"If life is illusory like a dream or fiction, what are we to do with so engaging an illusion as fiction? ... The trajectory of the plot, since it follows Bao-yu's quest for deliverance from his sufferings, may tempt the reader to think that the novel supplies but a mimetic enactment of the Buddhist vision. If the analysis in the present study thus far is not far off the mark, however, then I believe that the "flavor" or "secret message" of the work lies in the differentiation between the Buddhist "reading" of the world and our reading of literary fiction. ... Whereas Buddhism draws from its "reading" the conclusion that detachment is the ultimate wisdom, the experience of reading fiction, at least according to our author, is nothing if not the deepest engagement. In Hongloumeng, therefore, the medium subverts the message, the discourse its language."
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Anthony C. Yu, Rereading the Stone: Desire and the Making of Fiction in Dream of the Red Chamber (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 149
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dream_of_the_Red_Chamber
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Dream of the Red Chamber
Dream of the Red Chamber (红楼梦 Honglou Meng), also called The Story of the Stone (石头记 Shitou Ji), composed by Cao Xueqin, is one of China's Four Great Classical Novels. It was written sometime in the middle of the 18th century during the Qing Dynasty. Long considered a masterpiece of Chinese literature, the novel is generally acknowledged to be the pinnacle of Chinese fiction.
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