On the greatness of The Story of the Stone - it is in a vigorous, somewhat staccato style

Some notes on The Story of the Stone, Volume 1: The Golden Days (c. 1760 or maybe 1792) by Cao Xueqin, the first of the five volumes of the Penguin edition of the greatest Chinese novel.

I don’t like writing about a book before I have finished it, but in a sense I did finish a book, right, so why not.  I am keenly aware that the novel has another 94 chapters and two thousand pages to go.  Well, 92 chapters, since I have begun the second volume.

From this text, I would never guess that The Story of the Stone is the greatest Chinese novel or even guess the grounds on which the claim could be made.  I will expand on that a bit.

“To hear you talk, it doesn’t sound as if all your years of play-going have taught you much,” said Bao-chai.  “This is an excellent play, both from the point of view of the music and of the words.”

“I can’t stand noisy plays,” said Bao-yu.  “I never could.”

“If you call this a noisy play,” said Bao-chai, “it proves that you don’t know what you’re talking about…  That means, musically speaking, that it is in a vigorous, somewhat staccato style.  In fact the musical excellence of this piece goes without saying.  But apart form that, the libretto is good, too.”  (Ch. 22, 435)

All references are to the landmark 1973 David Hawkes translation.

The Story of the Stone is, in large part, a teenage love triangle set in a fairy garden, a so-called Young Adult romantasy.  The characters above, magically-born Bao-yu and the perfect Bao-chai, are two-thirds of the love triangle.  Aren’t they adorable, what with their literary criticism?  Tragically, although Bao-chai loves Bao-Yu, he loves the third side of the triangle.

What is “great”?  The Story of the Stone is written in the vernacular rather than classical register, and had a significant effect on literary Chinese language, perhaps, as I take it, like Alessandro Manzoni’s The Betrothed (1827 / 1842) had on literary Italian.  All of this is invisible to me.

Visual artists have looted the novel for illustrations.  The characters and scenes are famous from paintings, prints, and film and television adaptations.  I assume comic books, too.  Potentially visible to me.  I should see if there is a book of artistic responses to the novel.  Please recommend if you know of such a thing.  The Wikipedia entry for The Story of the Stone has many interesting examples, one of which I borrowed, although it depicts a scene from the second volume of the translation.

Those are two objective reasons, a step removed from the text, for “great.”

Cao Xueqin’s language, as Hawkes writes it, is vigorous and somewhat staccato, often plain with lots of dialogue and minimal metaphor and scenes that would not be written so differently if they were in a play.  Descriptions are elaborate but reserved for clothing, furniture, and an extraordinary garden.  Descriptions often resemble, or are, lists.  Or inventories:

“Curtains, large and small, in various silks and satins – flowered, dragon-spot, sprigged, tapestry, panelled, ink-splash: one hundred and twenty. – Eighty of those were delivered yesterday. That leaves forty to come. – Blinds: two hundred. – Yes.  They all arrived yesterday. But then there are the special ones. – Blinds, scarlet felt: two hundred.  Speckled bamboo: one hundred. [skipping more kinds of bamboo] – Chair-covers, table-drapes, valances, tablecloths: one thousand two hundred of each” (17, 333)

Not the sort of prose I call great, yet I read this particular chapter with fascination.  But look how long I am running.  More tomorrow.  The garden, the poetry, and more teenagers in love.  “Each night I ask the stars up above / Why must I be a teenager in love?”  That is Dion, not Cao Xueqin, although it would make a good epigraph for The Story of the Stone.