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.

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.

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?

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.