Psychological Novels

"The book contains 120 chapters, 235 male and 213 female characters. According to the Chinese critics it is unique of its kind. The plot is perfect, the style is finished. It is written in the language of the better classes of Peking at the time of its appearance. Also in this novel, according to the same critics, love is expressed in the most perfect way. Who knows how many readers, men as well as women, have been moved to tears by the death of Ch'ing Wen and Tai Yu. Every feeling, every gesture in the book is natural."

"[At the beginning of the Red Chamber Dream], a Taoist monk found the story inscribed on a huge rock, which was the extra one left behind by the legendary goddess Nüwo when she was using 36,500 rocks to mend a huge crack in the sky, caused by a terrific fight of "Olympian" giants. This rock was one hundred and twenty feet high and two hundred and forty feet wide. The Taoist monk copied the story from the rock inscriptions, and when it came to Ts'ao Hsüehch'in's hands he worked at it for ten years and revised it five times, dividing it into chapters, and he wrote a verse on it:These pages tell of babbling nonsense, A string of sad tears they conceal. They all laugh at the author's folly; But who could know its magic appeal?At the end of the story, when one of the most tragic and deeply human dramas was enacted, and the hero had become a monk and the soul which had given him intelligence and capacity for love and suffering had returned to the rock as Nüwo left it thousands of years ago, the same Taoist monk reappeared. This monk is said to have copied the story again and one day he came to the author's study and put the manuscripts in his care. Ts'ao Hsüehch'in replied, laughingly: "This is only babbling nonsense. It is good for killing time with a few good friends after a wine-feast or while chatting under the lamp-light. If you ask me how I happen to know the hero of the story, and want all the details, you are taking it too seriously." Hearing what he said, the monk threw the manuscripts down on his table and went away laughing, tossing his head and mumbling as he went: "Really it contains only babbling nonsense. Both the author himself and the man who copies it, as well as its readers, do not know what is behind it all. This is only a literary pastime, written for pleasure and self-satisfaction.""

"I regard the Red Chamber Dream as one of the world's masterpieces. Its character-drawing, its deep and rich humanity, its perfect finish of style and its story entitle it to that. Its characters live, more real and more familiar to us than our living friends, and each speaks an accent which we can recognize. Above all, it has what we call a great story: a fabulously beautiful Chinese house-garden; a great official family, with four daughters and a son growing up and some beautiful female cousins of the same age, living a life of continual raillery and bantering laughter; a number of extremely charming and clever maid-servants, some of the plotting, intriguing type and some quick-tempered but true, and some secretly in love with the master; a few faithless servants' wives involved in little family jealousies and scandals; a father for ever absent from home on official service and two or three daughters-in-law managing the complicated routine of the whole household with order and precision [...]; the "hero," Paoyü, a boy in puberty, with a fair intelligence and a great love of female company, sent, as we are made to understand, by God to go through this phantasmagoria of love and suffering, overprotected like the sole heir of all great families in China, doted on by his grandmother, the highest authority of the household, but extremely afraid of his father, completely admired by all his female cousins and catered for by his maid-servants, who attended to his bath and sat in watch over him at night; his love for Taiyü, his orphan cousin staying in their house, who was suffering from consumption and was fed on bird's nest soup, easily outshining the rest in beauty and poetry, but a little too clever to be happy like the more stupid ones, opening her love to Paoyü with the purity and intensity of a young maiden's heart; another female cousin, Paots'a, also in love with Paoyü, but plumper and more practical-minded and considered a better wife by the elders; the final deception, arrangements for the wedding to Paots'a by the mothers without Paoyü's or Taiyü's knowledge, Taiyü not hearing of it until shortly before the wedding, which made her laugh hysterically and sent her to her death, and Paoyü not hearing of it till the wedding night; Paoyü's discovery of the deception by his own parents, his becoming half-idiotic and losing his mind, and finally his becoming a monk. All of this is depicted against the rise and fall of a great family, the crescendo of piling family misfortunes extending over the last third of the story, taking one's breath away like the Fall of the House of Usher."

"The easiest way to find out a Chinaman's temperament is to ask him whether he likes Taiyü more or Paots'a more. If he prefers Taiyü, he is an idealist, and if he prefers Paots'a, he is a realist."

"The Chinese, men and women, have most of them read the novel seven or eight times over, and a science has developed which is called "redology" (hunghsüeh, from Red Chamber Dream), comparable in dignity and volume to the Shakespeare or Goethe commentaries. The Red Chamber Dream represents probably the height of the art of writing novels in China, all things considered."

"In the Chinese novel Red Chamber Dream, the boy hero, a sentimental mollycoddle very fond of female company and admiring his beautiful female cousins intensely and all but sorry for himself for being a boy, says that, "Woman is made of water and man is made of clay," the reason being that he thinks his female cousins are sweet and pure and clever, while he himself and his boy companions are ugly and muddle-headed and bad-tempered. If the writer of the Genesis story had been a Paoyü and knew what he was talking about, he would have written a different story. God took a handful of mud, molded it into human shape and breathed into its nostrils a breath, and there was Adam. But Adam began to crack and fall to pieces, and so He took some water, and with the water He molded the clay, and this water which entered into Adam's being was called Eve, and only in having Eve in his being was Adam's life complete. At least that seems to me to be the symbolic significance of marriage. Woman is water and man is clay, and water permeates and molds the clay, and the clay holds the water and gives its substance, in which water moves and lives and has its full being."

"Hung Lou Meng, or The Dream of the Red Chamber...was written originally as an autobiographical novel by Ts'ao Hsüeh Ching, an official highly in favor during the Manchu regime and indeed considered by the Manchus as one of themselves. ... He never finished his novel, and the last forty chapters were added by another man, probably named Kao O. The thesis that Ts'ao Hsüeh Ching was telling the story of his own life has been in modern times elaborated by Hu Shih, and in earlier times by Yuan Mei. Be this as it may, the original title of the book was Shih T'ou Chi [The Story of the Stone], and it came out of Peking about 1765 of the Western era, and in five or six years, an incredibly short time in China, it was famous everywhere. Printing was still expensive when it appeared, and the book became known by the method that is called in China, «You-lend-me-a-book-and-I-lend-you-a-book». The story is simple in its theme but complex in implication, in character study and in its portrayal of human emotions. It is almost a pathological study, this story of a great house, once wealthy and high in imperial favor, so that indeed one of its members was an imperial concubine. But the great days are over when the book begins. The family is already declining. Its wealth is being dissipated and the last and only son, Chia Pao Yü, is being corrupted by the decadent influences within his own home, although the fact that he was a youth of exceptional quality at birth is established by the symbolism of a piece of jade found in his mouth. The preface begins, «Heaven was once broken and when it was mended, a bit was left unused, and this became the famous jade of Chia Pao Yü.» Thus does the interest in the supernatural persist in the Chinese people; it persists even today as a part of Chinese life. This novel seized hold of the people primarily because it portrayed the problems of their own family system, the absolute power of women in the home, the too great power of the matriarchy, the grandmother, the mother, and even the bondmaids, so often young and beautiful and fatally dependent, who became too frequently the playthings of the sons of the house and ruined them and were ruined by them. Women reigned supreme in the Chinese house, and because they were wholly confined in its walls and often illiterate, they ruled to the hurt of all. They kept men children, and protected them from hardship and effort when they should not have been so protected. Such a one was Chia Pao Yü, and we follow him to his tragic end in Hung Lou Meng. I cannot tell you to what lengths of allegory scholars went to explain away this novel when they found that again even the emperor was reading it and that its influence was so great everywhere among the people. I do not doubt that they were probably reading it themselves in secret. A great many popular jokes in China have to do with scholars reading novels privately and publicly pretending never to have heard of them. At any rate, scholars wrote treatises to prove that Hung Lou Meng was not a novel but a political allegory depicting the decline of China under the foreign rule of the Manchus, the word Red in the title signifying Manchu, and Ling Tai Yü, the young girl who dies, although she was the one destined to marry Pao Yü, signifying China, and Pao Ts'ai, her successful rival, who secures the jade in her place, standing for the foreigner, and so forth. The very name Chia signified, they said, falseness. But this was a farfetched explanation of what was written as a novel and stands as a novel and as such a powerful delineation, in the characteristic Chinese mixture of realism and romance, of a proud and powerful family in decline. Crowded with men and women of the several generations accustomed to living under one roof in China, it stands alone as an intimate description of that life."

"The reader's sympathy is usually with the deserving but unsuccessful one at marriage. Most readers sympathize with Taiyu in Red Chamber Dream for the same reason." At the word "marriage" Coral pricked up her ears and said, “What are you two talking about with so much interest? Talk louder and let us hear it." "I know," said Mochow. "Second Sister is talking about Red Chamber Dream, and her sympathies are with Taiyu." "Oh," said Tijen. "I know. Second Sister likes Taiyu and Third Sister likes Paotsa." "Whom do you like?" asked Sutan. "I like Paoyu," replied Tijen. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself—that effeminate young man!" said Mochow. To Sutan, she said, "Whom do you like best?" "I like the cousin Hsiangyun," said Sutan; "she is so boyish and romantic." "Bravo!" exclaimed Tijen. "Whom do you like best?" Mulan asked Lifu in her low, gentle voice. Lifu paused a moment, and said, "I don't know. Taiyu weeps too much, and Paotsa is too capable. Perhaps I like Tanchun best because she is a combination of both, with the talent of Taiyu and the character of Paotsa. But I don't like the way she treats her mother." Mulan listened silently and then said slowly, "Alas! No one is perfect in this world."

"[Dream of the Red Chamber] is an interesting social, psychological and emotional study. It is very objectionable because of the sentimental atmosphere, and must not be read by younger people."

"I remember a Chinese scholar who said: "If you wish to understand China at all, you must read her poetry and The Dream of the Red Chamber"."

"Dream of the Red Chamber or the Hung Lou Meng is the greatest of all Chinese novels and the first of its kind to break completely with the past. It is the first and only autobiographical novel in traditional Chinese literature, the first to give a true picture of the complexities of life in a large family, the first to show that love can be painful and end in tragedy. It reflects a distinctly personal point of view and has a unity of plot beyond that of mere chronology. Its characters are drawn with subtlety and truth, as its dialogue is faithful to the colloquial idiom..."

"看官：你道此書從何而起？說來雖近荒唐，細玩頗有趣味。"

"满纸荒唐言，一把辛酸泪！ 都云作者痴，谁解其中味？"

"他是甘露之惠，我并无此水可还。他既下世为人，我也去下世为人，但把我一生所有的眼泪还他，也偿还得过他了。"

"乱哄哄，你方唱罢我登场，反认他乡是故乡。"

"身后有余忘缩手，眼前无路想回头。"

"女兒是水作的骨肉，男人是泥作的骨肉。我見了女兒，我便清爽；見了男子，便覺濁臭逼人。"

"一双丹凤三角眼，两弯柳叶掉梢眉，身量苗条，体格风骚，粉面含春威不露，丹唇未启笑先闻。"

"座上珠玑昭日月，堂前黼黻焕烟霞。"

"潦倒不通庶务，愚顽怕读文章。"

"既熟惯，则更觉亲密，既亲密，则不免一时有求全之毁，不虞之隙。"

"世事洞明皆学问，人情练达即文章。"

"假作真时真亦假，无为有处有还无。"

"厚地高天，堪叹古今情不尽；痴男怨女，可怜风月债难偿。"

"枉自温柔和顺，空云似桂如兰。 堪羡优伶有福，谁知公子无缘。"

"玉带林中挂，金簪雪里埋。"

"才自精明志自高，生于末世运偏消。"

"富贵又何为？襁褓之间父母违。"

"欲洁何曾洁？云空未必空。可怜金玉质，终陷淖泥中。"

"一从二令三人木，哭向金陵事更哀。"

"桃李春风结子完，到头谁似一盆兰。 如冰水好空相妒，枉与他人作笑谈。"

"光摇朱户金铺地，雪照琼窗玉作宫。"

"开辟鸿蒙，谁为情种？都只为风月情浓。"

"都道是金玉良姻，俺只念木石前盟。空对着山中高士晶莹雪，终不忘世外仙姝寂寞林。叹人间，美中不足今方信；纵然是齐眉举案，到底意难平。"

"若说没奇缘，今生偏又遇着他；若说有奇缘，如何心事终虚化？"

"一个枉自嗟呀，一个空劳牵挂。一个是水中月，一个是镜中花。"

"却不知太高人愈妒，过洁世同嫌。"

"到头来，依旧是风尘肮脏违心愿。"

"機關算盡太聰明，反誤了卿卿性命。"

"家富人宁，终有个家亡人散各奔腾。"

"忽喇喇似大厦倾，昏惨惨似灯将尽。 呀！一场欢喜忽悲辛。叹人世，终难定。"

"留余庆，留余庆，忽遇恩人；幸娘亲，幸娘亲，积得阴功。劝人生济困扶穷，休似俺那爱银钱忘骨肉的狠舅奸兄。正是乘除加减，上有苍穹。"

"问古来将相可还存，也只是虚名儿与后人钦敬。"

"好一似食尽鸟投林，落了片白茫茫大地真干净！"

"‘意淫’二字，可心会而不可口传，可神通而不能语达。"

"莫失莫忘，仙寿恒昌。"

"不离不弃，芳龄永继。"

"白骨如山忘姓氏，无非公子与红妆。"

"彼时合家皆知，无不纳闷，都有些伤心。那长一辈的想他素日孝顺，平辈的想他素日和睦亲密，下一辈的想他素日慈爱，以及家中仆从老小想他素日怜贫惜贱、爱老慈幼之恩，莫不悲号痛哭。"

"忽又听见秦氏之丫鬟，名唤瑞珠，见秦氏死了，也触柱而亡。此事更为可罕，合族都称叹。"