Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin

"Dream of the Red Chamber (Hong lou meng)" in Traditional (top) and Simplified (bottom) Chinese characters
Traditional Chinese	紅樓夢
Simplified Chinese	红楼梦

Composed by Cao Xueqin (Tsao Hsueh-Chin), Dream of the Red Chamber is one of China's Four Great Classical Novels, this version is translated and adapted from the Chinese by Chi-chen Wang.

Cao Xueqin Memorial Museum in Nanjing

Anchor Books Edition 1958
ISBN: 0-385-09379-9

From the publisher - For more than a century and a half, Dream Of The Red Chamber has been recognized in China as the greatest of its novels, a Chinese Romeo-and-Juliet love story and a portrait of one of the world's great civilizations. Chi-chen Wang's translation is skillful, accurate and fascinating.

The book cover image is from Pavilion Reflections at Sunset by Tao-chi (1641-c1710)

 

Dream of the Red Chamber, also called The Story of the Stone, or Hongloumeng (simplified Chinese: 红楼梦; traditional Chinese: 紅樓夢; pinyin: Hónglóumèng). The title has also been translated as Red Chamber Dream and A Dream of Red Mansions. The novel is most often titled Hóng lóu Mèng (紅樓夢), literally "Red Chamber Dream". "Red chamber" is an idiom with several definitions; one in particular refers to the sheltered chambers where the daughters of prominent families reside. It also refers to a dream in chapter five that Baoyu has, set in a "red chamber", where the fates of many of the characters are foreshadowed. "Chamber" is sometimes translated as "mansion" because of the scale of the Chinese word "樓". However the word "mansion" is thought to be an erroneous understanding of the phrase hónglóu, which should more accurately be translated as "chamber", according to scholar Zhou Ruchang.

The original version has somewhere in the region of 2100 pages, this one I have read is 329, apparently it is a good start to get the feel of the story and see who the main characters are, then go on to read the full version. It even has twice as many pages as War and Peace, it’s also one of the longest; the cast includes hundreds of characters in or related to the courts of two branches of a noble yet economically diminishing family in Beijing.

My thoughts,
         reading this book was sad, funny, tragic, and thoroughly entertaining, I couldn't put it down and this wasn't the 2000+ pages of the original book but an abridged version of only 329 pages. I now want to read the full printed version. This book is an excellent starter so you can get a overall understanding of the story. There is a cast of 100s and the use of different names sometimes made things confusing, I wrote down names, pet names and kept a record as I read, thankful I did this. As I say a thoroughly brilliant read, take the time out and enjoy. The full version would be great from a holiday read.