http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/12/dream-of-the-red-chamber-cao-zuequin-chinas-favourite-novel-unknown-west?CMP=fb_gu
How is it?
Read it and tell us
It's good, but a lot of the reason it's not read in the West is that you need to understand Chinese allusions and puns. It's China's favourite novel because it's the basis of standardised Chinese which means you have to be able to understand it, unlike older works which were made obsolete by Redology.
Dissing Journey to the West while calling it Monkey makes me think that the author missed a lot of subtleties to the culture once he got his cheque for the translation advert.
It's a good book, but most of the reasons why it's so "well loved" are to do with politics and linguistics more than because it's the most universal of their stories, and those that aren't would probably be lost somewhat in translation.
I know Penguin released a Chuang Tzu book where they redacted elements of Chinese culture like the different kinds of ghosts as uninteresting to Western eyes, and erased most of the puns the translator tells you he enjoyed while translating it in the introduction, so I'm suspicious that they've done this one justice.
I read a 100 or so pages of an abridged version and didn't like it. The style of it: describing outfits, vases, courtyards, and all pointless unnecessary details (or of some cultural context I'm missing) bored me. I might try it again later.
chinese literature general? Thoughts about this book?
>>7694903
Not OP, but thanks for the insightful comment. I've never read any classical Chinese lit, but stumbled on "Six Records of a Floating Life" and Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" on amazon (both from penguin). Do you have any experience with either one? Would they be approachable for someone unfamiliar with Chinese culture?
And for a broader stroke, could you suggest some introductory texts to Chinese lit and/or history to better understand the lit?
>>7695066
I really don't know anything about those editions, sorry. Six Records I can tell you only contains four records in Chinese too. It's a good introduction to Chinese tradition in the era though and I'd say it's probably more easily translated because the imperial exam was in full swing at the time, and there's less divergent and local language than some.
For a babby's first introduction which might be too chick-lit basic, Adeleine Yen Mah has a series about her fucked up childhood, which is part autobiography and mostly explaining Chinese culture to Westerners. She covers the late 1930s onward, but also older traditions and her family history. Jung Chang is also famous for that kind of thing but she joined the Red Guard while Yen Mah became more westernised earlier. Both give relevant points about history and China changing from the period where the Imperial Exam was the entry to power, to when Communism took hold. i.e. the period after Six Records.
Falling Leaves and Chinese Cinderella for Yen Mah, and Wild Swans for Jung Chang.
To better understand earlier lit and history, the buddhists and Japanese are good, but I don't know many introductory texts on those, just the texts that stand out from those eras. Yen Mah explains the Imperial Exam period briefly if I remember correctly and you can look up The Great Learning and memorise those books if you want to know what it was like to be writing in 1800s China. It's a lot of history and regions to cover though so telling you to start with the buddhists is about as clear as start with the Greeks. Maybe some other anon knows some hefty book that would cover all of these.
>>7695149
Sorry, I completely forgot Yen Mah also wrote two non-fiction books on Chinese culture and traditions. I haven't read them, but her explanations in her autobiographies are accurate enough I'd say there's no harm in starting there.
