Story of the Stone
May. 31st, 2009 12:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
polutropeWell, after 5 books, 120 chapters,186 named characters, and 2338 pages, I've finished The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber.
It's about the life and times of an 18th century Chinese family, the Jias, who have many too many relatives and servants, because we're supposed to be able to keep track of each of them, their histories, and their family relationships. It's really a fascinating look into a culture very different from ours, and I've learned some interesting things, like the status of children of concubines (not much different from children of real wives, but they were lower in rank and received fewer presents), how much marriage sucked for pretty much everyone if your spouse was unkind, and way more than I needed to know about intra-house politics. But the most important thing I learned was that everyone¹ in 18th century China had way too much time on their hands. Their drinking games aren't "if you haven't done x thing, take a drink" - they're "if the dice happen to indicate you, compose a poem in a pre-established meter with a pre-established rhyme, incorporating the common house-hold object² that the person before you will choose." And then if the poem isn't good enough, you finish the whole cup.
And then they start making puns based on each other's names.
The books were rather unevenly balanced in terms of mood.
Book I: Happy drinking games and poetry club; Bao-yu (the main character, a rather dissolute young man) has a household full of female maids and cousins and is friendly with all of them. Dai-yu (his cousin) gets angry at some inconsequential thing.
Book II: Happy drinking games and more of same; foundation of poetry club.
Book III: People get sick. Drinking games. Some cousins are married off and are miserable. Relatively main character dies.
Book IV: Drinking games. In-house politics. People die; relative is accused of murder. Bao-yu takes ill, is engaged to his cousin Bao-chai; Dai-yu dies of sorrow because she thinks Bao-yu deserted her.
Book V: Servants convince Jia She, Bao-yu's father to misuse his post as provincial official to get more money. They are found out; the government raids the house and confiscates everything; it is found that the family is deeply in debt; Grandmother Jia dies. One of the cousins is starved to death by her husband. Bao-yu passes his test and disappears.
Oh, and people get ill pretty much every ten pages. And somewhere in there is "Xue Pan (a relative of some sort)'s wife tries to rape Bao-yu, who apparently has 0 sexual desire.³"
To sum up, best quote ever: "But surely, if Mr. Bao was really a Buddhist Immortal, what need was there for him to bother with passing his exams before disappearing?"
What need indeed.
---
¹ok, everyone rich
² these being rich people, it was usually something like "pot of cassia" or "jade ornament"
³ which is not to say that he should show some there, just in general he doesn't have any.
It's about the life and times of an 18th century Chinese family, the Jias, who have many too many relatives and servants, because we're supposed to be able to keep track of each of them, their histories, and their family relationships. It's really a fascinating look into a culture very different from ours, and I've learned some interesting things, like the status of children of concubines (not much different from children of real wives, but they were lower in rank and received fewer presents), how much marriage sucked for pretty much everyone if your spouse was unkind, and way more than I needed to know about intra-house politics. But the most important thing I learned was that everyone¹ in 18th century China had way too much time on their hands. Their drinking games aren't "if you haven't done x thing, take a drink" - they're "if the dice happen to indicate you, compose a poem in a pre-established meter with a pre-established rhyme, incorporating the common house-hold object² that the person before you will choose." And then if the poem isn't good enough, you finish the whole cup.
And then they start making puns based on each other's names.
The books were rather unevenly balanced in terms of mood.
Book I: Happy drinking games and poetry club; Bao-yu (the main character, a rather dissolute young man) has a household full of female maids and cousins and is friendly with all of them. Dai-yu (his cousin) gets angry at some inconsequential thing.
Book II: Happy drinking games and more of same; foundation of poetry club.
Book III: People get sick. Drinking games. Some cousins are married off and are miserable. Relatively main character dies.
Book IV: Drinking games. In-house politics. People die; relative is accused of murder. Bao-yu takes ill, is engaged to his cousin Bao-chai; Dai-yu dies of sorrow because she thinks Bao-yu deserted her.
Book V: Servants convince Jia She, Bao-yu's father to misuse his post as provincial official to get more money. They are found out; the government raids the house and confiscates everything; it is found that the family is deeply in debt; Grandmother Jia dies. One of the cousins is starved to death by her husband. Bao-yu passes his test and disappears.
Oh, and people get ill pretty much every ten pages. And somewhere in there is "Xue Pan (a relative of some sort)'s wife tries to rape Bao-yu, who apparently has 0 sexual desire.³"
To sum up, best quote ever: "But surely, if Mr. Bao was really a Buddhist Immortal, what need was there for him to bother with passing his exams before disappearing?"
What need indeed.
---
¹ok, everyone rich
² these being rich people, it was usually something like "pot of cassia" or "jade ornament"
³ which is not to say that he should show some there, just in general he doesn't have any.
