On picking a translation

Under my last blog post, I got a comment from Thomas Parker asking how I selected translations, so let’s jot down some thoughts. 

1/ Anyone who loves Russian literature knows about the translation wars. Anna Karenina and War and Peace each have about a dozen translations—how do we choose? Here are my rules: never Constance Garnett (except her Chekhov); never Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Garnett, because she has a reputation for being fast and making mistakes and throwing out difficult passages. Pevear and Volokhonsky, because their sentences are clunky and I’m no fan of the literalist school of translation (nor am I a fan of their pumping out one translation after another of books that have been translated a million times—how convenient—contrast them with Robert Chandler, who introduced the Anglophone world to Vasily Grossman). 

Anna Karenina I’ve read in two translations—Aylmer and Louise Maude, and Rosamund Bartlett—both were enjoyable, I preferred the latter’s prose. 

War and Peace I’ve also read in two translations, and I tend to recommend Aylmer and Louise Maude, revised by Amy Mandelker. Other versions may modernise the language or anglicise the names or remove the French passages or remove the feminine endings in names—the Maude-Mandelker seems to be the best option—I want something close to the original without being clunky or awkwardly literal. 

My choice of Ignat Avsey for The Brothers Karamazov went against my general preference and habit (I’m full of contradictions), largely because of my struggle to get into Dostoyevsky in the translation of David McDuff. Next time will be a different version. It flowed well and I ended up loving the book, but once in a while something stuck out like a sore thumb, such as the phrase “my ex”. 

2/ It’s because of my wish for something close to the original that I read The Tale of Genji as translated by Royall Tyler. Madness. But Murasaki Shikibu referred to her characters by title or nickname or relation to someone else—the characters have no names—Royall Tyler retains the same effect and it reflects the world in which Murasaki and her characters live.  

As for you, read Seidensticker if you wish. No strong opinion there. But I would advise against Washburn—I know I’m no expert, but The Tale of Genji is a very subtle novel and Washburn removes all subtlety—he explicitly states that he incorporates explanations into the text itself rather than use notes. 

3/ If I read Chinese literature, which you may have noticed I don’t often do, it’s a matter of course that I would always go for a Vietnamese translation rather than an English one. 

So I might not be able to read Hong lou meng in the original, but at least I’m closer, much closer to it than an English speaker is. 

4/ More is lost in translation of poetry. Perhaps all is lost. Nguyễn Du in translation is no longer Nguyễn Du. Is Hàn Mặc Tử? Is Bùi Giáng? 

People ask me what I recommend for Truyện Kiều and I never know what to say except to stay away from Timothy Allen. 

5/ I haven’t read Pushkin, but then I also don’t read poetry in translation. 

But I don’t read poetry anyway, you’re going to say— but I do a little and will do more—even if I am to take the extreme position of never reading poetry in translation, there’s still a world of Vietnamese poetry and English poetry to read. 

6/ I might contradict myself and read Tang poetry in (Vietnamese) translation. 

7/ I’m sad I can’t read Cervantes, Flaubert, Proust, Pushkin, Homer… in the original. English native speakers complaining about Shakespeare’s English and saying that the rest of the world have the “advantage” of reading/ watching his plays in translation is something I could never understand.  

Hong lou meng: chapters 67-70, multiple wives, jealousy

1/ These chapters of Hong lou meng make me think about Truyện Kiều: both Giả Liễn (Jia Lian) and Thúc Sinh are terrified of their wives and get a concubine in secret; both Vưu Nhị Thư (You Erjie) and Kiều are soft, naïve, and gullible; both Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng) and Hoạn Thư are clever, shrewd women and extremely jealous and cruel. The name of Hoạn Thư has come to mean “a jealous woman" in Vietnamese culture. 

As I’ve read quite a bit about Hong lou meng and spoilt the book a bit for myself, I’m aware that there’s going to be another jealous woman in the novel. Can’t wait to see what she’s like. 

Without condoning anything, Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng) is in a different class—she is smarter, more scheming and calculating, and more artful. A crucial difference in circumstances is that Hoạn Thư is the lady in her own house, whereas Cao Xueqin’s character has to think of her reputation and has lots of people above her to consider (and manipulate). 

Hoạn Thư, hearing that her husband has secretly got a concubine, gets people to kidnap Kiều and forces her to become her slave. Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng) doesn’t do anything so crude, so primitive. Everyone else is dull and helpless next to her. 

These are such excellent chapters, full of fun. She is one of the best-written female characters, and characters, I’ve encountered in literature. 

2/ There’s no denying that Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng) is cruel, but in the earlier blog post I wrote that I was on her side because Giả Liễn (Jia Lian) is in the wrong—he secretly gets a second wife while in state mourning and family mourning; he also gets a second wife without telling his first wife, shortly after his first wife had a very bad, possibly life-threatening miscarriage and can no longer have children; he even talks about wishing she were dead… 

Cao Xueqin writes so well that I may sympathise and side with, even just for a brief moment, a character I find absolutely cruel, heartless, and two-faced. 

3/ Chapter 69 becomes more complex as Giả Liễn (Jia Lian) comes back from his work trip and his arsehole of a father adds fuel to the fire by awarding him with a chamber wife called Thu Đồng (Autumn). 

This is where I must pause to note that there’s a distinction between a concubine and a chamber wife (Hawkes’s translation): a concubine is officially married, such as Vưu Nhị Thư (You Erjie); a chamber wife is not, and not much above other servants, such as Bình Nhi (Ping’er/ Patience) and Thu Đồng (Autumn).

In Hong lou meng, Giả Xá (Jia She) and Giả Chính (Jia Zheng) and many other men have multiple wives, and Cao Xueqin throughout the novel has depicted the dynamics between the wives and between the children, especially in the case of Triệu di nương (concubine Zhao), who is always jealous and full of resentment. Her son Giả Hoàn (Jia Huan) shares her pettiness and meanness and is liked by nobody but her, while her daughter Giả Thám Xuân (Jia Tanchun), the phoenix born in the crows’ nest, is always embarrassed of her and has to be more watchful of her own words and actions than the other young people. She is an excellent and clever girl but her marriage prospects would be hampered by her status as daughter of a concubine.  

In these chapters, Cao Xueqin goes even further—it’s bad enough that several women have to share a man, imagine if you’re the concubine and the main wife is vicious, brutal and at the same time manipulative like Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng). Imagine the dark games she plays. Imagine how Vưu Nhị Thư (You Erjie) suffers. 

Not only so, Vưu Nhị Thư (You Erjie) has to live in a house where the chamber wife Thu Đồng (Autumn) is an aggressive little bitch, the mother-in-law Hình phu nhân (lady Xing) cares about nobody but herself, the matriarch is gullible and quite dumb, and the husband is a piece of shit who at first neglects her to spend time with the new one and later cannot do a thing to defend or protect her. The only one kind to her is Bình Nhi (Ping’er/ Patience) but there isn’t much she can do, as a servant. 

Vương Hy Phượng’s (Wang Xifeng) true colours come out here, especially in the last moments. There are some readers out there who adore her, but if they read to the end of chapter 69 and still feel the same, there is no hope. 

4/ I note that Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng) is dishonest in her prayer to Buddha. Nothing is sacred to her.  

5/ Now you would ask, what about the young people while all this is happening? Here is something curious. 

Here’s the English text by David Hawkes: 

“Bao-yu and the girls were privately concerned about Er-jie. Though none of them would venture to speak out openly on her behalf, they all of them felt sorry for her. Sometimes, when no one else was about, one or other of them would get into conversation with her.” (Ch.69) 

Here’s the Vietnamese text: 

“Chị em ở trong vườn như bọn Lý Hoàn, Thám Xuân, Tích Xuân đều cho Phượng Thư là có lòng tốt, chỉ có Bảo Ngọc, Đại Ngọc một số người lại lo thay cho chị Hai. Tuy họ không dám nói ra, nhưng trong lòng đều thương xót và thỉnh thoảng lại thăm nom chị ta.” (Ch.69) 

My translation of the Vietnamese text: 

“The sisters in the garden like Li Wan, Tanchun, Xichun all thought that Xifeng was kind, only Baoyu, Daiyu, and a few people worried about Erjie. Even though they didn’t dare to say it openly, they all felt sorry for her and visited her from time to time.” 

Is that not strange? I don’t know what the original says.

However afterwards, apart from Giả Liễn (Jia Lian) and perhaps Bình Nhi (Patience), the only one who feels grief is Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu). People die, life goes on, and the young people in the garden return to writing poetry and doing their things (like playing kites) in chapter 70. 

Cao Xueqin has done this before—a dramatic thing happens only to vanish away quickly, leaving barely any ripples in the later chapters. But this time I don’t think it quite works. The psychological abuse of Vưu Nhị Thư (You Erjie) takes place for a few months, it isn’t a sudden event like the thing with Kim Xuyến (Golden). Even though a few months pass, is it not cold still that the young people just move on with their lives as though nothing happened?  

Update: I’ve just read David Hawkes’s preface and appendices in volume 3. There seem to be lots of textual problems and continuity errors in chapters 64-69, mostly to do with Giả Liễn (Jia Lian) and timing. It’s possible that the story of Vưu Tam Thị (You Sanjie) is grafted onto the novel at a very late stage, without the timing issue being fixed. It’s rather messy. 

Hong lou meng: chapters 24-27, servants’ names, demons, Daiyu

1/ In chapter 24, 2 new servants are introduced. 

The first one is Uyên Ương (Yuanyang), a servant of Giả Mẫu (Jia Mu) the grandmother. She becomes Faithful in David Hawkes’s translation, but the name means “mandarin duck”, a symbol of fidelity and lifelong affection in Chinese culture (and also in Vietnamese and Japanese cultures).

What Hawkes does with names in Hong lou meng is that he goes for pinyin for all the characters who are not servants (the Yangs’ translation uses the Wade-Giles system instead), and loosely translates names of servants. 

Tập Nhân (Xiren) becomes Aroma but her name doesn’t mean that literally. Her real name is Hoa Trân Châu (I don’t know the pinyin)—Hoa means “flower” and Trân Châu means “pearl”. Because of her last name, Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) gives her a new name, with Tập Nhân (Xiren) meaning “assails men”, because it comes from a line of poetry. Here’s the line in Sino-Vietnamese: 

“Hoa khí tập nhân.” (Ch.3) 

In English: 

“The flowers’ aroma breathes of hotter days.” (Ch.3) 

That’s why her name becomes Aroma in Hawkes’s version. 

Another maid of Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) is Tình Văn (Qingwen). Her name, according to wikipedia, means “sunny multi-coloured clouds”. In Hawkes’s version, she is Skybright. 

It is quite messy so here’s my list of the main servants: 

Tập Nhân (Xiren)= Aroma 

Tình Văn (Qingwen)= Skybright 

Xạ Nguyệt (Sheyue)= Musk 

Tử Quyên (Zijuan)= Nightingale 

Tuyết Nhạn (Xueyan)= Snowgoose 

Bình Nhi (Ping’er)= Patience 

Hương Lăng (Xiangling)= Caltrop

Uyên Ương (Yuanyang)= Faithful

Thu Văn (Qiuwen)= Ripple

Bích Ngân (Bihen)= Emerald 

Dính Yên (Mingyan)= Tealeaf 

The last one is Bảo Ngọc’s (Baoyu) page boy. 

2/ The second servant introduced in chapter 24 is Tiểu Hồng (Xiaohong). There’s an interesting detail that is missing from David Hawkes’s translation as he removes an entire line about her name—her last name is Lâm (Lin) and her first name is Hồng Ngọc (Hongyu), but because the word Ngọc (Yu) in her name would clash with Ngọc in Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) and Đại Ngọc (Daiyu), so she has to change her name into Tiểu Hồng (Xiaohong), which means “little Hong”—“little Red”.  

Her real name means “red jade”. 

It is interesting to note that her name is very similar to another name: Lâm Hồng Ngọc (Lin Hongyu) and Lâm Đại Ngọc (Lin Daiyu). 

Đại Ngọc means “black jade”, the kind of thing women use to draw their eyebrows. 

3/ A few people have said that in The Tale of Genji, there is no evil. There is callousness, aggressiveness, force, kidnap, rape, jealousy, deceit… but no malice, no cruelty, no evil. There is revenge, but it is done by ghosts and spirits, not humans. 

In Hong lou meng, in contrast, there is lots of cruelty and malice, lots of falseness and hypocrisy, lots of jealousy and hate and pettiness. There is lots of pettiness and resentment in it, perhaps more than any other novel I have read, not only between the Giả (Jia) family and other families or between the members and in-laws of the family, but also among the servants. Vú Lý (nanny Li) resents Tập Nhân (Aroma), for instance. Thu Văn (Ripple) and Bích Ngân (Emerald) bully Tiểu Hồng (Crimson) for pouring tea for Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu), which she isn’t fit for (as she’s not one of his maids). 

The worst kind of pettiness is of course not between the servants as there isn’t much for them to gain or lose, “the competition” isn’t strong. The worst is between the family members themselves—a society that allows polygamy and has inequality and strict hierarchy naturally creates envy and resentment. 

I don’t think this means that Cao Xueqin has a harsh and negative vision of life. Rather, I think the novel reflects Chinese society—you see this kind of pettiness and malice a lot in Chinese films. 

4/ Chapter 25 has a rather silly scene with the demons possessing Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) and Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng), but the chapter is terrific with the reappearance of the Buddhist monk and Taoist priest that we have seen at the beginning of the novel. It is a marvellous scene, especially with the things they say about happiness and misery in life, and the briefness of life. 

The Vietnamese translation I think is much better than the English translation, not because of any fault of David Hawkes’s but because of the nature of the language. 

Without the supernatural elements and philosophical aspect, chapter 25 would simply be about a concubine harming others out of jealousy, reminiscent of Raise the Red Lantern, but there’s more. Hong lou meng is, as I said before, at its best, its most exhilarating when it moves to the world of dreams, the world of the supernatural. Cao Xueqin’s novel is much more than a novel of manners, or a family novel. 

5/ Cao Xueqin doesn’t refer to passing time in a clear, consistent way as Murasaki Shikibu does in The Tale of Genji, so sometimes he mentions a new season, a festival, or someone’s birthday, but it’s not quite clear how much time passes. We know in chapter 25, however, that 13 years have passed since the monk and the Taoist priest last met the stone, so according to the Chinese age reckoning, Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) should be 14. 

He drinks way too much for a 13-year-old though (I’m switching back to today’s system of age reckoning). What an alcoholic. 

That raises an important question however: how old was he when he first had sex in chapter 6, with Tập Nhân (Aroma)???    

6/ In these chapters we are introduced to Giả Vân (Jia Yun) and Phùng Tử Anh (Feng Ziying). The former is son of the 5th sister (in-law)—it’s not quite clear who that is—but the guy calls Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) uncle, even though he’s about 4 or 5 years older. The latter is a friend of Tiết Bàn (Xue Pan) and Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu). 

I expect both of them to become more important later on, especially between Giả Vân (Jia Yun) and Tiểu Hồng (Crimson). 

The people in this world don’t have much to do so they just play around and then look for people to bang. 

The mention of Tiết Bàn (Xue Pan) reminds me of something else—it’s strange how this guy has beaten a guy to death and paid nothing for it, and everyone in the family still treats him like nothing happened. 

7/ There’s a passage in chapter 27 that I found a bit confusing, in the conversation between Thám Xuân (Tanchun) and Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu). I had to look at the English version to realise that what looked like a mistake was not a mistake—Thám Xuân (Tanchun) talks like dì Triệu (auntie Zhao) is her auntie because she sees herself as daughter of Vương phu nhân (lady Wang) and doesn’t like the pettiness of her mother and her brother Giả Hoàn (Jia Huan). 

8/ There is a moving scene at the end of chapter 27 and beginning of chapter 28, of Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) sobbing among fallen flowers and reciting a poem about flowers and the fragility of life. Already saddened by the misunderstanding about Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu), she looks at the fallen flowers and thinks of her own orphaned lot, and her own death in the future.

This scene shows that Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) is not just over-sensitive and touchy over trifles, but she does have sensibility. The scene also truly establishes for the first time that she and Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) are very similar. Imagine someone else encountering her instead, like Tiết Bàn (Xue Pan)! Or Giả Liễn (Jia Lian). 

I should note though, that there’s some slight difference in tone between the Vietnamese text and the English text by David Hawkes. 

For example, in chapter 27, there is a scene where the girls are celebrating the festival and Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) is nowhere to be seen so Bảo Thoa (Baochai) volunteers to go look for her. However, on the way she comes across Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) and starts thinking, then she changes her mind and goes back without seeing her. This is what she thinks to herself about Đại Ngọc: 

“‘… And Dai-yu, at the best of times, is always so touchy and suspicious.’” 

This is the same line in the Vietnamese text: 

“‘… vả chăng Đại Ngọc tính nết nhỏ nhen, lại hay ghen ghét…’” 

The phrase “tính nết nhỏ nhen” means “petty, narrow-minded, small-minded”; “hay ghen ghét” means “jealous, envious, hateful”. The words here are much stronger, harsher. I don’t know which rendition of this specific line is closer to the original (though I think the 2 translations are based on different versions of Hong lou meng). 

On the way back, Bảo Thoa (Baochai) happens to overhear Tiểu Hồng (Crimson) and a little servant talking about Giả Vân (Jia Yun). As the 2 servants suddenly decide to open the door and Bảo Thoa (Baochai) doesn’t want to have some annoying trouble with them, she decides to create a false scent by pretending that she just saw Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) nearby. Here is what the girls say to themselves after she’s gone. 

“‘If it were Miss Bao that had heard us, I don’t suppose anything would,’ said Crimson, ‘but Miss Lin is so critical and so intolerant. If she heard it and it gets about—oh dear!’” (ibid.) 

This is the same line in the Vietnamese text: 

“‘Cô Bảo nghe thấy chẳng sao, chứ cô Lâm miệng hay xoi bói, bụng hay khe khắt, nghe thấy mà đi nói tung ra thì làm thế nào?’” 

If you think of using Google Translate for this line, forget it. You have to trust me when I say that the Vietnamese line says the same things but has a much more negative tone. The word “critical” is not a very harsh word—it can be a neutral word, and when it’s negative, it’s not as negative in tone as some other words such as “judgmental”, “scathing”, “censorious”, etc. The word “intolerant” can be a stronger word, but “hay khe khắt” in Vietnamese means “harsh, severe, stern” and has a more negative tone. 

Overall I think the Vietnamese text has more tone and voice in dialogue, especially when a character is being sarcastic. However, when we get to that scene at the end of chapter 27, the Vietnamese text didn’t make me like Đại Ngọc (Daiyu) more. Somehow the scene made me think of Kiều coming across the abandoned grave of Đạm Tiên and starting to cry, in Truyện Kiều—which is meant to depict her as sensitive but which makes her appear silly and sentimental. 

The same scene in David Hawkes’s text is much more moving.  

It’s odd. 

Hong lou meng: chapters 5-8, the dream, fate, ugly aspects of Chinese culture

1/ My last blog post about Hong lou meng wasn’t very positive, but chapter 5 is where things get interesting. As it happens, I like realist novels but like it even more when there is a spiritual aspect such as in the works of Lev Tolstoy and Murasaki Shikibu—in their works there is a sense of transcendence, a sense of something beyond material life. Something similar can be found in Hong lou meng—Cao Xueqin starts the novel with mythology and the story of the Sentient Stone, then tells the story of the stone on earth as Giả Bảo Ngọc (Jia Baoyu) and moves between the real world and the world of dreams. But even the real world is like a long dream. Everything returns to nothing. 

2/ In chapter 5, Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) takes a nap in the room of Tần Khả Khanh (Qin Keqing) and dreams that he meets a character that David Hawkes translates as “fairy”. The word “fairy”, I think, is the only option that David Hawkes has—the Chinese fairy is very different from the Western fairy (like the Chinese dragon and the Western dragon are completely different animals).  

You should google “tiên nữ” or “仙女” or “Chinese fairy” to get an idea. 

3/ For many years I have mostly read Western novels so it’s curious and funny to see that the East Asian classics I’ve read this year, Truyện Kiều and The Tale of Genji and now Hong lou meng, have lots of sex. 

There’s even a wet dream in chapter 5! 

Interestingly, the first time Giả Bảo Ngọc (Jia Baoyu) has sex is in a dream and it gets a lot more attention than when he does it the first time in the real world, with his servant Hoa Tập Nhân (Hua Xiren, called Aroma in David Hawkes’s translation). 

4/ Apart from Confucianism, which is the basis of the society that Cao Xueqin depicts, the 2 main philosophies in Hong lou meng are Buddhism and Taoism (Kenneth Rexroth has called The Tale of Genji a Buddhist novel and Hong lou meng a Taoist novel). I myself know next to nothing about Taoism. 

I expect that in Hong lou meng, I most likely would struggle with the same ideas that have caused me trouble in Truyện Kiều (The Tale of Kieu): Confucianism and the idea of fate and karma. That wouldn’t necessarily hinder my appreciation of the novel—I have to struggle with Christian ideas when reading Russian novels—so we’ll see. 

If in Truyện Kiều, Kiều meets the ghost of Đạm Tiên in a dream and gets told about her fate, in Hong lou meng chapter 5, Giả Bảo Ngọc (Jia Baoyu) meets a fairy from Thái hư ảo cảnh (The Land of Illusion) and happens to see the registers of Kim lăng thập nhị thoa (the 12 beauties of Jinling), which tell the fates of women in Jinling (now Nanjing), but he doesn’t understand them. He also listens to 12 khúc Hồng lâu mộng (the 12 songs of the suite “A Dream of Golden Days”) but again doesn’t understand them. That’s a lot more obscure and subtle, and more dream-like, than in Truyện Kiều. In Truyện Kiều, as I have pointed out, Kiều knows she has a bad fate and would meet Đạm Tiên again at Tiền Đường river, but has everything that happens been predestined as she believes, or does she, in her superstitious and gullible ways, follow and enact Đạm Tiên’s words? In Hong lou meng, Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) has seen the registers but doesn’t understand them, he doesn’t know his or anyone’s fate—he doesn’t even know he’s a reincarnation of a Sentient Stone. 

5/ In chapter 1, the character Chân Sĩ Ẩn (Zhen Shiyin) faces lots of family calamities and one day meets a mad monk and, upon understanding Hảo liễu ca (translated by David Hawkes as the Won-Done song), understands everything and leaves the world to join religion. Is that celebrated by Cao Xueqin? I’m not sure, it seems to be. But is it something to be celebrated when his daughter Anh Liên (Yinglian) has been kidnapped and is nowhere to be found and he leaves his wife behind to handle everything by herself? 

Or maybe it’s too early to discuss it and I have to return to this subject later. 

Anh Liên (Yinglian) reappears in chapter 7 as a servant under the new name Hương Lăng (Caltrop). 

6/ There are 4 girls named Xuân (Chun) in the Giả (Jia) family, meaning “spring”.  

The best way to see their relationship is to look at my family tree.

The oldest one is Nguyên Xuân (Yuanchun), meaning “first spring”, who is Giả Bảo Ngọc’s (Jia Baoyu’s) sister by about a decade. 

The other 3, who so far tend to be grouped together), are: 

Nghênh Xuân (Yingchun), daughter of Giả Xá (Jia She), and Thám Xuân (Tanchun), daughter of Giả Chính (Jia Zheng) and half-sister of Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu), from the Vinh (Rong) house

and

Tích Xuân (Xichun), daughter of Giả Kính (Jia Jing), from the Ninh (Ning) house.  

Judging by my family tree, Tích Xuân (Xichun) is one generation below but I assume they are roughly the same age. 

Nguyên Xuân (Yuanchun) and Thám Xuân (Tanchun) are half-sisters, and they both are cousins of Nghênh Xuân (Yingchun). Tích Xuân (Xichun) is more distant. 

7/ Cao Xueqin/ the narrator only appears once in a while to remind us he’s there, and mostly appears at the end of every chapter to entice readers to read the next one. These lines are removed from the Vietnamese version. 

Cao Xueqin does tell, not only show, but doesn’t really comment on the characters or the action.

In chapter 6, there is a scene between Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng) and Già Lưu (Grannie Liu). The former is niece of Vương phu nhân (Wang Furen) and Tiết phu nhân (Xue Furen) and wife of Giả Liễn (Jia Lian), and takes care of everything in the house—she is sharp, well-mannered, shrewd, but also shrewish. The latter is an old woman who comes to ask for help, as a distant relative—she is mother-in-law of a guy called Cẩu Nhi (Gou-er). 

Through dialogue and manners, Cao Xueqin shows the huge difference in social position between the 2 characters, and also shows the hypocrisy of Già Lưu (Grannie Liu).

However, because the author depicts Chinese society as it is and I myself feel distaste for certain aspects of Chinese culture and tradition, a few things bug me—I’m talking about the Confucianism, about the hierarchy and order, about the sense that everyone has a place and must know their own place in society and in relation to others; I’m talking about the subservient and servile mindset, the kowtowing and grovelling behaviour of people towards their superiors. You see it in Chinese films. You see it in other Chinese novels. In Russian and other Western novels, there is class, there are poor people, there are servants and serfs, but you don’t really see such behaviour—not to the same extent. 

For instance, look at this moment when Bảo Ngọc (Baoyu) meets and likes a guy called Tần Chung (Qin Zhong), brother of Tần Khả Khanh (Qin Keqing) and therefore a poor relative. He suggests that Tần Chung (Qin Zhong) join his private school, and this is the reply: 

“‘…if you are really of the opinion that I could be of some service to you, even if it’s only grinding your ink or cleaning your ink-stone, do please arrange it as soon as you can…’” (Ch.7) 

That is a small example. Here’s a more extreme one, look at this passage about a servant named Tiều Đại (Big Jiao)—the speaker is Vưu Thị (You Shi), wife of Giả Trân (Jia Zhen): 

“‘When he was young he went with Grandfather on three or four of his campaigns and once saved his life by pulling him from under a heap of corpses and carrying him to safety on his back. He went hungry himself and stole things for his master to eat; and once when he had managed to get half a cupful of water, he gave it to his master and drank horse’s urine himself…’” (ibid.)  

I mean, what? 

Vưu Thị (You Shi) is explaining why the servant now gets special treatment and behaves badly but people just ignore it. Then Vương Hy Phượng (Wang Xifeng) says: 

“‘I know this Big Jiao all right’, said Xi-feng, ‘and I still say that you are too weak. You ought to send him away. Right away. Send him to live on one of your farms: that would put a stop to his nonsense!’” (ibid.) 

Cruel.

Intoxicated and angry, Tiều Đại (Big Jiao) starts cursing everybody and even hinting at incest among his masters and mistresses, so the other servants force him into the stables and: 

“Terrified out of their wits at hearing a fellow-servant utter such enormities, the grooms and pages tied him up and stuffed his mouth with mud and horse-dung.” (ibid.) 

These aspects of Chinese culture are the reasons I was uncertain about Hong lou meng before I picked it up. I’m more into the story now, but still can’t help noticing these things. 

8/ Hong lou meng is filled with dialogue. There is lots, lots of dialogue. I’ve noticed that in quite a few places where it’s dialogue (direct speech) in the Vietnamese version, in the English version by David Hawkes it is indirect speech (usually when it could be 1 or 2 sentences). I assume these are Hawkes’s changes for some variation. 

We don’t really have much access to the characters’ thoughts. In chapter 8 for example, there’s a moment where Lâm Đại Ngọc (Lin Daiyu) makes some snide remarks to her servant and we are told that Giả Bảo Ngọc (Jia Baoyu) knows she’s indirectly mocking him but laughs and pretends not to notice and Tiết Bảo Thoa (Xue Baochai) ignores because she’s used to it, but her mother Tiết phu nhân (Xue Furen) makes some protestations. That lets us know what they think but it’s more about what they do—ignoring Đại Ngọc (Daiyu)—than about their thoughts. The characters come alive through action and dialogue, like in a play. 

I have seen a few people compare Cao Xueqin to Jane Austen, but Austen doesn’t only write about manners. She does write characters’ thoughts, and when she writes about people and interactions, she not only writes about what things are but also about what things are perceived to be—Jane Austen’s interested in prejudice and perception and delusion. 

Cao Xueqin writes like a playwright. 

Comparing a scene from Truyện Kiều and Jin Yun Qiao

A few months ago I read and wrote about Truyện Kiều (known in English as The Tale of Kieu), Vietnam’s greatest literary work (click here for the first blog post). It’s an epic poem written by Nguyễn Du in the 19th century, based on a 17th century Chinese novel named Jin Yun Qiao (Kim Vân Kiều truyện in Vietnamese) by Qingxin Cairen (Thanh Tâm Tài Nhân). 

Just so you get an idea: Nguyễn Du in Vietnam has the same kind of importance and influence as Shakespeare in England or Pushkin in Russia, and if we have an Asian equivalent of the Western canon, Truyện Kiều would be part of it. Jin Yun Qiao wouldn’t. Nobody cares about Jin Yun Qiao—it is of interest only as the novel on which Truyện Kiều was based.   

I myself have not read Jin Yun Qiao as a whole, having little interest, but I have read some excerpts. The general consensus is that it’s a banal, unimportant novel that somehow inspired a poetic masterpiece in another country—Nguyễn Du took the general plot but elevated it to a completely new level, in terms of language, characterisation, psychological insight, themes, and moral vision, and also made significant changes to the characters and some plot details. 

I’ve just come across an article comparing the same scene in Truyện Kiều and in Jin Yun Qiao, and you know what, I’m traumatised.   

Here’s the context: Kiều is now married to Từ Hải, the third love of her life, who is at this point leader of a revolutionary army. Having now gained power, Kiều repays people who have been kind to her, and takes revenge on those who have harmed her. The scene is “the revenge”. 

In Truyện Kiều, the executions are reduced to a few sentences: 

“Lệnh quân truyền xuống nội đao,

Thề sao, thì lại cứ sao gia hình.

Máu rơi, thịt nát, tan tành,

Ai ai trông thấy hồn kinh, phách rời.”

Here is the translation by Michael Counsell: 

“… the executioner 

was told to use them as was right. 

All who beheld the sight

were terrified; the courtyard filled

with streams of blood which spilled 

from battered flesh before their eyes.” 

The same scene in Jin Yun Qiao is unnecessarily detailed and disturbingly graphic. 

Here’s the passage about Bạc Hạnh and Bạc Bà, translated into Vietnamese: 

“Phu nhân nói: Bạc bà đẩy người xuống giếng, Bạc Hạnh bán người lương thiện vào nhà xướng ca. Nay theo đúng lời thề trước của Bạc Hạnh, lấy dao vằm nát thân thể, rồi cho ngựa ăn, còn Bạc bà thì đem chặt đầu bêu lên cây. Đao phủ nghe lệnh dạ ran một tiếng, tức thì lôi Bạc bà ra chặt đầu, còn Bạc Hạnh thì dùng chiếu cỏ bó như bó củi, ngoài quấn dây thừng thật chặt, rồi hai người giữ, một người cầm dao (3), chặt từ chân lên đầu thành hơn trăm đoạn. Ghê thay một con người mới đó mà trong giây lát biến thành một đống thịt như bùn, người coi ai cũng hoảng hồn chết ngất. Bọn đao phủ vào bẩm đã thi hành xong, phu nhân truyền đem đống thịt trộn lẫn với cỏ để cho ngựa ăn.” 

These are the people selling Kiều into a brothel the second time in the story. 

I can’t find an English translation. To summarise, in the original, Bạc Hạnh gets tied up in a mat and has his flesh cut into little pieces, which get fed to horses, whereas Bạc Bà gets decapitated and her head gets stuck on a tree. 

Here’s the passage about Tú Bà (the woman in charge of the first brothel), her husband Mã Giám Sinh (named Mã Bất Tiến in the original), and Sở Khanh (the philanderer who tricks Kiều) in the original novel, translated into Vietnamese: 

“Bèn lệnh cho quân sĩ, lôi mụ Tú ra, lấy dầu bách tưới đẫm vào người, rồi dựng ngược cho đầu xuống đất, chân chổng lên trời, như ngọn đèn trời để làm tròn lời thề ngày trước. Còn tên Mã Bất Tiến thì kẹp chân tay vào mảnh gỗ cho thẳng căng ra, rồi rạch da và moi gân khiến cho tứ chi rời rạc, để ứng lời thề của nó. Lại nấu một nồi tùng hương trộn lẫn với vỏ cây gai, đun thật sôi và lấy chum nước lớn để bên, đem Sở Khanh ra, lột hết áo xiêm, một người thì múc dầu tùng hương đun sôi tưới vào mình hắn, một người thì lấy nước lạnh dội theo. Quân sĩ được lệnh lôi ba phạm nhân ra ngoài. Trong chốc lát, mụ Tú đã cuốn thành một cây sáp lớn, phía dưới chỉ lộ cái đầu. Mã Bất Tiến thì bị căng xác. Sở Khanh hóa thành một thỏi sắt nguội.

Đoạn rồi phu nhân hô to: “Đốt sáp”, quân sĩ đứng lên cao châm lửa vào chân mụ Tú. Mụ mới bị châm một mồi lửa đã kêu đau ầm ĩ. Phu nhân mắng rằng: Mi cũng biết đau ư? Cớ sao ngày trước mi nỡ lòng hủy hoại da thịt người khác? Mụ Tú chết ngất, không trả lời được nữa.

Kế đến Phu nhân hạ lệnh rút gân, xẻ thịt Mã Bất Tiến, lại lệnh cho quân sĩ lột da Sở Khanh. 

Nghe lệnh, quân sĩ tìm chỗ chùm gân, lấy mũi dao nhọn khoét da, rồi dùng lưỡi câu móc vào đầu gân, dùng sức lôi mạnh một cái. Mã Bất Tiến lập tức chết tươi. Quân sĩ rút thêm ba bốn cái gân nữa làm cho thi thể Bất Tiến rời ra từng mảnh. Phu nhân bèn sai quẳng xác ra biển cho cá ăn để đền tội bạc tình.

Còn Sở Khanh bị tẩm dầu tùng hương và keo vỏ gai, bên trong tuy vẫn còn sống nhưng bên ngoài không cựa quậy được. Quân sĩ chạy đến bóc miếng vỏ gai nơi đầu ra, thì da đã bị dầu tùng ăn loét ra, chẳng cần dùng đao kiếm, chỉ tuốt một cái thì lột hết da. Độ nửa giờ sau, thân thể Sở Khanh chỉ còn trơ lại một cục máu đỏ lòm nhưng vẫn còn thoi thóp. Phu nhân lại sai đem nước vôi rưới vào, tức thì toàn thân Sở Khanh nổi lên những cái bọt lớn. Chỉ trong chốc lát đã rữa nát thành mủ máu, rớt thịt trơ xương mà chết...” 

One would have to translate every single word to convey fully how nauseating, how brutal and fucked up the entire scene is, but I’m just going to summarise quickly: in the original novel Jin Yun Qiao, Tú Bà is drenched in oil (dầu bách hương—cypress oil?) then hung upside down like a lamp, turned into some kind of human wax, and burned from the feet down; Mã Bất Tiến (original of Mã Giám Sinh) has his limbs stretched in different directions by pieces of wood, his skin gets pierced, his tendons get cut then pulled apart with fishing hooks till he dies then his body is thrown into the sea to be food for fish; Sở Khanh gets soaked in burning oil (cypress oil?), then skinned alive, before they throw boiling water at his skinless body… 

Isn’t that just fucked up? How is this literature? It isn’t. Now look back at the subtlety in Truyện Kiều, look back at the way Nguyễn Du handles the scene. 

Another difference between Truyện Kiều and Jin Yun Qiao in this scene is that Hoạn Thư (the jealous woman, main wife of Thúc Sinh) is let go—Hoạn Thư says to Kiều that she’s just a woman, it’s normal that she gets jealous, nobody wants to share a husband, and Kiều, persuaded, lets her go unpunished.  

The original Kiều—Qiao—doesn’t let her go. 

Here’s the passage, translated into Vietnamese: 

“Vương phu nhân thấy mụ quản gia lãnh Kế thị đi rồi, bèn truyền lệnh cho cung nữ đem Hoạn Thư ra, lột trần áo xiêm rồi treo lên đánh một trăm trượng.

Cung nữ dạ ran, túm tóc Hoạn Thư lôi ra, lột hết áo quần, chỉ chừa lại một cái khố, tóc buộc lên xà nhà. Hai tên cung nữ mỗi tên túm một tay để lôi giăng ra, trước và sau có hai cung nữ khác cầm roi ngựa đồng loạt ra tay, một người đánh từ trên đánh xuống, một người đánh từ dưới đánh lên, đánh như con chạch rơi trên đống tro, con lươn trong vạc nước nóng, luôn luôn dẫy dụa kêu trời. Toàn thân chẳng còn miếng da nào lành lặn. Sau khi cung nữ báo cáo đủ một trăm roi, phu nhân truyền lệnh đem Hoạn thị  ra giao cho Thúc Sinh. Quân sĩ dạ ran. Cởi tóc Hoạn Thư mang xuống thì đã nửa sống nửa chết, mang ra ngoài cho Thúc Sinh nhận lãnh. Thúc Sinh luôn miệng tạ ơn, nhìn đến Hoạn Thư thấy chỉ còn thoi thóp thì than rằng: Nàng ôi, chỉ vì thủ đoạn, phương pháp lớn lao của nàng mà nàng mà phải tự cầm dao cắt thịt của mình… Rồi bèn gọi hai tớ gái là Xuân Hoa, Thu Nguyệt vào đỡ lấy Hoạn Thư. Thúc Sinh quay vào dinh tạ tội Phu nhân rồi ra ngoài một mặt thu nhặt thi thể Kế thị, một mặt mang Hoạn Thư về nhà chạy chữa đến nửa năm trời mới khỏi.” 

In short, Hoạn Thư is stripped down to only a loincloth and hung from the rafters by her hair, then receives 100 lashes—one beats her from above, another beats her from below, and when she’s taken down, she’s half alive half dead, and afterwards needs treatment for half a year. 

Some critics of Nguyễn Du’s Kiều argue that she’s so weak and gullible, Hoạn Thư once turned her into a slave and humiliated her in front of Thúc Sinh but now only has to say a few sentences and Kiều already lets her go. They also comment that Hoạn Thư doesn’t look bad in this scene, in the sense that she explains and argues her case but doesn’t beg, and doesn’t lose her shit like her weak husband Thúc Sinh does. 

But look at the original Qiao. What a brutal, vengeful, cold-blooded, inhuman, vicious bitch. 

It’s incredible that Nguyễn Du used such material and created something like Truyện Kiều. Truyện Kiều is full of humanity and compassion. Unlike that thing. 

Me at The Common Breath

Me being featured at The Common Breath: talking about Jane Austen, Murasaki Shikibu, Lev Tolstoy, Edith Wharton, Nguyễn Du, and some others: click here. 

The Tale of Genji: chapters 7-9, hierarchy, and relationships

My copy. 


1/ One may ask why Royall Tyler, as a translator, doesn’t pick a nickname for each character and stick to it, to make it easier for modern readers. This is his explanation about the social world of The Tale of Genji, and his decision to retain the way the narrator refers to the characters: 

“This feature of the original text has been retained to preserve the character and structure of the social world that the narrator brings to life. The fictional narrator speaks from within this structure, and for her, good manners require conventional discretion. As a gentlewoman to a great lady, she of course stands high in the overall population of her time, counting from peasants up, but peasants and so on do not belong to her world. Hers is that of the court, in which she has a modest place. Her language must acknowledge this place, and it must also convey the way her characters would think and talk about each other if they were real. 
To put it another way, the absence of personal names from the narration is another distancing device that screens a lord or lady’s person from the outsider’s gaze. […] The way the narrator refers to people affirms less their individuality than their position in a complex of communally acknowledged relations that was of absorbing interest to all. To give the characters invariant designations (in effect, personal names) would therefore be to shift the narrator’s courtly stance toward a modern egalitarian one.” 

2/ The baffling contradiction is that this social world has a strict hierarchy, but there are no real lines when it comes to sex and affairs. 
What I mean is that, in today’s world, there are certain lines—most people wouldn’t have sex with their first cousins, their best friend’s partner, or children. The world of The Tale of Genji doesn’t have such “rules”. 
If we look at Genji, he’s married to his first cousin (Aoi), and so far he has been involved with a married woman of lower rank (Utsusemi, the cicada woman), her stepdaughter—whom he stumbles upon whilst looking for Utsusemi (Nobika no Ogi, the reed woman), an older widow (the Rokujo Haven, the jealous woman), his close friend’s ex (Yugao, the twilight beauty, To no Chujo’s ex), an ugly and boring woman that he thinks has nothing to offer (Suetsumuhana, the red-nosed woman), his stepmother (Fujitsubo), her little niece (Murasaki), a staff woman of about 57-58 (Gen no Naishi), and his other stepmother’s sister (Oborozukiyo, the moon-at-dawn woman, sister of the Kokiden Consort). So much incest. 
(A note: the Kokiden Consort is the Emperor’s wife before he marries the Kiritsubo Haven and has Genji. Their son Suzaku is the Heir Apparent, who in chapter 9 becomes the new Emperor. After the Kiritsubo Haven’s death in chapter 1, the Emperor marries Fujitsubo). 
Is there anyone that Genji leaves alone? 
But it’s not just him. Genji’s close friend To no Chujo chases the old staff woman when knowing that Genji is doing so. In this society it’s apparently not a thing to stay away from your close friend’s lover. 
This world is messed up in other ways. For example, in chapter 8, Genji is involved with Oborozukiyo, who is intended for the Heir Apparent—i.e. her nephew. I mean, what? Is there no sense of order at all?  
Keeping track of these characters is difficult enough, and requires full immersion in the novel, but Murasaki Shikibu makes them distinct and memorable. It is keeping track of relationships—seeing how characters relate to each other—that is difficult. 
I have just realised, for example, that Genji and To no Chujo relate to each other in another way. We know that Genji is married to To no Chujo’s sister Aoi (their father is the Minister of the Left), so they are brothers-in-law. They are also cousins, because Genji is the Emperor’s son, whilst To no Chujo’s mother is Omiya, the Emperor’s sister. 
At the same time, To no Chujo is married to a daughter (Shi no Kimi) of the Minister of the Right, and the Minister of the Right is father of the Konkiden Consort, so To no Chujo’s father-in-law is Genji’s stepmother’s father.  
See the family tree I drew. 

In other words, To no Chujo is Genji’s brother-in-law, but also Genji’s stepmother’s father’s son-in-law. 
What did I just write? 

3/ Genji screws almost everyone at court, but in a discreet way, and he fears for his reputation. He often goes out in disguise, keeps Murasaki a secret, and needs others to cover up for him, such as Koremitsu’s handling of the Yugao situation or To no Chujo’s silence about his affairs. The Emperor doesn’t know about his flirtations and numerous affairs, and most people at court have an image of him very unlike his true character. Murasaki Shikibu, in a subtle way, contrasts the way Genji is seen by people not close to him, especially the Emperor, and the way he really is. She therefore makes the readers re-examine and see the irony in other people’s perception of Genji as wonderful and perfect. 
Genji is definitely portrayed as imperfect, but he’s not all bad either—he does care about his women instead of playing with their feelings and throwing them away. He has sensitivity and compassion, and tries not to hurt the feelings of the women he has slept with, even if he doesn’t care about them anymore, such as the reed woman or the red-nosed woman. 
In chapter 9, it upsets Genji when he hears about the skirmish between Aoi’s people and the Rokujo Haven’s people. He just wants the women to have peace, and nobody to get hurt. Later, when his first wife Aoi becomes pregnant and unwell, he understands his duty to her, but comes to tell the Rokujo Haven to make her understand and not feel neglected. Does he need to do so? Not really, but he chooses to, anyway, the same way he chooses to send expensive presents to the red-nosed woman and her gentlewomen. 
In chapter 4, and then chapter 9, we can see that Genji has depth of feeling, and sincerely cares for the women in his life. 

4/ One would ask, what about jealousy? Genji has so many women, there must be some jealousy. 
So far, the image of jealousy in The Tale of Genji is in the character of the Rokujo Haven. However, she is different from Hoạn Thư (Lady Hoan) in Nguyễn Du’s Truyện Kiều, who becomes an archetype in Vietnamese culture. 
Hoạn Thư’s jealousy is the possessiveness, anger, and malice of a first wife—she has more legitimacy and power, and looks down on the other woman (Kiều). In a similar positon in The Tale of Genji would be the Kokiden Consort, but she cannot compare to Hoạn Thư in cleverness and maliciousness, at least so far.  
The Rokujo Haven’s jealousy is the jealousy, misery, pain, humiliation, and bitterness of a lover—a neglected, helpless lover. As herself, she is helpless and does not dare to claim anything, but her jealous rage takes the form of a spirit to fatally attack other women, even while she’s alive. 
This is something I’ve never seen in a novel before, but it works so well in The Tale of Genji that it not only doesn’t appear at all out of place, but it also leads to such evocative images and powerful moments in the novel, especially in chapter 9.  
Why did Virginia Woolf, in her review of Volume I (Waley’s translation), think the novel lacked force? 

5/ To those unfamiliar with the story, I should note that Genji’s relationship with Murasaki is not based on paedophilia—he doesn’t have a particular interest in children, Genji is no Humbert Humbert. His attraction to her is because of her resemblance to Fujitsubo, his stepmother and her aunt, and his relationship with her is rooted in the idea of teaching and moulding her into a perfect wife. 
Genji sees Murasaki for the first time when she’s 10, and brings her home, but doesn’t have sexual relationship with her until chapter 9—when she’s about 14-15. In today’s understanding, she’s still a child, and most readers wouldn’t help feeling grossed out, but this is 11th century Japan. 
As I have said before, because this world is so alien and operates by such different rules that it’s hard to evaluate Genji’s actions and know Murasaki Shikibu’s thoughts about her characters and their world. However, we can see that other characters are shocked by his interest in the girl and disapprove of his abduction, and he himself has to keep it a secret for several years.  
We can also see that their first sexual experience is unexpected, shocking, and unpleasant to the girl, and that Genji doesn’t understand it. 
Valerie Henitiuk wrote an essay, comparing 3 translations, imagining a Genji translated by Virginia Woolf, and raising the question of male vs female translators: https://twitter.com/nguyenhdi/status/1267902864690642951
In it, she does write about the differences between the original and the translations regarding the scene with Murasaki in chapter 9.

The book, meanwhile, is getting better and better. 

Truyện Kiều: some other thoughts

1/ In Truyện Kiều, Nguyễn Du focuses on the eponymous character, but there’s another female character I’m curious about—her younger sister Thúy Vân. 
When the Vương family get into trouble, and their father and brother get arrested, Kiều decides to sell herself, and asks Vân to fulfil her promise with Kim Trọng by marrying him. Vân agrees. 
Is that not a sacrifice? 
For the entire story, we never have access to her thoughts and feelings. Near the end, when Nguyễn Du goes back in time and switches to the perspective of Kim Trọng to tell the story of the family after Kiều’s departure, we can see that they get married but Kim Trọng never forgets Kiều and still wants to search for Kiều. It is Vân who has a dream about Kiều’s first location (Lâm Truy instead of Lâm Thanh as everyone believed), which offers a clue for the search. At the reunion, it is Vân who suggests that Kim Trọng and Kiều get back together. 
But how does she feel about it? 
On 2 occasions at the beginning of the text, Nguyễn Du depicts the contrast between the sisters. The first time, standing at Đạm Tiên’s grave and hearing Vương Quan's account of her life, Kiều tears up, thinks about the fate of women in society (“Đau đớn thay phận đàn bà/ Lời rằng bạc mệnh cũng là lời chung”), and thinks about her own uncertain future. Vân doesn’t react that way, and thinks it’s silly of her sister to cry for someone dead (that she never knew). 
The second time, after the family calamity, Kiều cannot sleep that night—she knows she wants to save her family but struggles to choose between her duty as a daughter and her promise with Kim Trọng. It’s because of her sobs that Vân wakes up. 
For years, critics have read these 2 scenes to mean that Kiều has a sensitive soul and more depth of feeling, whilst Vân is shallow and carefree. But does it? Or does it suggest that Kiều is more sensitive but also more sentimental, with a tendency for self-fulfilling prophecy, and Vân has a calmer nature? 
Even if it’s true that Vân’s shallow, she knows that she’s a substitute and her husband never stops thinking about Kiều, how can we say that she doesn’t feel anything about it? Nguyễn Gia Thiều writes about a royal concubine’s loneliness in Cung oán ngâm khúc. Hồ Xuân Hương writes about the life of sharing a husband in her poetry. Even Nguyễn Du writes about the feeling of sharing a husband, through Hoạn Thư. Why do some critics assume that Vân feels nothing? 
I feel sad for Kiều, but also for Vân. 

Spoiler alert: those who want to read Truyện Kiều and do not want to know the plot are warned that I shall discuss significant plot points in the rest of the blog post. 

2/ When Kiều, with Từ Hải’s help, repays people who have helped her, the people she thanks are Thúc Sinh, Giác Duyên (the Buddhist nun), and the housekeeper at Hoạn Thư’s house. She forgets Mã Kiều, her benefactor at Tú Bà’s brothel.

3/ In an earlier blog post, I wrote that it’s remarkable that Kiều has 3 loves in her life. I like that Kim Trọng, Thúc Sinh, and Từ Hải are all different—Kiều falls in love with 3 different types of men at 3 different stages in her life, and her feelings for them are also different. 
Now that I’ve finished Truyện Kiều and counted—it turns out that Kiều marries 6 times! 
Throughout the story, Kiều gets married to Mã Giám Sinh (sham marriage), Thúc Sinh, Bạc Hạnh (sham marriage), Từ Hải, viên thổ quan—a local official (forced marriage), and Kim Trọng.
She’s also forced into prostitution twice. 
I can’t help thinking, how easy was it to get married back then? Did people not need to register their marriage or something? Did people have anything like divorce or just easily have another marriage? And how common were brothels that Kiều’s sold twice into them?
It’s no wonder that for years and even now, many men think that Kiều is impure and immoral, and Truyện Kiều shouldn’t be hailed as Vietnam’s greatest literary work*. The wonder is that Nguyễn Du, in his time—in a Confucian society, could sympathise with her and love her.


*: They’re wrong.

Fate and karma: the problem with ideas in Truyện Kiều

In writing Truyện Kiều (The Tale of Kieu), Nguyễn Du took the plot from Kim Vân Kiều truyện (Jin Yun Qiao), a banal and insignificant Chinese novel, and elevated it into a great literary work with his great poetry, characterisation, psychological insight, and moral vision. There are lots of ideas in Nguyễn Du’s work, but there are 2 main conflicting ideas that run through Truyện Kiều: fate (Confucian) and karma (Buddhist). 
2 central ideas, related to fate, are tài mệnh tương đố (conflict between talent and fate, i.e. a talented person must have a bad fate) and hồng nhan bạc phận/ hồng nhan bạc mệnh (a beautiful woman must have a bad fate), which are in the opening lines of Truyện Kiều: 

Trăm năm trong cõi người ta,
Chữ tài chữ mệnh khéo là ghét nhau.
Trải qua một cuộc bể dâu,
Những điều trông thấy mà đau đớn lòng.
Lạ gì bỉ sắc tư phong,
Trời xanh quen thói má hồng đánh ghen.

In Huỳnh Sanh Thông’s translation: 

A hundred years—in this life span on earth
talent and destiny are apt to feud. 
You must go through a play of ebb and flow
and watch such things as you make you sick at heart. 
Is it so strange that losses balance gains? 
Blue Heaven's wont to strike a rose from spite.

In Michael Counsell’s translation: 

It’s always been the same
good fortunes seldom come the way 
of those endowed, they say, 
with genius and a dainty face.
What tragedies take place
within each circling space of years!
‘Rich in good looks’ appears
to mean poor luck and tears of woe;
which may sound strange, I know,
but is not really so, I swear,
since Heaven everywhere
seems jealous of the fair of face. 

These ideas run through the story of Truyện Kiều, and the characters believe in them, especially Kiều herself. It should be added that fate (số, phận, mệnh) and karma (nghiệp) are crucial concepts in Vietnamese culture.  
For centuries Vietnamese people have been debating these ideas in Truyện Kiều: is Nguyễn Du’s work a demonstration of fate, or does Kiều will things to happen because of her belief in fate (or her superstition)? Is it fate, or is it Kiều herself? 
On the surface, it may look like the entire story demonstrates the concept of fate. At the beginning of Truyện Kiều, Kiều goes to a festival with her sister Vân and her brother Vương Quan, and notices a desolate, abandoned grave, which belongs to Đạm Tiên, who was once a courtesan. The ghost of Đạm Tiên appears to Kiều 3 times throughout her life, in her dreams.
The 1st time, Đạm Tiên warns Kiều of her unfortunate fate. The 2nd time, after a suicide attempt, Đạm Tiên says it isn’t time for Kiều to die, as she hasn’t paid her karmic debt, but they would meet again at Tiền Đường river. 
Kiều’s 15 years of adversity and suffering seem to reflect Đạm Tiên’s words, but does it necessarily prove that there is fate? Or does Kiều choose to sacrifice herself to save her family because of her firm belief that her fate would be bad anyway? Perhaps destiny is part of it—she sells herself to be a concubine, not a prostitute, but gets sold into a brothel, and many other bad things happen to her, but does her reaction to them not show a passive acceptance of fate, and a belief that she must suffer to pay karmic debt from the previous life? She and Đạm Tiên do meet again at Tiền Đường river, but is it fate, or does Kiều follow Đạm Tiên’s words and choose to drown herself, once she learns the river is called Tiền Đường?    
Kiều seems to think that everything is due to destiny and karma, but is it? Kiều doesn’t choose to become a prostitute at Tú Bà’s brothel, but later she does choose to trust Bạc Bà and Bạc Hạnh. She doesn’t choose to be abducted by Hoạn Thư’s people, but she does choose to run away later, so why doesn’t she run away earlier? She doesn’t choose what Hồ Tôn Hiến does to her, but doesn’t she choose to trust him and persuade Từ Hải? Not to mention, critics of Kiều often note the fact that she plays music for Hồ Tôn Hiến—a choice difficult to defend. 
Does Đạm Tiên tell Kiều’s future, or does Kiều choose to follow her words? 
Near the end of Truyện Kiều, Tam Hợp is correct to say that it’s up to Trời (Heaven) but also up to us. The philosophy in Truyện Kiều is a conflict between the Confucian idea of fate, meaning that everything has been decided, and the Buddhist idea of karma, meaning that everything is up to us—we must do good deeds to create good karma, and those who create bad karma would have to pay for it. But these 2 beliefs are not always in conflict—Kiều’s acceptance comes from her belief that her suffering is both because of fate, and because of karmic debt from her past life that she now has to pay, otherwise she would create more karmic debt for the next one.  
These beliefs are my problem with Truyện Kiều, or at least with Kiều. Even though Nguyễn Du might not have set out to demonstrate either fate or karma, these ideas exist in the work itself, and are repeated multiple times throughout the story by different characters. 
I don’t really believe in fate. I believe there are factors beyond human control, which could be fate, luck, or chance—we can’t choose where we’re born or which family we’re born into, for instance, and except for suicide, we can’t choose how and when we die, either. I believe that life is made up of many little decisions, and the decisions we make are because of who we are, as a person, but we still make our own choices. 
I don’t really believe in karma either. I believe in causality, in the sense that actions have consequences, but I don’t necessarily believe that those who do good deeds would get rewards and those who do bad deeds would receive punishments. I don’t think that suffering now is because of karmic debt from the previous life either—such beliefs may make it easier for some people to accept circumstances they cannot change, but do not work for me. 
This is why I’ve been wrestling with the ideas in Truyện Kiều. 
Even the idea of tài mệnh tương đố (talent and fate are in conflict, i.e. a talented person must have a bad fate) and hồng nhan bạc phận (a beautiful woman must have a bad fate) are problematic. From the beginning to the end, Nguyễn Du seems to use Kiều’s life to say tài mệnh tương đố and hồng nhan bạc phận, but is it really the case?  
Kiều’s life is full of misfortunes indeed, and it is understandable that a beautiful woman in a Confucian society must have an unjust, unhappy life. But is it not because of good looks and talents that Kiều is a favourite at Tú Bà’s brothel and gets special treatment? Is it not because of good looks and talents that she is saved twice from brothels, by Thúc Sinh and Từ Hải? Is it not because of talents that she escapes punishment by the judge, he approves the marriage between her and Thúc Sinh, and Thúc Sinh’s father accepts her? Is it not because of talents that Kiều gets some respect from Hoạn Thư, and Hoạn Thư makes life easier for her afterwards? 
Of course one can argue that without good looks, Kiều wouldn’t be sold into a brothel and wouldn’t make Hoạn Thư jealous, but we cannot dismiss either the fact that Kiều is saved several times because of her talents. Đạm Tiên, for example, seems to have been a courtesan her whole life.  
Ideas in Truyện Kiều are complex, Nguyễn Du sometimes seems to contradict himself. People have been debating for centuries, I’m new to the table—happy to be corrected. But of course, Truyện Kiều wouldn’t be a masterpiece if it could be reduced to something simple and everyone agreed.

Truyện Kiều: underneath the Confucianism

1/ In my brief blog post about Confucianism, I wrote that Truyện Kiều must be understood in light of Confucianism. Indeed, Truyện Kiều is a 19th literary work, based on a 17-century Chinese novel, which depicts a society shaped by Confucianism. 
For example, it’s because of filial piety that Kiều sells herself to save her father and brother, and because of loyalty that she asks Vân to fulfil her promise with Kim Trọng by marrying him instead; similarly, it’s because of respect for her sister that Vân agrees. From the modern perspective, these actions are difficult to understand, and one might say it’s one thing for Kiều to ask Vân and Vân to accept, but why does Kim Trọng go along with it? Readers must keep in mind that this was a different time, a different society. After all, my great grandfather never meant to marry my great grandmother—he was in love with her sister, but she passed away.  
However, it’s precisely because Truyện Kiều depicts a Confucian society, in which everyone must know their own place and perform well their own part, that it’s interesting to see a character cross boundaries and do something unconventional, or to see the hierarchy disrupted. 
Kiều, for instance, has 3 loves in her life: Kim Trọng, Thúc Sinh, Từ Hải. This is remarkable. It’s no wonder that for a while in Vietnam, many critics of Truyện Kiều called it pornographic and immoral. 
Kiều takes the initiative in her relationship with Kim Trọng. They meet at the festival and fall in love at first sight, and for 2 months, Kim Trọng is sick with infatuation but doesn’t know how to start a conversation with her even though they’re now neighbours and he’s schoolmate with her brother Vương Quan. It’s only when he finds her hairpin in a tree that he gets an excuse to start talking to her, and afterwards it’s always Kiều who comes to him—she goes to his house several times. The only time Kim Trọng comes to her is when he gets the news of a relative’s death and must go away for a while. 


2/ To save her family, Kiều sells herself to become Mã Giám Sinh’s concubine (in English: Scholar Ma). Then she follows him back to his province, and meets his main wife, Tú Bà (in English: Madame Tu). 
Imagine Kiều’s shock when Tú Bà changes their pronouns and roles, forcing her to address her as mother and Mã Giám Sinh as father. This is a society in which there is a hierarchy and each person has a clear role—Kiều and Mã Giám Sinh have had a wedding, and their wedding night, why does she now have to address him as father and his main wife as mother? As it turns out, Tú Bà runs a brothel and Mã Giám Sinh recruits prostitutes for her by pretending to look for concubines, and it is custom that the woman running a brothel to call her prostitutes her daughters. 
I had a brief look at Timothy Allen’s translation—he removes an important line, misrepresents the relationship between Mã Giám Sinh and Tú Bà (Mã Giám Sinh is not only a pimp working for her), mistranslates the kinship terms (he translates “mẹ” and “cậu” into “auntie” and “uncle”), and therefore downplays the significance of the scene, in which the roles are suddenly changed and Kiều doesn’t understand the change. It is a great deception, and the first step in Kiều’s 15 years of adversity. She sells herself only to be concubine, but ends up becoming a prostitute. 


3/ Confucianism dictates that women are inferior to men—a wife is inferior to her husband (see my blog post about Confucianism and the 3 Obediences and 4 Virtues for women). 
It is therefore interesting to look at 2 marriages in Truyện Kiều. 
In Mã Giám Sinh- Tú Bà marriage, Tú Bà is the one running the brothel. Once his job is done, he’s more or less dropped from the narrative. It is Tú Bà who hires Sở Khanh and creates a scheme to deceive Kiều, give her a painful lesson, and force her to yield. 
If we go back, it is clear that Mã Giám Sinh is quite afraid of her—at the beginning, he can’t resist sleeping with Kiều, because of her beauty, and thinks that if his wife finds out, it can’t be worse than being forced to kneel. That line clearly shows who’s dominant in the marriage. 
In the brothel, Kiều meets and falls in love with Thúc Sinh (in English: Student Thuc). He decides to buy her out of the brothel and marry her, but he already has a wife, Hoạn Thư (in English: Lady Hoan). They live together and have the happiest time of their life, but after a while, Kiều has to ask him to return home, inform his wife, and seek her approval. 
Hoạn Thư is an intelligent, artful, and cunning woman. Thúc Sinh returns home but doesn’t dare to mention his new concubine, thinking why he has to confess if she doesn’t ask. He doesn’t realise his wife is manipulative and calculating, and she plans to take a revenge on Kiều and teach him a lesson. Without spoiling the story, I will only say that so far Hoạn Thư is the most fascinating and vivid character in Truyện Kiều (followed by Tú Bà as 2nd), and in Vietnamese her name becomes a noun to refer to insanely jealous women. 
Thúc Sinh, for whatever reasons, doesn’t become a noun, but he is vividly drawn as a pathetic, feeble man, scared of his wife (“sợ vợ” is the Vietnamese term for “scared of one’s wife”). Before Hoạn Thư, he is weak and helpless, even when she humiliates Kiều in front of him. 
There can be many reasons—after all Thúc Sinh is (forever) a student, whereas Hoạn Thư comes from a rich, powerful family, and he is probably dependent on her. But I think he’s also weak by nature, and in some ways, deplorable. 

If you’re interested in other classics beyond the Western canon, especially East Asian classics, you should read Nguyễn Du’s Truyện Kiều.

Truyện Kiều and the 2 laments of the 18th century

This blog post is written for my non-Vietnamese friends who are interested in Truyện Kiều (The Tale of Kieu) and intend to read it in translation.

A literary work doesn’t exist in a vacuum—it is part of a tradition, and must be seen in context.   
Earlier on, I paused my reading of Truyện Kiều to read 2 important literary works in 18th century: Chinh phụ ngâm (Lament of a Warrior’s Wife) in chữ nôm by Đoàn Thị Điểm or Phan Huy Ích (still a debate), translated from chữ hán by Đặng Trần Côn (412 lines) and Cung oán ngâm khúc (Lament of a Royal Concubine) by Nguyễn Gia Thiều (356 lines). It should be added that Chinh phụ ngâm in chữ nôm isn’t seen as a translation, but as a literary work in its own right, and these 3 form the 3 most important classics in Vietnamese literature. 
As part of the Vietnamese literary tradition, which was itself influenced by the Chinese tradition, the poems are full of Chinese classical allusions, and conventions—for example, certain flowers are used to describe a woman’s beauty and delicacy (similar to conventions in Petrarchan sonnets). The allusions make the poems richer, as each line has layers of meaning, but sometimes Nguyễn Gia Thiều in Cung oán ngâm khúc or Nguyễn Du in Truyện Kiều packs lots of meaning, now obscure, into just a few words. The disadvantage is that I cannot read them, especially Truyện Kiều, without notes (see my tweet to have a general idea of how I’ve been reading Nguyễn Du’s work), and the translator sometimes chooses to weave the explanations into the translation itself, which is inelegant, and sometimes sacrifices the extra layer of meaning (see my tweets about the 4 acclaimed translations of Truyện Kiều—2 of them have no notes.). 
Reading Chinh phụ ngâm and Cung oán ngâm khúc, I can see their influence on Truyện Kiều, but it’s more interesting to see Nguyễn Du’s departure, and innovations. All 3 works were written in chữ nôm (the 1st writing system for Vietnamese), which was an important step for Vietnamese literature, but the 18th century poems were written in song thất lục bát form (7-7-6-8) whereas Truyện Kiều was in lục bát (6-8). As written before, the 6-8 is a Vietnamese verse form which is not strictly academic/ high class—it’s enjoyed by everyone in society, and most folk poems were in this form.
All 3 works place a woman in the centre—the authors write about the loneliness and suffering of a woman, but at the same time also say something more about women and Vietnamese society in general. For example, Chinh phụ ngâm is about the feelings of a warrior’s wife, and reflects the turbulent society in 18th century Vietnam. 
In Cung oán ngâm khúc, Nguyễn Gia Thiều must have been influenced by Chinh phụ ngâm in chữ nôm—like Đoàn Thị Điểm/ Phan Huy Ích, he writes a lament, chooses the song thất lục bát form, focuses on a woman’s perspective and feelings, etc. but he goes further. Cung oán ngâm khúc is more critical of the patriarchal society—Nguyễn Gia Thiều tells the story of an imperial concubine who enjoys the monarch’s favour at the beginning but is soon forgotten and left to live out her life in isolation. Even bolder, he doesn’t only write about the concubine’s loneliness—we can tell that she also misses sex, to put it crudely, but as one among many beautiful women, she’s just discarded. Nguyễn Gia Thiều’s poem is a critique of the patriarchal society as well as the vanity of worldly aspirations. 
Look at these lines from Chinh phụ ngâm: 

Cảnh buồn người thiết tha lòng 
Cành cây sương đượm, tiếng trùng mưa phun. 

In Phan Huy’s translation: 

The mournful scenes enhance my heart’s dejection,
Branches dewed with frost and insect’s buzz in rain.

The mournful scene reflects, and adds to, the woman’s sadness. 
Now see these lines from Cung oán ngâm khúc: 

Tình buồn cảnh lại vô duyên,
Tình trong cảnh ấy, cảnh bên tình này.

I cannot find a good translation of these lines and do not dare to translate them myself, but these lines find an echo in Truyện Kiều: 

Cảnh nào cảnh chẳng gieo sầu
Người buồn cảnh có vui đâu bao giờ? 

In Huỳnh Sanh Thông’s translation: 

But her own gloom would tinge each sight or scene, 
when you feel grief, can what you see give joy?

Different from Đặng Trần Côn (Chinh phụ ngâm), who writes gloomy scenes to reflect the character’s emotional states (think of the use of rain and storms in literature and cinema—rain conveys sadness, storms and thunder can mean rage or violent temperament, or create a sense of foreboding), Nguyễn Du learns from Nguyễn Gia Thiều to describe nature as appears to a character—to a gloomy person, a scenery, otherwise cheerful, now appears joyless and melancholic.  
There’s more influence. Another example is these lines from Cung oán ngâm khúc: 

Thôi thôi ngoảnh mặt làm thinh,
Thử xem con tạo gieo mình nơi nao.

In Phan Huy’s translation: 

I can do nothing but silently wait and see,
Whereto in the world destiny will bring me.

There’s an echo in Truyện Kiều: 

Cũng liều nhắm mắt đưa chân 
Mà xem con tạo xoay vần đến đâu? 

In Huỳnh Sanh Thông’s translation: 

She shut her eyes and headlong flung herself 
to see how far the Maker would roll her.

The word “destiny” and “the Maker” are translations of the same Vietnamese word in the 2 poems: “con tạo”, which means “tạo hóa”—the Creator, but the meaning in context is destiny/ fate. 
In short, there is influence of Chinh phụ ngâm and Cung oán ngâm khúc on Truyện Kiều, but compared to these poems, Truyện Kiều is on an entirely different level.
First of all, it is much longer. Chinh phụ ngâm in chữ nôm has 412 lines, Cung oán ngâm khúc has 356 lines, whereas Truyện Kiều is based on a novel and has 3254 lines. The story of Truyện Kiều has a span of 15 years. 
The 2 poems of the 18th century focus on the perspective of a single character—each lament is an internal monologue. Truyện Kiều switches between perspectives—Kiều’s is the main one, but sometimes Nguyễn Du switches to the perspective of someone else, such as Kim Trọng (her first love), Mã Giám Sinh (known as Scholar Ma in English translation), Hoạn Thư (Lady Hoan in English translation), etc. 
Nguyễn Du also gives each character a distinct voice. So far, I’ve found Tú Bà (Madame Tu) and Hoạn Thư (Lady Hoan) the 2 most fascinating and vivid characters, but I’m not sure how much of their voices is retained in translation. Truyện Kiều has great poetry, and also has a multiplicity of voices, all distinct and recognisable. 
This is a masterpiece. More should be said about the characters in Truyện Kiều, but I’m going to stop, for now. 



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