes “like certain novelists, he had distributed his own personality between two characters”).  

Another difference is that many things happen in Tolstoy and he writes about the minute changes in consciousness, whereas Proust writes about different actions and different incidents that are essentially manifestations of the same thing—Swann’s obsession with Odette and his jealousy.

Proust fans don’t have to tell me that the two novelists have different aims and must be judged accordingly, I know. I understand that Swann projects his fantasies onto Odette, as the narrator does with Gilberte in Part 3. I understand that Proust deliberately stays in Swann’s mind so that we don’t quite see Odette, only the Odette in Swann’s head. I understand that Proust is making a point about the impossibility of truly knowing another person. The comparison with Tolstoy is to explain what about Proust I personally find exhausting.

Part 2 of Swann’s Way is a great study in obsession, but being stuck in Swann’s neurotic, jealous mind feels oppressive after a while. Proust and Cao Xueqin have opposite “problems”: if Cao Xueqin largely conveys characters through action and dialogue, and sometimes makes me want to know more about characters’ thoughts but doesn’t go any further, Proust holds me hostage in a character’s head and doesn’t let go. Proust explores the subject till exhaustion, I end up feeling exhausted. 

My second complaint, again personal, is that I don’t know how old the characters are and how much time passes between events. We know how much time passes in Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary, in The Tale of Genji and Hong lou meng…; in In Search of Lost Time, memories are jumbled together and time is generally unclear (even though once in a while there are references to historical events). In novels, sometimes it doesn’t matter, but the omission of time references in Swann’s Way can be a barrier: my perception of the behaviour of the narrator and Gilberte in Part 3 would change depending on how old they are (their language about playing games sounds young, but they’re probably older); I want to know the time gap between him first falling in love with Gilberte in Combray and meeting her again in Paris; the time gap also changes the significance when the narrator makes a distinction between Combray Swann and Swann as father of Gilberte; even something as minor as Marcel lying to Françoise and writing a note to his mother to ask for a goodnight kiss would be viewed differently depending on his age, and so on. 

Perhaps this is premature and reading all 7 volumes may help me create some sort of timeline, but my complaint remains true for Swann’s Way. 

My third complaint is to do with Psychological Proust. In my previous blog post, I wrote that I didn’t understand Swann’s love for Odette. I have decided to go along with Proust and see that love as irrational, though there’s something very strange about the way Swann associates Odette’s face with a painting by Botticelli (for some sort of satisfaction, because he’s not attracted to her), and associates their love with Vinteuil’s music. But let’s say I accept that.

Proust writes: 

“For what we suppose to be our love or our jealousy is never a single, continuous and indivisible passion. It is composed of an infinity of successive loves, of different jealousies, each of which is ephemeral, although by their uninterrupted multiplicity they give us the impression of continuity, the illusion of unity. The life of Swann’s love, the fidelity of his jealousy, were formed of the death, the infidelity, of innumerable desires, innumerable doubts, all of which had Odette for their object. If he had remained for any length of time without seeing her, those that died would not have been replaced by others. But the presence of Odette continued to sow in Swann’s heart alternate seeds of love and suspicion.” (Vol.1, P.2) 

Perhaps I misunderstand what Proust means, but I don’t think it’s true. It’s true for Swann, and I suppose, for some people, but Proust writes it as a universal thing and I don’t think it is. Swann’s love for Odette seems to die and gets replaced with jealousy (or insecurity) when they’re apart, and he loves her again when they’re together (and she doesn’t play games with him), then his love dies again, and so on and so forth, but that isn’t normal. This is the relationship of a neurotic and insecure man with a manipulative woman; loving couples aren’t like that. 

“… The important thing was that we should see each other, Gilberte and I, and should have an opportunity of making a mutual avowal of our love which, until then, would not officially (so to speak) have begun. Doubtless the various reasons which made me so impatient to see her would have appeared less urgent to a grown man. As life goes on, we acquire such adroitness in the cultivation of our pleasures, that we content ourselves with the pleasure we derive from thinking of a woman, as I thought of Gilberte, without troubling ourselves to ascertain whether the image corresponds to the reality, and also with the pleasure of loving her without needing to be sure that she loves us too…” (Vol.1, P.3) 

Again, I suppose it’s true for the narrator, and many people, perhaps also Proust, but Proust presents it as a general thing and I don’t think it’s true for everyone. It’s not true for me, for example—I know that I cannot truly know my boyfriend and can only know what I know (I’ve seen Solaris), but I do care that my love for him is grounded in (part of) reality rather than some sort of fantasy entirely in my head; and it’s not enough to love unrequitedly. I asked a few grown men, and they didn’t think it’s a universal thing either.  

Generally speaking, Proust does have great psychological insight, especially when he pierces through people’s pretensions and hypocrisies, and when he writes about cruelty (the scene of Mlle Vinteuil and her lesbian lover in Part 1 is shocking and unforgettable). His depiction of a sick mind (I mean Swann’s) is brilliant. But Proust seems to have no idea what a normal, healthy love is like, so when the narrator speaks of his own or Swann’s feelings as something universal, problems arise.

Having said all that, I still think Proust is a great writer, and the last 20 pages of Swann’s Way, when the narrator returns to the Bois much older, are wonderful. 

“They had long since fled, and still I stood vainly questioning the deserted paths. The sun had gone. Nature was resuming its reign over the Bois, from which had vanished all trace of the idea that it was the Elysian Garden of Woman; above the gimcrack windmill the real sky was grey; the wind wrinkled the surface of the Grand Lac in little wavelets, like a real lake; large birds flew swiftly over the Bois, as over a real wood, and with shrill cries perched, one after another, on the great oaks which, beneath their Druidical crown, and with Dodonian majesty, seemed to proclaim the inhuman emptiness of this deconsecrated forest, and helped me to understand how paradoxical it is to seek in reality for the pictures that are stored in one’s memory, which must inevitably lose the charm that comes to them from memory itself and from their not being apprehended by the senses. The reality that I had known no longer existed. It sufficed that Mme Swann did not appear, in the same attire and at the same moment, for the whole avenue to be altered. The places we have known do not belong only to the world of space on which we map them for our own convenience. They were only a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; the memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years.” (Vol.1, P.3) 

(The excerpts are from the edition translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff & Terence Kilmartin, and revised by D.J. Enright).

That is magnificent writing. 

Will I read Volume 2? Probably, but not yet. 

*: I once came across a tweet from a (self-proclaimed) Proust fan saying that Proust did everything Tolstoy could do, and better. This, now I know, is pure bollocks. This person clearly knows neither Tolstoy nor Proust.   

Rereading Anna Karenina: Parts 1 and 2

1/ I have been rereading Anna Karenina but not written a word, because of writer’s block. 

8 years since I first read the novel, 8 years since I was introduced to Tolstoy, I still think he’s the greatest of novelists. As I reread Anna Karenina, I can’t help thinking that apart from Tolstoy, Cao Xueqin is the only novelist who creates that kind of seamless and natural flow, as the story moves from one scene to the next, from one group of characters to another—there seems to be no plot and each character seems to have a life of their own, independent of the author. When reading other authors, you may notice a structure, a pattern, a plot, and you may see that character and action serve the plot—not so with Tolstoy and Cao Xueqin—even the most minor characters seem to have a life of their own. However, Cao Xueqin is mostly comparable to Tolstoy in his scope, wide range of characters, and compassionate view of humanity; Hong lou meng doesn’t have the same psychological depth and complexity. 

With Tolstoy, nothing escapes his eyes, he notices the slightest movements and subtlest changes in expression. He’s better than anyone at depicting a character’s conflicted feelings and self-contradictions. Just follow Anna’s conflicted thoughts as she’s on the train returning to St Petersburg after she has fallen for Vronsky in Moscow, and the changed way she now sees her husband; or watch the scene where Kitty and Dolly are arguing and Kitty, in a fit of temper, says something that would wound her sister the most and she immediately regrets it; or read the scene of Karenin battling with himself after he notices for the first time that there’s something indecorous about Anna and Vronsky, and knows that he needs to talk to his wife but doesn’t know what to say. 

It is wonderful.

As I reread the novel, I’ve also realised that complaints about his didacticism and his opinionated narrator are very much exaggerated. Tolstoy is no George Eliot. He is much subtler. One example is the conversation between Oblonsky and Levin somewhere at the beginning of the novel: Tolstoy depicts 2 very different people, 2 opposite points of view, and presents them as they are. Throughout Anna Karenina, Tolstoy shows different perspectives and depicts his characters with compassion and sympathy—I don’t deny that once in a while, the author takes an unnecessary dig at something, but it is rare—Tolstoy depicts conflicting perspectives, almost like voices and counter-voices in Shakespeare, and shows so many different sides and aspects to each character that they are, in a sense, beyond his control and judgment. A useful comparison is with George Eliot: you can see who she approves or disapproves of, and can roughly divide her characters into 2 groups (selfless or selfish); it is much harder to do so with Tolstoy’s characters. 

2/ This is an interesting passage: 

“Levin felt that in his soul, in the very depths of his soul, his brother Nikolay was no more in the wrong than those people who despised him, despite all the depravity of his life. It was not his fault that he had been born with his unruly character and a mind that was constrained by something.” (P.1, ch.24)

The translation is by Rosamund Bartlett (last time was the translation by Aylmer and Louise Maude). 

Here’s another great passage, about Karenin:

“Alexey Alexandrovich was standing face to face with life, with the possibility of his wife loving someone other than himself, and this seemed to him very nonsensical and incomprehensible because it was life itself. Alexey Alexandrovich had spent his entire life living and working in official spheres which had to do with the reflections of life. And every time he had bumped into life itself he had shied away from it. He was now experiencing a feeling similar to that which would be felt by someone who, calmly crossing a bridge over a precipice, suddenly discovers that this bridge has been taken down, revealing an abyss. This abyss was life itself, while the bridge was the artificial life Alexey Alexandrovich had been leading. For the first time conjectures occurred to him about the possibility of his wife falling in love with somebody, and he was horrified by the idea.” (P.2, ch.8) 

And:

“Here, looking at her bureau, with the malachite blotter and a note she had begun sitting on top of it, his thoughts suddenly changed. He began to think about her, and about what she was thinking and feeling. For the first time he conjured up a vivid picture of her personal life, her thoughts and her desires, but the idea that she could and should have her own private life was so alarming to him that he hastened to drive it away. This was the abyss he was afraid of peering into. Putting himself into the thoughts and feelings of another person was a mental activity alien to Alexey Alexandrovich.” (ibid.) 

This is brilliant, utterly brilliant. Reading Tolstoy makes me, upon putting down the book, notice things and see people differently. 

3/ Here is something I didn’t notice or didn’t remember last time—the scene where Karenin confronts Anna for the first time: 

“She looked at him so ingenuously and merrily that anyone who did not know her as her husband knew her would have been unable to notice anything unnatural, either in the sound or the meaning of her words. But it meant a great deal to him, knowing her as he did—knowing that she would always notice whenever he went to bed five minutes later than usual and ask the reason why, knowing that she would immediately share with him all her joys, amusements, and sorrows—to see now that she did not want to notice his state of mind, or say a single word about herself. He saw that the recesses of her soul, which had been open to him before, were now closed to him.” (P.2, ch.9) 

Does this mean that they have an “acceptable”, albeit passionless, marriage? Or is it merely Karenin’s illusion? 

4/ One of the things I’ve always loved in Tolstoy’s works is the joy of life: 

“…right on Thomas Sunday, in the evening, the fog lifted, the clouds dispersed into fleecy wisps, the sky cleared, and real spring arrived. The following morning a bright sun rose and quickly devoured the thin layer of ice coating the waters, and everywhere the warm air shimmered as it was suffused with the steam rising from the worn earth.” (P.2, ch.12) 

And:

“If Levin was happy in the cattle-pens and in the farmyard, he became happier still in the open country. Swaying rhythmically along with the ambling pace of his trusty little horse, drinking in the warm, fresh scent of the snow and air as he rode through the wood, over soft, fast-disappearing snow that was covered with tracks, he rejoiced in every one of his trees, with their swelling buds and the moss reviving on their bark.” (P.2, ch.13) 

I love the way Tolstoy always conveys an exuberance, a sheer joy for life. I love that he loves life, in spite of everything. 

5/ A few times in the novel, when Anna’s on the train back to St Petersburg, or when Levin’s sitting at home reading a book about heat and getting distracted by other thoughts, Tolstoy uses a technique like stream of consciousness, as the characters’ thoughts get muddled and jump from one thing to another. War and Peace and Anna Karenina make most novels before them and around the same time as them feel old-fashioned and constrained by convention; so far I haven’t read anything modern that have that effect on Tolstoy’s novels, but perhaps we’ll see, I still have to read Joyce and Proust. 

It’s not only about techniques, however—Tolstoy’s greatness mainly lies in his understanding of human nature and human behaviour. At this, I think Shakespeare and Tolstoy are far ahead of everyone else. 

Take the sequence in Part 2 when Oblonsky comes to visit Levin in the country. Over the past months, Levin has been trying to bury his memories of Kitty after the rejection. Oblonsky, jovial and tactful, doesn’t mention her name; they eat and talk and go hunting together; Levin also doesn’t ask about her. At some point, they talk about country life and Oblonsky says Levin is a lucky man.

“‘Maybe it’s because I enjoy what I have, and don’t grieve over what I don’t have,’ said Levin, remembering Kitty.

Stepan Arkadyich understood and cast a glance at him, but said nothing.

Levin was grateful to Oblonsky for noticing with his usual tact that he was reluctant to talk about the Shcherbatskys, and for not saying anything about them; but Levin did now want to find out about the matter tormenting him, except he did not have the courage to raise the subject.” (P.2, ch.14)

Levin asks his friend how things are going, they talk about Oblonsky, then return to hunting and talking about birds. They have a great time together, catching a few woodcocks, it gradually gets dark and they start heading home.  

“They were now standing about fifteen paces from one another. ‘Stiva!’ said Levin suddenly out of the blue. ‘How come you won’t tell me whether your sister-in-law has got married yet, or when she will be?’

Levin felt so secure and calm that he thought no answer could possibly upset him. But he certainly did not expect what Stepan Arkadyich said in reply.” (P.2, ch.15) 

Levin is shocked to learn that Kitty is very ill and sent abroad, and that everyone fears for her life. Another writer would probably continue with the conversation and let Oblonsky tell more about Kitty’s suffering, but Tolstoy doesn’t: the 2 men suddenly hear a shrill whistle and both seize their guns and shoot at the bird. Later on the way home, they talk more about Kitty:

“…although he would have been ashamed to admit it, he was pleased by what he found out. He was pleased that there was still hope, and even more pleased that the person who had made him suffer so much was suffering herself. But when Stepan Arkadyich began to discuss the causes of Kitty’s illness, and mentioned Vronsky’s name, Levin cut him short…” (P.2, ch.16) 

Tolstoy’s characters feel so real, so relatable because they have conflicted feelings and sometimes have ugly feelings, as we all do. They also feel so real because they do things they themselves don’t understand. Here Levin cuts Oblonsky short, saying that he has no interest, and starts asking about the wood that Oblonsky has come to the country to sell. The story now moves onto Oblonsky’s bad deal with Ryabinin about the wood, Levin’s argument and intervention, etc. Levin is in bad mood for a while because of the stupid sale, but underneath the surface, the news of Kitty is gradually having an effect on him. It all seems mundane and ordinary but the chapters are so wonderful because Tolstoy is writing about 2 things happening at the same time: the action on the surface, and the struggle in Levin’s mind. 

“‘It’s wonderful how they make this soap,’ he said, examining and unwrapping a fragrant bar of soap which Agafya Mikhailovna had put out for his guest, but which Oblonsky had not used. ‘Just look, it’s a real work of art.’

‘Yes, everything’s brought to such a state of perfection nowadays,’ said Stepan Arkadyich, with a moist-eyed and blissful yawn. ‘Theatres, for instance, and those entertainment … ah—ah—ah!’ he yawned. ‘Electric light everywhere* … ah—ah—ah!’

‘Yes, electric light,’ said Levin. ‘Yes. Well, where’s Vronsky these days?’ he asked suddenly, putting down the soap.” (P.2, ch.17) 

It’s just brilliant. And that’s where Tolstoy’s power lies: he lets the characters’ lives slowly unfold, and everything happens so naturally that it doesn’t seem to be serving a plot.

6/ The greatest scene in Part 1 is the ball—this is the scene that changes everything for Anna, Vronsky, and Kitty. Tolstoy focuses on Kitty’s perspective, and it is so wonderful that one cannot help wondering how Tolstoy could understand so well the excitement, the hopes, the disappointment, the heartbreak, the pain and humiliation of an 18-year-old girl. 

In Part 2, the greatest scene is the horse race. It is magnificent, Tolstoy’s writing is cinematic—like a montage. He first describes the scene all from Vronsky’s point of view, then switches to Karenin, goes back in time, describes Karenin’s meeting with Anna before the race, then moves to Anna at the race and switches between her watching Vronsky and Karenin watching her. Everything flows in a perfectly natural way. Why do we need film adaptations of Anna Karenina? Tolstoy can create montage and lively scenes like a film, but a film cannot give us access to the characters’ thoughts as Tolstoy does. 

7/ In the chapters of Kitty in Germany, Tolstoy seems to bring some of himself into her characterisation—like the author, Kitty aspires to be good, to forget pleasures and vanity, to do her duties and live for others, only to realise that she cannot do it, as it would only lead to hypocrisy and deceit. Tolstoy is a master because he shows that, through her meetings with Varenka, Kitty gets a glimpse of a very different life and becomes calmer and more mature, but she does not turn into a completely different person. She cannot change who she is. 

I have to continue to see what I think, but right now I seem to like Kitty more than I did last time.   

Jonathan Bate: counter-voices in Shakespeare

In The Genius of Shakespeare, Jonathan Bate pretends to raise the question of what’s special about Shakespeare when he almost never comes up with his own plot for the plays, and answers it in a chapter called “Shakespeare’s Peculiarity”. As that’s not the point of this blog post, I’m not going to answer the question or write much about Bate’s chapter, but he makes an interesting point when comparing Shakespeare’s As You Like It and the source book Rosalynde by Thomas Lodge: 

“Shakespeare complicates Lodge for purposes of critique. He introduces the foppish Le Beau in the first act in order to mock at the pretensions of the court. He introduces Jaques in the second in order to mock at the pretensions of pastoral idealization. Duke Senior regards the forest of Arden as untainted, redolent of the Golden Age; Jaques points out that whilst the wicked Duke Frederick has usurped his brother’s place at court, Duke Senior and his men have usurped the stag’s place in the forest. Shakespeare introduces the loutish William and Audrey in order to juxtapose a realistic view of country people against the literary view provided by the shepherd-in-love he inherits from Lodge. As for Touchstone, he is introduced in order to mock at everybody – yet his sophisticated court mockery is itself mocked by the dignity with which Corin speaks for honest country values.

The characters invented by Shakespeare may be described as ‘counter-voices’. Lodge’s story is controlled by a narratorial voice which leads the reader to make discriminations and moral judgements. Shakespeare’s dramatic form means that there is no single authorial voice; the play’s succession of mockings, ironic juxtapositions and unresolved debates render its world ‘open’. Even when ‘closure’ is reached with the multiple marriages, Jaques stands off against the resolution. This openness means that ample space is left for the intervention of the audience. We step in to continue the unresolved debates: that is one of the things which makes Shakespeare so performable, so discussable.” (Ch.5)

Later on, Jonathan Bate speaks again of counter-voices when discussing Shakespeare as the central point of world literature: 

“Because he was hardly ever narrowly topical in his own age and culture, Shakespeare has remained topical in other ages and cultures. Because he addresses great political issues rather than local political circumstances, his plays speak to such perennial problems as tyranny and aggressive nationalism. Because his own positions are so elusive, because every one of his voices has its counter-voice – Fluellen his MacMorris, King Harry his Michael Williams, Prospero his Caliban – he has become the voice of many positions.” (Ch.8)

This, I think, is the greatest strength of Shakespeare—not only is there a wide range of voices and points of view across the Shakespeare plays, but in each play, each voice also has a counter-voice. This is why Shakespeare is so popular and appeals to people across the political spectrum. This is why Shakespeare continues to be loved and adapted and analysed today. 

Reading these passages, I can’t help thinking about the bad films or TV series I’ve seen lately—a film or TV drama is similar to a play in that it has no narratorial voice as in a novel, but in some cases, it’s easy to tell that the screenwriter has some underlying moralism, sides with a specific character, and doesn’t give some other character’s lines equal force, and that is the sign of a weak screenwriter. 

Later on in the book, Jonathan Bate writes more about the opposing voices and the appeal to different people: 

“Since the eighteenth century, Shakespeare has been admired above all for two things: the range of his characters and the inventiveness of his language. The two go closely together, for it was by investing so many of his dramatic persons with memorable language that Shakespeare animated more voices than did any of his contemporaries. And because he animated so many opposing voices, he has been able to speak to many later dispositions. 

[…] For Hazlitt, the key to Shakespeare’s genius was his open-mindedness, his lack of egotism, and freedom from bias, his capacity to see both sides of a question and to empathize equally with all.” (ibid.)

Among the writers I’ve read, I think only 2 writers are comparable to Shakespeare in range of characters, and they are Tolstoy and Cao Xueqin. In Hong lou meng, Cao Xueqin seems to depict all kinds of people, of different sexes, of different classes, and from different backgrounds, and he has compassion for them all—there are a few pairs of characters who are similar, but they’re all distinct and lifelike. Hong lou meng makes most novels appear small and limited in comparison, and the author is invisible and self-effacing, not an egotist. But if Cao Xueqin is comparable in terms of range and breadth, he is not in terms of depth and complexity—his characters are not as deep, multifaceted, and self-contradictory as Shakespeare’s or Tolstoy’s characters, with the sole exception of Wang Xifeng. Wang Xifeng is his greatest creation, because there are many sides to her and there can be different responses to her (though if you say you adore her, I’d ask what’s wrong with you). 

Tolstoy can inhabit many different characters’ minds to the extent that I’ve not seen matched by any other novelist, and I think Shakespeare and Tolstoy are the 2 writers with the greatest understanding of human nature and human behaviour. The difference in Tolstoy is his egotism and didacticism—when the artist in him triumphs over the preacher, he is extraordinary, but often you may clash with his narrative voice and his personal views.

To go back to Jonathan Bate’s book, he quotes William Hazlitt:

“The striking peculiarity of Shakspeare’s mind was its generic quality, its power of communication with all other minds – so that it contained a universe of thought and feeling within itself, and had no one peculiar bias, or exclusive excellence more than another. He was just like any other man, but that he was like all other men. He was the least of an egotist that it was possible to be. He was nothing in himself; but he was all that others were, or that they could become. He not only had in himself the germs of every faculty and feeling, but he could follow them by anticipation, intuitively, into all their conceivable ramifications, through every change of fortune or conflict of passion, or turn of thought. He had ‘a mind reflecting ages past,’ and present: – all the people that ever lived are there. There was no respect of persons with him. His genius shone equally on the evil and on the good, on the wise and the foolish, the monarch and the beggar.” (ibid.) 

That’s a great passage. 

If you’re interested in Shakespeare, you should read The Genius of Shakespeare by Jonathan Bate. It makes me love Shakespeare even more. 

East Asian literature 2020

2020 somehow became my year of East Asian literature and I’ve just realised that I forgot to put up a list of the works I read. Here it is: 

Vietnamese (included because Vietnam is culturally East Asian even though it is geographically Southeast Asian): 

- Nguyễn Du: Văn tế thập loại chúng sinh (Văn chiêu hồn), Truyện Kiều. 

- Đoàn Thị Điểm/ Phan Huy Ích: Chinh phụ ngâm (translated into verse in chữ Nôm from the original in chữ Hán by Đặng Trần Côn). 

- Nguyễn Gia Thiều: Cung oán ngâm khúc. 

Japanese: 

- Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji (trans. Royall Tyler), The Diary of Lady Murasaki (trans. Richard Bowring).

- Sei Shonagon: The Pillow Book (trans. Meredith McKinney). 

- The daughter of Sugawara Takasue, also known as Lady Sarashina: Sarashina Nikki (retitled As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams, trans. Ivan Morris).

- Natsume Soseki: Kokoro (trans. Meredith McKinney), Kusamakura (retitled The Three-Cornered World, trans. Alan Turney).

- Kawabata Yasunari: The Sound of the Mountain (trans. Edward. G. Seidensticker), Snow Country (trans. Edward. G. Seidensticker).

- Tanizaki Junichiro: Some Prefer Nettles (trans. Edward. G. Seidensticker), Naomi (trans. Anthony H. Chambers). 

- Akutagawa Ryunosuke : Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories (trans. Jay Rubin).

- Abe Kobo: The Woman in the Dunes (trans. E. L. Saunders). 

Chinese: 

- Cao Xueqin: Hong lou meng, also known as Dream of the Red Chamber, A Dream of Red Mansions, or The Story of the Stone, and Hồng lâu mộng in Vietnamese (trans. Vũ Bội Hoàng group). 

In total: 4 long poems, a collection of short stories, 10 thin or average-sized books (not including the collection and Truyện Kiều), and 2 doorstoppers. 

All were newly discovered authors except for Nguyễn Du (because what Vietnamese person doesn’t grow up with Nguyễn Du?). 

Favourites: 

Hong lou meng

The Tale of Genji

Truyện Kiều 

Kokoro 

Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories

The Pillow Book 

Murasaki Shikibu, Cao Xueqin, Lev Tolstoy, and my top 10 novels

If you’ve been reading my blog or following me on twitter, you may have guessed correctly that the 2 greatest novels I’ve read this year are: Genji monotagari, better known as The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, and Hong lou meng, also known as Dream of the Red Chamber, A Dream of Red Mansions, or The Story of the Stone, by Cao Xueqin. 

The 2 novels have quite a few things in common. Both are East Asian classics—The Tale of Genji is recognised as Japan’s greatest and most important novel, and Hong lou meng is one of the 4 Chinese classic novels though some people would argue that it’s the greatest novel from China. Both handle Confucianism and Buddhism, but the former is a Buddhist novel while the latter is a Taoist novel. 

Both are extremely long, Hong lou meng is much longer than War and Peace, and both have a great scope with about 400-500 characters. The Tale of Genji depicts all aspects of the Japanese court during the Heian period: life at court, hierarchy, beliefs and lifestyles, exorcism, rituals, festivals, letter-writing, calligraphy, poetry, music, dance, incense-making, painting, gardening, fashion, Buddhist philosophy, marriage politics, double standards for men and women, etc. Similarly, Hong lou meng depicts everything about Chinese society in the 18th century: festivities, funeral rites, customs, cuisine, medicine, drinking games, card games, music, poetry, classic literature, painting, architecture, gardening, fashion, mythology, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, polygamy, sexuality, human trafficking, corruption, etc. 

Both have a male character in the centre, but focus more on the surrounding female characters. Both have sympathy for women. However, Murasaki Shikibu’s novel follows Genji from birth to death, then moves on to the new generation, whereas a large part of Cao Xueqin’s novel focuses on the teenage years of Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) and the girls. 

Now you may ask, which one is better? I can’t really say. Murasaki Shikibu and Cao Xueqin have very different styles, and the 2 novels have different qualities.

The Tale of Genji is a psychological novel while Hong lou meng is more like a novel of manners, in which the characters are largely characterised through action and dialogue—in a way, Cao Xueqin writes like a playwright. Compared to Cao Xueqin, Murasaki Shikibu has a more beautiful style, exquisite sensibility, and a melancholic tone—the entire novel is pervaded by a sense of mono no aware, and one of the main themes of the novel is transience and the uncertainty of life. Her novel may have more emotional depth. Out of all the writers I’ve read, Murasaki Shikibu and Tolstoy are the two I think are best at handling death—no one else comes close. The difference is that Tolstoy mostly focuses on the person who is dying while Murasaki Shikibu also writes about it but writes more about the impact of death on other people—death of a beloved or family member as a transforming experience. She doesn’t kill off characters to serve the plot as most writers do—every single death has significance. 

Compared to Cao Xueqin, she is also a more visual writer, especially in her descriptions of nature. Everyone who reads The Tale of Genji is always conscious of its beauty, on every page. 

The qualities of Hong lou meng are a different kind. It is a rich, diverse book—Cao Xueqin seems to write about all kinds of people, of both sexes, and from different classes of society. While Murasaki Shikibu focuses on a handful from her large cast of characters, Cao Xueqin treats nearly 40 characters as major, and there are many pairs who appear similar but they are all distinct and memorable. The former focuses more on depth and writes about a much longer span of time, following the main character from birth to death to his descendants, while the latter focuses more on breadth. We know Genji much better than we know Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu), but as a whole the characters in Hong lou meng are better-realised, more vividly real, more colourful, and more diverse. The novel is especially striking in its sympathy for women and humane portrayal of servants.  

Like War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Hong lou meng has an expansive scope but at the same time has great attention to detail. Like Tolstoy’s novels, it has a vividness and naturalness that feels more like life than a work of art, and every single character, even the most secondary and unimportant ones, feels like a real person. I expect that Cao Xueqin’s characters would stay with me the way Tolstoy’s characters have stayed with me over the years. 

Cao Xueqin is comparable to Tolstoy in his humanity, in his compassion and true sympathy for everyone. In terms of psychological depth, Tolstoy is much superior—he is unsurpassable, while the characters in Hong lou meng are largely conveyed through action, dialogue, and occasionally monologue, though Cao Xueqin also characterises them through poetry. Tolstoy is superior in terms of style. 

However, Cao Xueqin has his own qualities. He is no preacher, no moralist—his presence is not felt in the text. He is no sexist—Hong lou meng has a wide range of female characters, and the most intelligent, excellent characters in the novel are girls. 

Above all, Hong lou meng has supernatural or dream elements and the real/unreal theme. There are also supernatural elements in The Tale of Genji, mostly ghosts: the jealous and vengeful spirit of the living Rokujo Haven is one of the most powerful images I’ve encountered in literature, especially when the Rokujo Haven herself is not aware of any anger or resentment, suggesting that Murasaki Shikibu is aware of the gap between conscious and unconscious feelings. Hong lou meng goes even further in its dream elements: the novel is framed as the story of the stone, which comes to earth as Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu), so there’s a real/unreal theme that runs through the entire novel and there are many magical elements such as the Land of Illusion, the Buddhist monk and Taoist priest, the Mirror for the Romantic, the double, ghosts, demons, and so on. These elements add another layer of meaning to the novel and elevate it beyond a social novel or a family novel. My favourites are the story of Giả Thụy (Jia Rui) and the mirror, and the encounter of the 2 Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu).

To me, Hong lou meng and The Tale of Genji are not just my best reads of 2020, but they’re the best over the past few years, and I do think that they’re on a par with the finest works of Western literature. To be honest, most novels would appear small and narrow next to them. 

And yet in the West, they’re often neglected. 

Updating my top 10 favourite novels (order changed on 18/5/2022): 

Anna Karenina by Lev Tolstoy

War and Peace by Lev Tolstoy

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Hong lou meng by Cao Xueqin 

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu 

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton 

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert 

_________________________________________________

Here is Kenneth Rexroth on The Tale of Genji and Hong lou meng: 

“When I was a kid, I used to read novels by sets: Tolstoy, Conrad, James, Dostoevski, Turgenev, Zola, Flaubert. They weren’t one book at a time, but a whole world that would envelop me for months and from which I would emerge into real life with the strange outlandish feeling of someone back from years abroad. One Chinese novel can do this to you, sweep you away out of sight of home and self, and lose you for a week or more in its own pullulating verisimilitude.

It is this total verisimilitude which differentiates the greatest Chinese novels from the Japanese and puts The Dream of the Red Chamber in a nobler class than Genji. The Japanese novel is a universe of exquisite sensibility. It is concerned with the most profound moral issues ever undertaken in any work of fiction, and implicitly with philosophical issues utterly beyond the grasp of any European novelist. It handles all this with breathtaking skill. But it is possible, immediately, to say these things about it. They are patent. You are unaware of anything like this in The Dream of the Red Chamber until the week after you have laid it down. You are always aware of the vertiginously beautiful style of Lady Murasaki. In The Dream of the Red Chamber, you are unaware you are reading, and nobody remembers who the author was. It is the difference, on a much lesser plane, between Walter Pater and Theodore Dreiser. Dreiser is horribly crude, but Pater is barbarous. I am afraid Dreiser is the better stylist. In Genji they eat but seldom, drink a little, but never move their bowels. In the Chinese novel, as in the gardens of Italy where the nightingale sings in the blooming pomegranate, the odor of the night soil of ten thousand years is never out of your nose.

[…] The Dream of the Red Chamber is the better novel because it is the truer, the more profoundly humane. Genji is true and profound and humane and beautiful, too, but we are not all able to identify ourselves with the insouciant demigod who dips souls from Hell through ten million reincarnations, just, as it were, for fun. On the other hand, there is no question but that we too are part of that astronomical mass of living human beings made of real flesh, sweeping past forever like stardust, and that if we are wise, we will take it easy, like the resting stone and the falling stream.” (source) 

Why you should read Hong lou meng aka Dream of the Red Chamber

Perhaps you have heard of Hong lou meng by Cao Xueqin, better known in English as Dream of the Red Chamber, A Dream of Red Mansions, or The Story of the Stone. Perhaps you think of reading it but hesitate because of its daunting length and unfamiliar culture? Or have little interest because outside China very few people seem to have read it? You’re missing out. 

Here’s why you should. 

1/ Significance: 

In Chinese literature, Hong lou meng is one of the Four Great Classic Novels, together with Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin (aka Outlaws of the Marsh, Tale of the Marshes, or All Men Are Brothers), and Journey to the West (aka Monkey). Many people would even say that Hong lou meng is the greatest Chinese novel. 

In the West it is not much read, but I myself think it is one of the greatest novels in the world, on par with the finest works of Western literature such as War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Moby Dick, Middlemarch, Lolita, and so on. Kenneth Rexroth, American poet, translator, and critical essayist, thinks that The Tale of Genji and Hong lou meng are the 2 greatest novels in the world, in the whole history of literature.  

2/ Scope: 

Hong lou meng is usually published as 120 chapters, about twice the length of War and Peace. However, only the first 80 chapters were written by Cao Xueqin, the last 40 chapters have been disputed for years—could be written entirely by Gao E, drafted by Cao Xueqin and redacted by Gao E, or written by someone else and edited by Gao E. I personally believe it’s the last possibility and only read the Cao Xueqin chapters (after reading 81-85). 

Even then, it’s a long book with great scope and about 400-500 characters. 

3/ Range of characters: 

Hong lou meng has a wide range of characters, belonging to different classes of society, from Imperial Consort and members of the palace all the way to servants and maids. The novel depicts lots of different types of people, and the characters feel real and are all distinct. 

Placed next to the vast world of Hong lou meng, most novels would appear small and narrow. 

4/ Depiction of female characters and sympathy for women: 

The novel is rich and diverse in its portrayal of female characters, and Cao Xueqin seems to have lots of sympathy for the lives of women in 18th century China, from Imperial Consorts to servants and slaves, from concubines to their daughters, etc.

The most intelligent, poetic, and excellent ones in the story are girls—in a Confucian society, where women are considered inferior to men and only boys can go to school and take exams, in the private poetry club, the best poets are girls and the central male character Giả Bảo Ngọc (Jia Baoyu) always comes last.

My favourite character in the book is the vivacious, forthright and open-hearted tomboy Sử Tương Vân (Shi Xiangyun), followed by Giả Thám Xuân (Jia Tanchun), a clever daughter of a concubine, a fenghuang born in crows’ nest. 

5/ A striking and fascinating anti-heroine:

Next to the lovable and interesting girls, who are all different, Cao Xueqin also creates one of the most compelling, complex, and unforgettable bitches I’ve encountered in literature: Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng).

He creates a character who is cruel, malicious, ruthless, jealous, cunning, and manipulative, but at the same time also depicts her as clever, capable, and extremely fascinating and compelling, and gives her depth—she is despicable, but there are moments the reader cannot help sympathising with her or admiring her. 

6/ Depiction of servants:

While servants seem to be invisible or only have secondary roles in lots of classic Western novels, the servants in Hong lou meng don’t get any less attention from Cao Xueqin, and they’re all complex individuals. Some of the most likable characters in the novel are servants—my favourites are Bình Nhi (Ping’er/ Patience) and Tình Văn (Qingwen/ Skybright). The lead servants or senior maids are all different and complex. 

This doesn’t mean that Cao Xueqin is on the side of servants against the masters and mistresses. This is a vast world, and he writes about all kinds of servants: gossipers, flatterers, thieves, hot-tempered ones, wanton ones, greedy ones, lazy ones, unreliable ones, those who try to take advantage of the household, those who try to intimidate a soft or inexperienced mistress, those who get special treatment and fear nothing and curse the entire master family, etc. 

7/ Poetry: 

There is lots of poetry in the novel, lots of references to classical Chinese poetry. Poetry is also a means of characterisation. 

8/ Dream elements and the real/unreal theme: 

The characters are very realistic, but Hong lou meng is more than a social novel, family novel, or novel of manners—it has a frame story of a Sentient Stone left behind by Nuwa when she mended the sky, and the stone now wants to come to earth to experience life. It is reincarnated as Giả Bảo Ngọc (Jia Baoyu), who is born with a jade in his mouth, hence the name. 

At the beginning of the novel, these couplets appear: 

“Truth becomes fiction when the fiction's true;

Real becomes not-real where the unreal's real.” 

(David Hawkes’s translation)

Or:

“When false is taken for true, true becomes false;

If non-being turns into being, being becomes non-being.”

(The Yangs' translation, which I think is better).

The real/unreal theme runs through Hong lou meng, and there are also lots of dream elements that add more layers of meaning to the novel.  

9/ Frankness about sexuality: 

I know you’re paying more attention now—in Hong lou meng, you can find homosexuality, bisexuality, grooming, masturbation, a wet dream, and this line: 

“Whether we fuck arseholes or not, what business is it of yours? You should be bloody grateful we haven’t fucked your dad.” 

(I won’t say which chapter this is from).  

10/ Understanding of Chinese culture in particular and East Asia in general: 

Hong lou meng depicts everything about Chinese society in the 18th century: festivities, funeral rites, customs, cuisine, medicine, drinking games, music/ theatre, poetry, classic literature, painting, architecture, gardening, fashion, mythology, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, bribery, superstitions, etc.

It’s no wonder that people often say that Hong lou meng is the novel to read if you want to understand Chinese culture, values, and mindset: Confucianism, hierarchy and order, filial piety, relationships, women running the household, etc. 

To someone like me, it’s a feeling of familiarity—I understand the culture, hierarchy, and manners, and recognise lots of types of people in it. 

What then are the tips for reading Hong lou meng? Similar to my tips for reading The Tale of Genji: draw your own family tree, create your own character list and make notes, etc. Regarding translation, if you read it in English, there are only 2 complete English translations and the more highly acclaimed one is the Penguin Classics one by David Hawkes and John Minford. 

Here is a list of my blog posts about Hong lou meng (note that I had some issues with it at the beginning, but adjusted myself to the book and came to love it after some time): 

Chapter 1, language, names. 

2-4, the Jia family, first impressions. 

5-8, the dream, fate, ugly aspects of Chinese culture. 

9-12, the kowtow, servants, the mirror.

12-15, death, the funeral, Wang Xifeng.

16-18, the writing, Jia Yuanchun’s visit.

19-23, 2 kinds of hierarchy, characterisation, lesser children.

24-27, servants’ names, demons, Daiyu.

28-31, feigned humility, proxy novice, melodrama.

31-34, Xiangyun, Baochai, Daiyu, Skybright.

35-38, fate, reflection, poetry club.

39-44, Jia Mu, gender, the lower classes, jealousy.

45-48, horny men, Chinese culture and poetry.

49-51, newcomers, linked verse, girls vs women vs men.

52-53, Cao Xueqin’s humanity, Ning-Rong, textual problems.

54-56, clichés, servants, Xifeng, 2 Baoyus.

57-60, Daiyu, actors, servants’ hierarchy.

61-63, Patience, flowers, 2 worlds in the novel.

64-67, 13-15, funerals, horny men and women, Taoism.

67-70, multiple wives, jealousy.

71-72, appearances, Xifeng’s illness, Suncloud and Sunset.

73-74, 3 Spring girls, timing issues.

75-78, Miaoyu, Skybright, the firing.

79-80, Xia Jingui, Sun Shaozu, Cao Xueqin chapters. 

81-85, the last 40 chapters, characters’ voices, the dream. 

Comparing Cao Xueqin, Murasaki Shikibu, and Lev Tolstoy. 

Hong lou meng: chapters 81-85, the last 40 chapters, characters' voices, the dream

1/ The first 80 of the 120 chapters of Hong lou meng were written by Tào Tuyết Cần (Cao Xueqin). What about the last 40? 

This has been a point of debate for years. The general view in Vietnam seems to be that the last 40 chapters were written by Cao Ngạc (Gao E) alone, whereas the general view among English speakers seems to be that they were Gao E working on a patchy manuscript by Cao Xueqin. John Minford, the translator of the last 40 chapters, which were volumes 4 and 5 of the Penguin edition titled The Story of the Stone (following 3 volumes translated by David Hawkes), thinks that the manuscript was written by Cao Xueqin, found by Trình Vĩ Nguyên (Cheng Weiyuan) and edited by Gao E, and these 2 volumes have Cao Xueqin and Gao E as the authors. 

It seems to be quite complicated and uncertain, and we just don’t know if Gao E wrote all of it himself, worked on Cao Xueqin’s manuscript, or edited a manuscript by someone else, and if he did work on Cao Xueqin’s manuscript, how much of it was editing and how much was rewriting, and whether there was a full outline to follow.

I’ve just reread David Hawkes’s introduction in volume 1, which has an interesting detail. He mentions Chi Nghiễn Trai (Zhiyanzhai/ Red Inkstone), one of the earliest and most important commentators on Hong lou meng, who apparently knew Cao Xueqin intimately and might have been around the same age as the author. 

This is what David Hawkes says: 

“… his references to future developments in the plot occurring after chapter 80 are almost invariably different from what is found in the last forty chapters of the Gao E version.

[…] Now, however, as new evidence comes to light, it is becoming more and more probable that [Gao E] was not [a liar and forger] – that he did only edit, not fabricate, the last forty chapters. Moreover, although the last forty chapters are not by Cao Xueqin himself, it is beginning to look more and more as though they were written by someone very close to Xueqin, probably a member of his family – someone who was familiar with his drafts and wanted a different ending but did not necessarily have any intention of passing off the new ending as the author’s own work.

The novel we read today, then, is an incomplete novel by Cao Xueqin in eighty chapters with a supplement by an anonymous author in forty chapters which, though in many respects not what the author intended and perhaps inferior to what he would have written, is nevertheless, because of the inside knowledge of the person who wrote it, a vastly better ending than any of that mushroom crop which sprang up once the commercial possibilities of a completed edition had been established.” (Volume 1, introduction) 

Hawkes’s view, if I understand correctly, is that Cao Xueqin more or less did finish the novel but some chapters were missing and at the end Red Inkstone was still waiting for him to fill in some poems, but it seems that the later part of the novel was lost or suppressed. This seems to clash with his own remark in volume 3 that the last 40 chapters are probably an earlier version of the novel, before some major revisions. 

Hawkes also says:

“From clues found in the commentaries and in the text itself, we can tell that Xueqin’s dénouement must have been far more harrowing than the somewhat bland ending the novel is given in Gao E’s version.” (ibid.) 

2/ Chapter 81 moves away from the stories of Hạ Kim Quế (Xia Jingui) and Tôn Thiệu Tổ (Sun Shaozu) and returns to Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu), who is now forced to return to school. 

Knulp Tanner, one of the people doing the read-along with me, was disappointed with the drop of quality in the chapter and no longer wants to continue. Something bothers me too—does Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) sound like that? Do his parents sound like that? The conversation between Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) and Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) seems a bit odd. 

But I can’t judge from just one chapter, especially when I began reading with lots of preconceptions.  

3/ Chapter 82 bothers me. 

There’s a scene where Tập Nhân (Xiren/ Aroma) thinks about her own future—she knows how to handle Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) as his concubine, but what if she becomes a second Vưu Nhị Thư (You Erjie) or Hương Lăng (Caltrop)? She starts worrying about Đại Ngọc (Daiyu), who she knows is suspicious and difficult, so she decides to come visit her. 

As they’re talking, Tử Quyên (Nightingale) the servant mentions Hương Lăng (Caltrop), so: 

“Aroma seized her opportunity:

‘Caltrop, did I hear you say? Oh, that poor girl! I feel so sorry for her! This new wife of Mr Pan’s is a Total Eclipse if ever there was one! She’s even worse than a certain person…’ Here Aroma held up two fingers, indicating the Second Young Lady of the household - Xi-feng. ‘This Mrs Pan doesn’t seem to care a bit what people think.’

‘That certain person was bad enough,’ said Dai-yu. ‘To think that You Er-jie is dead!’

‘I know,’ said Aroma. ‘They were both human beings, after all. It was only their positions that were different. Why did she have to be so malicious? It hasn’t done the family name any good.’

This was the first time Dai-yu had heard Aroma gossip like this, and she began to suspect what was at the back of it.” (Ch.82) 

The translation is by John Minford. 

It doesn’t sound like Tập Nhân (Aroma) to talk like that, does it? Especially to someone like Đại Ngọc (Daiyu), who is a mistress and isn’t close to her. In the first 80 chapters, she never says any such things to Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) or even other servants—she is quiet and reserved, and would keep such thoughts to herself. 

4/ Đại Ngọc’s (Daiyu) dream, to me, appears quite crude and clumsy. 

The weakest dream Cao Xueqin writes is perhaps Vương Hy Phượng’s (Wang Xifeng) dream of Tần Khả Khanh (Qin Keqing), which is awkward as a warning and even more awkward coming from her. This is also a result of revisions because his original plan was that Tần Khả Khanh (Qin Keqing) would hang herself after the discovery of the affair, instead of dying after a long illness.

But if we look at the best dreams in Hong lou meng—the double in chapter 56, the Land of Illusion in chapter 5, Chân Sĩ Ẩn’s (Zhen Shiyin) dream at the beginning of the novel, or the dream-like episode of Giả Thụy (Jia Rui) with the mirror in chapter 12, which are all magnificent, the dream in chapter 82 appears clumsy and crude. It lacks the magical quality, the imaginative power of the best dreams in Hong lou meng, and looks contrived. 

5/ After the dream, there’s a bit of a long-winded sequence of Tử Quyên (Nightingale) and Tuyết Nhạn (Snowgoose) discovering the blood, then Thúy Lũ (Kingfisher) and Thúy Mặc (Ebony) coming, hearing the news, and coming back to tell Tương Vân (Xiangyun) and Thám Xuân (Tanchun), then the last 2 coming to visit Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) and then visiting the matriarch of the house. 

Sử Tương Vân (Shi Xiangyun) is my favourite character in Hong lou meng—she’s the most endearing character in Hong lou meng and whenever she appears in the first 80 chapters, she steals the scene. In this sequence, she doesn’t sound right—Tương Vân (Xiangyun) is meant to be open-hearted and forthright, not careless and stupid, and her reaction to the news from Thúy Lũ (Kingfisher) and Thúy Mặc (Ebony) and her later reaction upon seeing the blood don’t seem right, especially considering the more mature Tương Vân (Xiangyun) in the past 10 chapters or so. 

6/ My impression from these chapters is that whoever writes the final part of the novel must know the Chinese medicine and be familiar with the environment, the palace, perhaps even the people on whom the characters are based, etc. Perhaps this is why these 40 chapters, despite their flaws, are more recognised and beloved than other sequels—and there are loads and loads of them! 

Chapter 83, I think, is better than 81 and 82. The final scene works well regarding Hạ Kim Quế (Xia Jingui) and Bảo Thiềm (Moonbeam)—when the Cao Xueqin chapters were cut off in the middle of their story with Hương Lăng (Caltrop), I thought Hạ Kim Quế (Xia Jingui) was vivid and had the potential to become a great character, and her depiction in chapter 83 follows up well. 

The part that bugs me is Bảo Thoa’s (Baochai) reaction—I can’t help thinking that the Bảo Thoa (Baochai) who can say something biting to both Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) and Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) and embarrass them both in chapter 30 would not be so… nice? so soft? to a sister-in-law who is insulting her and her family and humiliating everyone. It may be argued that she wants to calm down Hạ Kim Quế (Xia Jingui) and not make the quarrel any bigger, but Cao Xueqin has written before that Hạ Kim Quế (Xia Jingui) many times tries to start a fight with her but she always keeps her in place. 

7/ Reading the book in Vietnamese, I can’t help wondering if the little things that bug me in these chapters are valid or I’m looking for them, with the authorship question in mind. But at the same time, look at chapter 84—would Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng) stay silent for the entire meal, not uttering a word, when she’s always flattering Giả Mẫu (Jia Mu) and dominating the conversation? Giả Chính (Jia Zheng) in these chapters also appears nicer—I went back to chapter 77, then looked at chapter 84 again, he now seems nicer, less impatient. 

In these chapters there’s also a redundancy and repetitiveness that I think Cao Xueqin would get rid of. 

8/ Chapter 85, however, works well, especially in the music scene and the Tiết Bàn (Xue Pan) trouble. I can see why David Hawkes says “although the last forty chapters are not by Cao Xueqin himself, it is beginning to look more and more as though they were written by someone very close to Xueqin, probably a member of his family – someone who was familiar with his drafts and wanted a different ending”. 

Would I continue? I’m not sure. Maybe. Maybe not. 

Anyway, Merry Christmas, everyone! 

Hong lou meng: chapters 79-80, Xia Jingui, Sun Shaozu, Cao Xueqin chapters

1/ Chapter 79 has 2 characters getting married. Giả Nghênh Xuân (Jia Yingchun) is the first one to leave the garden, marrying Tôn Thiệu Tổ (Sun Shaozu). 

2/ Tiết Bàn (Xue Pan) gets married to a young woman named Hạ Kim Quế (Xia Jingui). Cao Xueqin, I can’t help thinking, introduces her in a way I didn’t quite see him introduce other characters before in Hong lou meng—instead of slowly developing her and conveying her personality through action and dialogue, he sums up her family, upbringing, and personality in a way that makes me think of Jane Austen. This is an observation, not a complaint. 

3/ There is a significant scene at the beginning of chapter 80 that would be lost on readers of the Hawkes’s translation. 

The chamber wife of Tiết Bàn (Xue Pan), at the Tiết (Xue) family, gets the name 香菱 (Hương Lăng/ Xiangling), meaning “fragrant water caltrop”. In Hawkes’s translation she is called Caltrop.

In Hawkes’s translation, Hạ Kim Quế (Xia Jingui) changes her name to Lily, which is incorrect and makes the act lose its meaning. 

She changes her name to 秋菱 (Thu Lăng/ Qiuling), which means “autumn water caltrop”. 秋 (thu/ qiu) is a homophone of 丘 (khiêu or khâu/ qiu), meaning “mound” or “grave”. 菱 (lăng/ ling) is a homophone of 陵 (lăng/ ling), meaning “tomb”. 

This took some work—I had to compare 2 sources and also had to look at a Hán Nôm dictionary because the Vietnamese source made a mistake and the sources didn’t include all information, so give me a medal. 

Sources: https://www.jstor.org/stable/495626 

http://soi.today/?p=236051 (theo từ điển Hán Nôm của thivien, chữ đó phải là “khiêu” hay khâu”, không phải “khưu”).  

4/ In an earlier blog post I wrote about the jealousy of Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng) and compared her to Hoạn Thư in Truyện Kiều, the archetype of a jealous woman in Vietnamese culture. 

In the final 2 of the Cao Xueqin chapters, there’s another jealous woman: Hạ Kim Quế (Xia Jingui). Both of them use another woman to get rid of the one they hate: Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng) uses the new chamber-wife Thu Đồng (Autumn) to torment Vưu Nhị Thư (You Erjie), Hạ Kim Quế (Xia Jingui) uses her own servant that Tiết Bàn (Xue Pan) fancies, Bảo Thiềm (Moonbeam), to cause trouble for Thu Lăng (Qiuling). 

However, Hạ Kim Quế (Xia Jingui) has a very different personality and Cao Xueqin successfully creates another kind of jealous woman: a violent-tempered, overbearing, and quarrelsome woman who can push around a violent man like Tiết Bàn (Xue Pan), and even argues with her mother-in-law. 

5/ In the same chapter is another miserable marriage: Tôn Thiệu Tổ (Sun Shaozu) turns out to be a gambler, drunkard, and libertine. Other people, including Giả Chính (Jia Zheng), are against the marriage but Giả Xá (Jia She) goes ahead with it anyway, and now Nghênh Xuân (Yingchun) comes back in tears, but what can be done? 

Her real mother is dead, and Hình phu nhân (lady Xing) doesn’t care.  

Thus chapter 80 ends, hinting at worse things ahead. Nghênh Xuân (Yingchun) would perhaps be abandoned by her family, but the story of Hạ Kim Quế (Xia Jingui) is broken off here when she has the potential to become a great character. 

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That’s the end of the Cao Xueqin chapters. I finished reading chapter 80 on 22/12, which means that it’s been 7 weeks since I started reading Hong lou meng. But I put it aside and read Naomi by Tanizaki for about 5 days, so the first 80 chapters took me about 6 weeks. 

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Hong lou meng: chapters 75-78, Miaoyu, Skybright, the firing

1/ It’s funny how in chapter 74, the Giả (Jia) family or mostly phủ Vinh quốc (Rongguo house) create so much ado about a little bag with some sexy image, as though they’re a very moral and proper family, chapter 75 describes much worse things happening in the family, mostly at phủ Ninh quốc (Ningguo house)—people drinking, playing cards, gambling, having male prostitutes, etc. 

2/ I don’t have much to say about chapter 76, about Mid-Autumn Festival. The most interesting part is at the end of the chapter, when Tương Vân (Xiangyun) and Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) leave the party to watch the moon and make some linked verse, before they’re unexpectedly joined by Diệu Ngọc (Miaoyu/ Adamantina). The other 2 have always been good poets, but the continuation of the poem by Diệu Ngọc (Adamantina) is particularly interesting. Look: 

“In golden censers figured incense burns;

Unguents in their jade pots coagulate.

A flute provokes the grieving widow’s weeping;

She craves some warmth her bed’s chill to abate.

Its cheerless hangings stir in the wind of autumn,

Its love-ducks mock a mistress without mate…” (Ch.76) 

Is that not curious for a nun? She has not truly renounced life. 

3/ In chapter 77, several servants are fired. Some other readers may talk about the partiality, unfairness, and cruelty of Vương phu nhân (lady Wang), who never manages everything in the household but once she gets involved, isn’t much kinder than Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng). 

But the things that stand out more to me are the reactions of Nghênh Xuân (Yingchun) and Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu). 

Vương phu nhân (lady Wang) is harsh and irrational indeed, but is Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) not passive and helpless, unable to help or defend anyone? Does he not, in a way, fail Huệ Hương/ con Tư (Citronella/ Number Four), Phương Quan (Parfumée), and especially Tình Văn (Qingwen/ Skybright)? Does he not appear spineless? He feels compassion, but does nothing, absolutely nothing to stop his irrationally stupid mother from kicking his servants out over some imaginary charges. He does nothing to help them stay, nothing to defend their name. He does nothing to save Tình Văn (Skybright).

Both he and his mother share the blame for her death the same way they both share the blame for the death of Kim Xuyến (Jinchuan/ Golden). He hasn’t learnt. 

The reaction of Nghênh Xuân (Yingchun) is understandable—she stands outside everything, she is an example of someone with no attachments. Come to think of it, she’s even more detached than Diệu Ngọc (Adamantina). 

4/ I note that in chapter 76, Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) hangs out with Tương Vân (Xiangyun) and feels lonely because Bảo Thoa (Baochai) is away and Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) is busy taking care of the sick Tình Văn (Skybright), and she doesn’t suit Nghênh Xuân (Yingchun) and Tích Xuân (Xichun) very well. 

These 2 Xuân (Chun) girls have a few things in common: both lack poetic talent and generally stand outside the poetry challenges; both worry about their reputation; both are indifferent to their close servants, ready to let them go. 

The difference is that Nghênh Xuân (Yingchun) comes across as meek and unassertive to the point of lacking a spine, while Tích Xuân (Xichun) comes across as cold and harsh.  

5/ After firing Nghênh Xuân’s (Yingchun) maid Tư Kỳ (Chess), who is at least guilty of something, and 3 girls from Bảo Ngọc’s (Baoyu) house for no reason, Vương phu nhân (lady Wang) in chapter 78 doesn’t like the looks of Giả Lan’s (Jia Lan) nurse. What’s wrong with this woman? Why does she dislike everyone pretty? She needs some good dicking. 

6/ I like Tình Văn (Skybright). She has a hot temper and, like Đại Ngọc (Daiyu), is often sarcastic, but she doesn’t irritate me the way that Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) does. One of the memorable images of Tình Văn (Skybright) is that she, terribly sick, stays up all night sewing and covering up a burnt part in a new coat of that stupid stone Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu). Does she absolutely have to do that? Not really. But she does it anyway, and tries to do it as well as she can. 

Another thing is that she’s not full of self-pity. Even in the last moment, she comes across as angry, rather than sorry for herself. Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) always cries, often gets passive aggressive, and always feels sorry for herself. As Tương Vân (Xiangyun) has pointed out in chapter 76, they have similar circumstances—both are orphans, both have to be dependent on relatives, both have no siblings, Tương Vân (Xiangyun) even has to do all the embroidery and needlework in the house while Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) never has to do a thing, but the former is open-hearted and cheerful while the latter always pities herself. 

Now look at Tình Văn (Skybright)—she’s also an orphan but doesn’t have relatives on whom she can depend, and she’s a servant; Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) is weak and often sick, but with Tình Văn (Skybright), Vương phu nhân (lady Wang) complains to Giả Mẫu (Jia Mu) that she’s been sick too often and now has to leave while having consumption. 

It is tragic, especially tragic because it is unjust. 

7/ I note that Cao Xueqin associates Tình Văn (Skybright) with the same flower that Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) gets in the drinking game in chapter 63. 

The scene of the elegy and invocation is moving. 

8/ It’s funny how, because Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) is a boy (and his son), Giả Chính (Jia Zheng) always brings him to see some guests and test his poetry, when Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) is always the one who comes last in the poetry club. 

Very early in the novel, Giả Chính (Jia Zheng) also tells him to suggest names for different parts of the garden, but as it turns out later, some of the good names come from Đại Ngọc (Daiyu).