The Story of the Stone is one of the "Four Classic Chinese Novels." The value to the Western reader is that it provides great insight into the daily lives and culture of the Chinese Nobility in the 18th Century. Religion, which had been present but not prominent in the first four volumes of the Story of the Stone, becomes the driving force in the narrative in the second half of Volume 5.The problem for the Western reader is trying to figure out what to mark the Story of the Stone against. The first three volumes seem to be a Proustian tribute to a golden age of poetry experienced by the Wang-Jias a prominent clan of nobles who all live together in a huge compound. Volume four is Hubris as the family cut off from the world commit steadily more wicked and cruel actions leaving the floor strewn with the corpses of bullied servants, beaten concubines and innocent commoners. Volume Five starts out as Nemesis. Justice strikes. The bureaucracy discovers that two members of the family are guilty of fraud and lone-sharking. The police raid the Wang-Jia compound and confiscate most of the valuables they can find. Edicts then strip them of their estates.The Wang-Jias try to rally. They take stock and discover they are almost broke. They have been living beyond their means. Their stewards have been embezzling from them and their house servants have been constantly pilfering. Unfortunately, once they realize what their situation is, they are unable to take effective action. The women in the family were masters at bullying the maids and concubines but are totally incapable of dealing with their true problems. The extravagance continues. The men are simply witless. The two male members of the family implicated in the corruption are banished to Mongolia while the honest ones who stay behind simply wring their hands. Their influence is gone. At the end of Volume 4, they had had enough influence to prevent one of their family members who had murdered an innocent bartender in a drunken rage from being sentenced. In Volume 5, the case is re-opened. A concubine had been murdered in Volume 4. The police decide to investigate in Volume 5.Bao-Yu the hero who had been born with a magic jade talisman in his mouth and of whom great things had been expected proves to be a complete dolt. He moons over woman that he was not allowed to marry and refuses to consummate his marriage with the bride that his family had selected for him.The Wang-Jias seem to be at the nadir of their fortunes like Job when a mysterious monk arrives with the Bao-Yu's missing Jade Talisman. Bao-Yu leaves with the monk to visit the land of the dead. He returns without his talisman but has a sense of purpose. He consummates his marriage and then starts studying for the civil service examinations.Bao-Yu performs brilliantly on the exams. The emperor reads his composition which prompts him to re-consider the judgements against the family. The murderer is pardoned. The two fraudsters are allowed to return from exile and the family's estates are restored to them.Bao-Yu then disappears. A family member meets another phantom-monk who explains that Bao-Yu had been the reincarnation of a Buddha immortal who had wanted to experience human tribulation. Having restored the family fortunes through his remarkable performance on the exam and having fathered a male heir for the Wang-Jias, he no longer had anything to do with the living and so his family would never seen him until again until the afterlife. The phantom-monk then warns the Wang-Jias that they lost everything through wickedness and that they would never fully recover what they had lost unless they practiced virtue. Finally the phantom-monk explains to them that the physical world is not real. Only the spirit world is real.Thus the interminably long Story of the Stone finishes with a flourish. I will know look for some Chinese friends to explain to me what I missed which is presumably quite considerable.Do your homework before launching into this massive work.
The last of five volumes that comprise "The Story of the Stone". Because no single volume really stands alone in this massive story my review will stand for all five.I rated the first volume, "The Golden Days" with only 3 stars because it starts so slowly and requires practically the entire book just to learn the names of the principal characters and to understand their relationship to one another. I tempered that rating at the time, however, with the belief that once the story developed it would prove to be much more significant. That view proved accurate. This is truly a worthwhile read, one in which the reader becomes fully involved by the time the story ends. Indeed, after roughly 2,500 pages one hates to say good-bye to the principal character, Bao-yu, and the myriad of characters who surround him.I won't endeavor to summarize this story; it is simply too involved for the space provided by a brief review. However, one does come away with a clearer view of Buddhist/Taoist/Confucian philosophy (assuming one knew little or nothing about them to start with). The story is framed by the legend of a stone that was rejected in the rebuilding of the vault of heaven (an allusion to the bibical "stone that the builders' rejected" in the building of King Solomon's Temple?), brought down from heaven by a Buddhist Monk and a Taoist, and incarnated into the body of the principal protagonist, Bao-yu. Within this frame the book investigates illusion v. reality, life v. a higher existence. Bao-yu finds himself in the crosshairs of a struggle between his severely Confucian father and his principle of duty, and the Buddhist/Taoist ideal of a higher purpose. Of this I'll say no more. One must read five volumes to get at the outcome of this tug-o-war. A comment of another sort, however, is appropriate. This is also a story about a prominent Chinese family in decline. As the story progresses it is reduced almost to penury. The reader constantly is bombarded by the question, "what's going on here? What is causing this decline?" Because I read this story in the midst of the U.S. (indeed the world's) economic decline I couldn't help but note obvious parallels that clearly speak to us today, speak in fact of the human condition. Again, I'll say no more. The books speak for themselves.If you lack patience or perseverence it's probably best to forego this one. However, for those willing to embark on a rewarding journey these five books are well worth the effort. It hasn't been called the most important work of literature in the Chinese language for nothing.
What do You think about The Dreamer Wakes (1986)?
And so the Dream of Golden Days draws to a close, and along with it the story of the Jia family - their decadent and luxurious lifestyle, subsequent fall from grace, and their eventual restoration. As this volume's subtitle tells, Jia Baoyu achieves the realisation that his life and its passions are but an illusion and the debts of fate foreshadowed in the first volume are finally repaid in full. The fifth volume, translated by John Minford and edited by Gao E, systematically and at times predictably completes the lives of the numerous characters; by now though, the story feels somewhat repetitive: Baoyu is thought mad, Baochai admonishes him, Lady Wang and the older women bemoan their fate, the servants are either greedy and traitorous or bemoan their masters' fates. Yet this is not a damning indictment of Cao's masterpiece - just symptomatic of Gao E having trouble re-assembling the story after Cao's death. I enjoyed the novel and the previous four volumes. They offered an enlightening window into traditional Chinese life during the Qing Dynasty for a wealthy family: their day-to-day lives, homes, literature, beliefs, etc. The translation by Hawkes and Minford is an excellent addition to the English canon and does justice to this sweeping novel. Altogether, I give the complete series 5 STARS. And now to re-read it once more...
—James
I would give this series as a whole a rating of 4 stars, because I really loved the first three books and the world that was built there. The last two books became less interesting, probably because the original author hadn't finished writing them and the work was taken over and added to by a later editor. The characters became flatter and less like human beings, all the details that had been there in the beginning to make you see and feel this strange world had disappeared, and I have to say that the ending felt flatter than I had expected from the hints that were dropped in the first parts.
—Asa
The change in authorship is very evident here as is a tendency to want to tidy everything up. It's not exactly a disappointing conclusion, but I had the sense that I could have written it it, or indeed, anyone who had read the first 3 volumes. That mysterious feel of an intelligence guiding events from behind the scenes and moving everything towards a conclusion you can't even imagine is gone. Instead the narrative builds on what you already know and heads toward a predetermined conclusion that feels arbitrarily plucked from a host of possibilities. Still very much worth reading all 5 volumes, however.
—Joanna
