Tackling Two English versions of Dream of the Red Chamber

June 5th, 2007 by Lara

My first attempt at Dream of the Red Chamber was via the 1996 abridged translation by Hsien-yi Yang and Gladys Yang. I believe their approach is one in which they left out chunks of the actual text, but translated the rest very accurately. This resulted in my being really drawn in by dramatic events, like the way Hsi-feng deals with that over-lusty Chia Jui, or the big fight over Chia Lien’s adultery with Pao-erh’s wife. But sometimes starting new chapters would leave me feeling as if I’d just stepped off a cliff, since years seemed to have passed since the previous chapters’ events. And I was much more interested in Hsi-feng than in either Pao-yu or Tai-yu, who seemed tediously willful and relentlessly morose, respectively. The details of action were wonderful, in other words, but I missed the point overall.

But I know that this is the most popular book in Chinese history, and figure that 1.6 billion people can’t be wrong. So I’m determined to find out what’s so great about it.

So now I’m in the middle of the abridged translation by Chi-cheng Wang (1989), and what a difference! His approach is to transmit the whole thing, but to summarize big chunks, instead of leaving them out. So now I know that Pao-yu and Tai-yu are immortals sent to experience transient human existence, and can see Pao-yu’s resemblance to the Monkey King much better. Tai-yu still seems ridiculously drippy, but maybe that’s just me. The story line makes more sense, because Wang, bless his heart, has supplied both a genealogical chart of the Chia family, and he actually has footnotes explaining the puns on the Chinese names and how they reflect the plot, the significance of little actions or details that don’t make sense to someone outside Chinese culture, or how different versions of the book lead to different conclusions about the author’s intentions for the final chapters. And he consistently translates the names of the characters, which makes it easier for me to follow their actions. Great! So now I have a better overall view of what’s going on.

But ungrateful me; having read the Yang translation I know that the specific scenes and speeches that Tsao wrote are really punchy and exciting, qualities they lose in Wang’s more summary translation. So now it looks as though I have to turn to the 5-volume unabridged translation available from Amazon.com. Guess I know how I’ll be filling in my spare time for the foreseeable future.

4 Responses to “Tackling Two English versions of Dream of the Red Chamber”

  1. Avatarxgz
    1

    I recently read on a Chinese website that someone had proposed that the last 40 chapters were not simply “lost.” Instead, Tsao intentionally chopped them off (possibly to avoid censorship) and then embedded the story in the last 40 chapters along with the ending into the first 80 chapters. This is what the author/commentator meant by “caoshe huixian, fumai qiangli” (grass snake grey line, hide clues a thousand miles) in the comments on the margins of the original manuscript. It probably is impossible to translate both the story on the surface, the one that is being told, and the story hidden behind. The hidden story is embedded in people’s names, in shadow events (similar things happening twice), in poems written by the characters themselves, and also through apparent inconsistencies in the story details. Some of the characters’ ages don’t make sense or don’t change consistently with the number of years passed. In the past scholars simply attributed these inconsistencies to the author’s carelessness (hard to believe because the author spent 10 years doing nothing but working on this book). But now viewing them with the view of two stories intertwined together, it actually makes sense.

    This prompted me to go back and read the novel one more time. It seems the folded storyline idea is quite plausible. I don’t know how can anyone get these details into English with any degree of fidelity.

  2. AvatarLara
    2
    Author Comment

    Hm. It seems strange that an author would interweave his real last forty chapters through the first eighty, without a consistent series of clues! Has anyone tried sketching out the inconsistent story details into one separate volumn? I’d be interested to see what they came up with.

    This sounds implausible, like the accusation Christian fundamentalists used to make that if you played recordings of popular rock ‘n ‘roll songs backwards you could hear the lyrics of hymns to Satan. You’d have to have some idea of what hymns of Satan would be like to find them in the first place, of course.

    As a medievalist, I’d say that many inconsistencies probably crept in through mistakes in the copying and printing processes. Or maybe if you spend ten years working on the same project you forget that what’s in your mind may not match what’s on the page?

  3. Avatarxgz
    3

    It was the time when one could get his head chopped off for writing “清风不识字,” (“clear wind doesn’t know a word,” the word “clear” clashes with the name of the dynasty “qing”). The last 1/3 of the book could have contained something that could cause trouble for the author and his family.

    I am not talking about minor/incidental inconsistencies. In chapter 13, the funeral of Qin Keqing, one of the main characters that died very early on, is a major inconsistency. Qin Keqing was the wife of Jia Rong, a nephew of Baoyu. Jia Rong should be very low in the hierarchy of the family because he was a great grandson and did not have an official position. Yet his wife’s funeral was way out of proportion. It was the biggest funeral in the whole book, and was definitely not appropriate for a young wife of a rankless child of a feudal family. The coffin used the wood that an old King saved for himself. This was not just an inconsistency, it was unthinkable in a feudal society. As if the author was afraid that we still didn’t get the point, the funeral precession was attended by the Northern King! The only explanation is that this was describing someone else’s funeral. That would be one big clue the author gave us.

    A more clear indication of the folded storyline, is the death of Qingwen, one of Baoyu’s handmaiden. Qingwen looked strikingly like Daiyu. Qingwen was the only handmaiden who didn’t have sex with Baoyu. Qingwen’s death was sudden, very soon after she was expelled by Lady Wang. After her death, Baoyu wrote “芙蓉女儿诔” in her memory (chapter 78). There were two clues that Qingwen’s death was actually Daiyu’s death. First, before Baoyu wrote “芙蓉女儿诔” he had to write a poem for his father to memorialize a fictional heroine named Lin. Daiyu’s last name is also Lin. Second, 芙蓉 (lotus flower) symbolized Daiyu earlier in the book. So Baoyu was really mourning the death of Daiyu in this chapter. In other words, here Qingwen stood for Daiyu of a few years later. Qingwen’s death was Daiyu’s death folded back in time.

    There are other clues too. Several characters look alike, and there were many shadow events that were clearly meant to happen elsewhere or another time.

  4. AvatarBode
    4

    Wow, didn’t expect that Baoyu was having all the handmaidens too. I’ve only been able to guess at the lewdness coming through from the David Hawkes version (and the 1987 TV version). My Mandarin is nowhere up to reading it as anything other than an translation.

    The folded storyline elements did come through in the Hawkes version, but as I was watching the TV series last night another aspect of Qingwen’s persecution by Lady Wang came about. Wikipedia (of all places) indicates that Miaoyu appreciates Baoyu for following his heart in loving Daiyu openly. To me this seems more an example of Bayou’s carelessness with words and actions rather than simply love conquering all. Regardless, his affair with Daiyu is obvious to someone living in isolation in the garden so it would not have escaped the bitchy maid of Lady Wang who starts stirring resentment against Qingwen. Lady Wang may be getting the wrong end of the insinuation about whom Baoyu is openly loving and Qingwen gets taken down as a scapegoat as she looks similar to Daiyu. The maid, and the mistress either fear naming Daiyu and punish Qingwen because she is a handmaiden and a much easier target, or genuinely conclude that it is Qingwen who is seducing Baoyu.

    I’d be very interested in how salacious the original is. Hawkes, being English, has the doubt of being slightly prudish, and TV is generally censored about such things anyway.

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