The Golden Days (The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Volume 1)

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The Golden Days (The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Volume 1)
by Cao Xueqin, Hsueh-Chin Tsao, David Hawkes, O Kao, John Minford, Hsueh-Ch'in Ts'ao
from Penguin Classics

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

• Enter 18th Century China Through a Looking Glass
  This magical novel portrays a traditional society turned upside down: a boy who'd rather be a girl, women who are more powerful than men, and a faerie who delivers the most licentious of messages. Much of this panorama takes place within the tranquil gardens and hand-carved edifices of the Jia family mansions, where life is constantly in flux. Cao Xue-qin calls this The Land of Illusion, an ethereal contrast to the realm of the soul, where reality's as hard as rock but stones can talk; the author's... more info

• When the magic stone met the crimson pearl flower...
  The Dream of the Red Chamber (The Story of the Stone) starts off as an immensely long inscription on a miraculous stone which was copied out by a visiting man and taken down into the world for publication. Volume 1 gives the account of the magic stone's origin, renders the discourse redolent of a supernatural, mystical overtone. Once upon a time a piece of stone that was unworthy to be used for repairing the sky possessed magic power and ended up in the mortal world. The unhappy stone incarnated and lived... more info

• Best Chinese novel of all time!
  Well, in my opinion anyway. David Hawkes has done an amazing job translating this brilliant 18th-century novel into colloquial modern English. I have read all the translations-- this is my favorite novel, and this is by far the best version for an English speaker who just wants a good book. I can imagine that a Chinese reader could pick holes in this translation, as I could nitpick at a translation of Shakespeare-- the wealth of the original is impossible to transfer whole into another language and culture.... more info

• A good translation, but...
  The attractions of this translation are numerous -- which is fortunate for a book that, in total, weigns in at 2500 pages. Most people will enjoy the stylish prose and exquisite interjections of poetry, but you is urged to read sample pages before investing the full measure of your time. While entertaining and quite appealing, this translatoin has its flaws -- and they have been pointed out by several native Chinese translators. The prose is here littered wtih Briticisms that seem almost anarchronistic at... more info

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