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Rereading the Stone: Desire and the Making of Fiction in Dream of the Red Chamber.
The eighteenth-century Hongloumeng , known in English as Dream of the Red Chamber or The Story of the Stone , is generally considered to be the greatest of Chinese novels--one that masterfully blends realism and romance, psychological motivation and fate, daily life and mythical occurrences, as it narrates the decline of a powerful Chinese family. In this path-breaking study, Anthony Yu goes beyond the customary view of Hongloumeng as a vivid reflection of late imperial Chinese culture by examining the novel as a story about fictive representation. Through a maze of literary devices, the novel challenges the authority of history as well as referential biases in reading. At the heart of Hongloumeng , Yu argues, is the narration of desire. Desire appears in this tale as the defining trait and problem of human beings and at the same time shapes the novel's literary invention and effect. According to Yu, this focalizing treatment of desire may well be Hongloumeng 's most distinctive accomplishment.
Through close readings of selected episodes, Yu analyzes principal motifs of the narrative, such as dream, mirror, literature, religious enlightenment, and rhetorical reflexivity in relation to fictive representation. He contextualizes his discussions with a comprehensive genealogy of qing --desire, disposition, sentiment, feeling--a concept of fundamental importance in historical Chinese culture, and shows how the text ingeniously exploits its multiple meanings. Spanning a wide range of comparative literary sources, Yu creates a new conceptual framework in which to reevaluate this masterpiece.
Through close readings of selected episodes, Yu analyzes principal motifs of the narrative, such as dream, mirror, literature, religious enlightenment, and rhetorical reflexivity in relation to fictive representation. He contextualizes his discussions with a comprehensive genealogy of qing --desire, disposition, sentiment, feeling--a concept of fundamental importance in historical Chinese culture, and shows how the text ingeniously exploits its multiple meanings. Spanning a wide range of comparative literary sources, Yu creates a new conceptual framework in which to reevaluate this masterpiece.
- GenresChinaLiterary Criticism
344 pages, Paperback
First published August 29, 1997
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About the author
Anthony C. Yu
20 books22 followersFrom Wikipedia: Dr. Yu is a literature and religion scholar. He is currently the Carl Darling Buck Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago.
Best known for his four-volume translation of The Journey to the West, he coedited (with Mary Gerhart) Morphologies of Faith: Essays in Religion and Culture in Honor of Nathan A. Scott, Jr. He has also published Rereading the Stone: Desire and the Making of Fiction in “Dream of the Red Chamber.” His latest book is State and Religion in China: Historical and Textual Perspectives.
Best known for his four-volume translation of The Journey to the West, he coedited (with Mary Gerhart) Morphologies of Faith: Essays in Religion and Culture in Honor of Nathan A. Scott, Jr. He has also published Rereading the Stone: Desire and the Making of Fiction in “Dream of the Red Chamber.” His latest book is State and Religion in China: Historical and Textual Perspectives.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 5, 2017
One of the best works of "Redology" out there. Comprehensive yet focused, with a particular interest in the relationships between qing (情, roughly "emotion"), xing (性, "nature"), and yu (欲, desire). Overarching message is that we have to pay attention to the ways in which The Dream of the Red Chamber draws attention to its own fictionality; rather than looking for real life referents for every character, place, and event, Cao Xueqin would have wanted us to approach the novel as something constructed.
September 29, 2020
A couple points that this book gets right, and then a whole lot that it doesn't get right.
1) The discussion of the "fictionality" of the "Stone" is important. Sometimes that gets lost, particularly for those who view it as being an autobiography of the author (Cao Xueqin). It does have some biographical elements, but it is still a "novel" and "fiction," and the author plays with this concept of "real" versus "not-real", "fiction" versus "non-fiction," and the author's own self-reflexivity.
2) The discussions on "desire" (欲) and "passion/sentiment" (情) make some good points but the author tends to go on tangents, almost like a sort of "stream of consciousness." I also am not convinced that Prof. Yu quite *got* what Cao Xueqin's definition of "passion/sentiment" (qing) was.
I also have two major problems with Prof. Yu's work:
1) His prose is very difficult to follow unless you are of a similar academic stature. When I see the kind of language that he uses in excess (a little is not a bad thing), it gives me the impression that he was more interested in proving his own erudition, and in turn getting all the back-slapping attention and praise for his "penetrating analysis" or "revolutionary interpretations" from other self-important "scholars" who do the same. It's all BS. This is not a book that is in any form accessible to the average "Stone" reader; therefore, I don't see it as adding anything of particular value to the field.
2) Prof. Yu's greatest sin is trying to tie up his theses and arguments with examples from the final forty chapters, which are clearly forged. Gao E (or whoever was the author of the final 40 chapters, although it certainly wasn't Cao Xueqin's work, of which there is no disputing) had very different ideas on the core theme(s) of the novel and Cao Xueqin's original intent (which was a radical anti-traditionalism), and worse, brings the concept of "qing" (as well as "desire") back to a negotiated position within Neo-Confucianism. This is NOT what the author intended at all, and trying to argue that the original 80 chapters and (forged) final 40 chapters have any sort of consistent, running theme is just absurd and lazy scholarship (or lack of understanding of the subtleties and nuances of the novel, the Red Inkstone commentary, and previous "Stone" scholarship).
Very disappointing.
1) The discussion of the "fictionality" of the "Stone" is important. Sometimes that gets lost, particularly for those who view it as being an autobiography of the author (Cao Xueqin). It does have some biographical elements, but it is still a "novel" and "fiction," and the author plays with this concept of "real" versus "not-real", "fiction" versus "non-fiction," and the author's own self-reflexivity.
2) The discussions on "desire" (欲) and "passion/sentiment" (情) make some good points but the author tends to go on tangents, almost like a sort of "stream of consciousness." I also am not convinced that Prof. Yu quite *got* what Cao Xueqin's definition of "passion/sentiment" (qing) was.
I also have two major problems with Prof. Yu's work:
1) His prose is very difficult to follow unless you are of a similar academic stature. When I see the kind of language that he uses in excess (a little is not a bad thing), it gives me the impression that he was more interested in proving his own erudition, and in turn getting all the back-slapping attention and praise for his "penetrating analysis" or "revolutionary interpretations" from other self-important "scholars" who do the same. It's all BS. This is not a book that is in any form accessible to the average "Stone" reader; therefore, I don't see it as adding anything of particular value to the field.
2) Prof. Yu's greatest sin is trying to tie up his theses and arguments with examples from the final forty chapters, which are clearly forged. Gao E (or whoever was the author of the final 40 chapters, although it certainly wasn't Cao Xueqin's work, of which there is no disputing) had very different ideas on the core theme(s) of the novel and Cao Xueqin's original intent (which was a radical anti-traditionalism), and worse, brings the concept of "qing" (as well as "desire") back to a negotiated position within Neo-Confucianism. This is NOT what the author intended at all, and trying to argue that the original 80 chapters and (forged) final 40 chapters have any sort of consistent, running theme is just absurd and lazy scholarship (or lack of understanding of the subtleties and nuances of the novel, the Red Inkstone commentary, and previous "Stone" scholarship).
Very disappointing.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews