I left the characters of The Story of the Stone as
they were buying drapes and tablecloths for a party. I will rejoin the party planning momentarily.
The Story of the Stone is a massive domestic novel
about an extended family. The main plot
is the teenage love triangle, but that story takes place among an enormous,
sometimes baffling number of aunts, cousins, siblings, and servants, just an
unbelievable number of servants. Every
teenage aristocrat has a complement of personal servants, many of whom are
themselves major characters.
Anyone can become the protagonist for a chapter. The structure often feels like that of a
television drama, where each supporting character gets one feature episode per
season. At least that is how many dramas
worked in the old days, the 1990s; how would I know how they work now.
The Story of the Stone is also a Buddhist fairy
story. It is at the same time a
radically “realist” novel, innovative for Chinese fiction and nearly a century
ahead of European fiction. Yet it is
also about a magical jade stone and the boy who was born with it in his mouth, the
kind of Chosen One who is so popular in juvenile fiction today, but chosen for
what, exactly?
The tension or mismatch between the stark domestic
materialism of the novel and the dream-like fairy tale elements is unlike
anything I have ever seen. In a curious
scene, the hero Bao-yu is visiting the family of Aroma, his chamber-wife (his servant
and sexual partner – he is, what, 14 here, and she is 15?):
… she reached out and took the Magic Jade from his neck.
“Here’s something that will interest you all,” she said, holding it out to the others. “You know how often you’ve spoken about that wonderful jade of Master Bao’s and said how much you’d give for a look at it? Well, here it is! Now you can look to your heart’s content. There you are, that’s all it is! Not so wonderful, really, is it?”
They passed it from hand to hand, and when it had gone full circle and all had examined it, she hung it once more around his neck. (Ch. 19, 382)
Pure anti-climax. What
should be “wonderful” is just another bit of jewelry. The jade does save Bao-yu’s life at the end
of this first volume, when a magical monk last seen several hundred pages
earlier uses it to remove a witch’s curse from Bao-yu and his mother. I take, perhaps wrongly, the fortuitous
appearance of the monk as part of the fairy story and the witch’s curse,
purchased by an envious, villainous aunt, as part of the domestic realism.
As a sociological novel, a place to go for insight into
Chinese culture, I have no doubt that The Story of the Stone deserves
the label of “greatest.” All of the little
rituals and interpersonal relations, the hierarchies, the way the domestic
world interacts with the outside world, the pettiness, the crass money-grubbing,
the astounding clothes and furniture (the food is abundant but sadly not
described) – of course all of this is highly interesting. Is it artistically interesting, though? One more post, back to the teenagers, back to
that garden.
I borrowed another image from Wikipedia, this time one of a large album of scenes from the novel by late 19th century painter Sun Wen, one of those scenes where I wish I knew what they were eating.
I felt much the same when I read The Tale of Genji, but am trying to enlarge my knowledge of the history and culture of other nations. I have always read a lot of British history, but now I'm trying to learn about the history, geopolitics and culture of elsewhere. China, India and the middle east are all on my list, so as you say The Story of the Stone is detailed and interesting, that is enough for me to want to read it. I just love this blog, so thanks for every post you write.
ReplyDeleteIt took me a while to get into Hong lou meng, whereas the beauty of The Tale of Genji was immediately obvious. But over time, it's Cao Xueqin's book that has stayed with me.
ReplyDeleteSome of your complaints are things I did note on my blog: descriptions are lists, characterisation is done through dialogue, Cao Xueqin writes like a playwright, etc. I did also note that the characters are not as deep as, say, those in 19th century British or Russian novels.
And yet, the characters are so vivid and alive, perhaps because we spend so much time with them. The effect is slow and gradual. Cao Xueqin's main strength is in his range of characters and the compassion he has for them, but I think you will see more depth later on, in the real vs unreal theme. And the Taoist stuff.
The most complex character I would say is Wang Xifeng, but again, you will see it more later on.
Clare, thanks, how kind. I wish I knew of a book like Ivan Morris's The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan that would help me with Story of the Stone. I have not read the Morris book, but hope to read it soon. Maybe it will be no help at all. How would I know.
ReplyDeleteI am highly sympathetic to "Buffy starts to get really good in Season 3" kinds of claims. That is what I am assuming about Hong lou meng. What you are saying about the characters is an effect common in good series television.
You may well have read a more vivid text in Vietnamese. I am also open to that idea. Hawkes is pretty flat. Yes, that dialogue, it is often not so exciting.
Yeah, as I wrote under the other blog post, I think the Vietnamese translation has more tone & voice.
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