One Chinese Classic down, two to go! - "A Dream of Red Mansions"
I finished "A Dream of Red Mansions" recently. Very nice book, and a sort of suprise ending, considering how dark everything got up till the last, say, two chapters!
On the other hand, I guess it is terribly obvious that the last fourty chapters were written by somebody else. The writing (well, it is a translation after all...) stays mostly consistant, except for the use of a few odd phrases like 'in the future this would come to happen but we'll come back to that.' It is the plot that seems to waver undecidedly at times, and I believe that Cao Xueqin's original version might have had a darker ending in mind.
Anyway, I read through the whole book and still couldn't figure out who all the twelve beauties were supposed to be! I wonder if it's easier in the original, perhaps the hanzi look similar and it becomes sort of like a word game? I eventually found them all out thanks to a web site, but it's funny that I should have forgotten one of the major girls when I was trying to place characters here and there.
Poor Shi Xiangyun, I kind of forgot about her once Fanguan started making such a cute fuss here and there. I found it a shame that she was sort of cast off in the novel randomly when the nuns were pulled in. 'And as to the fate of those nuns? Who knows...' Thank you author!
I never did get attached to Qingwen as a character, so it kind of shocked me when a huge ado was made over her death. Although the scene werein she repairs the feathered cape was pretty good. But then, the only made who ever made an impact on me in Baoyu's house was of course, Xiren, who was probably my favorite character in the first half of the novel.
Poor, poor Xiren. Her character seemed to change so dramatically in the last 40 chapters, and not for the better. And her 'ending.' Bah! That was far too 'deus ex machina' for me. 'Oh, let's marry her off now that Baoyu is gone! Hey, we can marry her to that actor chap!' I will admit that there was some pretense for it in the 'sash exchange' but they could have had something else lead up to it, right?
Qiaojie is the other one I have a bit of a problem with. Now, it's not like you have to be a major character or anything, to be in the dream of red mansions, but she seemed to play such a small part, I was really suprised that she was in it. The chapter in which Baoyu was explaining about the great ladies of old (I found it fun to pick out the few names I remembered here and there!) was actually pretty cool, but it just seemed like she never made the jump to full-fledged character. Granny Liu was great though, for a bit of a 'clown' character!
Pinger too! Pinger was great throughout the whole novel, I was just always shocked and suprised to see how much she put up with and went through and was still nice and giving to people. Though she was a maid, I was kind of sad to see that she wasn't in the registers herself.
Anyway, it was a good book. As of now, I am two chapters into "Journey to the West." I figured beforehand that I would hate it, thanks to things like Dragon Ball (not that I hated it...) and Saiyuki. (which might not be as bad as I think...) But, so far it's actually pretty entertaining. We'll see if I overcome my misgivings.
Maybe sometime this week I'll pull out my Suikogaiden guides for some Suikogaiden/Red Mansions conspiracy theories!
Oh, one last little Red Mansions tidbit! Apparently, Beijing has a full scale Grand View Gardens, built from the descriptions of the book! Wow! That would be a heck of a place to see. A few travel guides say they shot part of the Red Mansions tv series here. (Speaking of things I want to see... ^_^ )
Ahem! Well, that's enough for now. I picked up Beyond Good and Evil (for the PS2) recently, by Ubisoft. That should be fun. Ubisoft makes pretty good games.
<(^^<) <( ^^ )> (>^^)>
On the other hand, I guess it is terribly obvious that the last fourty chapters were written by somebody else. The writing (well, it is a translation after all...) stays mostly consistant, except for the use of a few odd phrases like 'in the future this would come to happen but we'll come back to that.' It is the plot that seems to waver undecidedly at times, and I believe that Cao Xueqin's original version might have had a darker ending in mind.
Anyway, I read through the whole book and still couldn't figure out who all the twelve beauties were supposed to be! I wonder if it's easier in the original, perhaps the hanzi look similar and it becomes sort of like a word game? I eventually found them all out thanks to a web site, but it's funny that I should have forgotten one of the major girls when I was trying to place characters here and there.
Poor Shi Xiangyun, I kind of forgot about her once Fanguan started making such a cute fuss here and there. I found it a shame that she was sort of cast off in the novel randomly when the nuns were pulled in. 'And as to the fate of those nuns? Who knows...' Thank you author!
I never did get attached to Qingwen as a character, so it kind of shocked me when a huge ado was made over her death. Although the scene werein she repairs the feathered cape was pretty good. But then, the only made who ever made an impact on me in Baoyu's house was of course, Xiren, who was probably my favorite character in the first half of the novel.
Poor, poor Xiren. Her character seemed to change so dramatically in the last 40 chapters, and not for the better. And her 'ending.' Bah! That was far too 'deus ex machina' for me. 'Oh, let's marry her off now that Baoyu is gone! Hey, we can marry her to that actor chap!' I will admit that there was some pretense for it in the 'sash exchange' but they could have had something else lead up to it, right?
Qiaojie is the other one I have a bit of a problem with. Now, it's not like you have to be a major character or anything, to be in the dream of red mansions, but she seemed to play such a small part, I was really suprised that she was in it. The chapter in which Baoyu was explaining about the great ladies of old (I found it fun to pick out the few names I remembered here and there!) was actually pretty cool, but it just seemed like she never made the jump to full-fledged character. Granny Liu was great though, for a bit of a 'clown' character!
Pinger too! Pinger was great throughout the whole novel, I was just always shocked and suprised to see how much she put up with and went through and was still nice and giving to people. Though she was a maid, I was kind of sad to see that she wasn't in the registers herself.
Anyway, it was a good book. As of now, I am two chapters into "Journey to the West." I figured beforehand that I would hate it, thanks to things like Dragon Ball (not that I hated it...) and Saiyuki. (which might not be as bad as I think...) But, so far it's actually pretty entertaining. We'll see if I overcome my misgivings.
Maybe sometime this week I'll pull out my Suikogaiden guides for some Suikogaiden/Red Mansions conspiracy theories!
Oh, one last little Red Mansions tidbit! Apparently, Beijing has a full scale Grand View Gardens, built from the descriptions of the book! Wow! That would be a heck of a place to see. A few travel guides say they shot part of the Red Mansions tv series here. (Speaking of things I want to see... ^_^ )
Ahem! Well, that's enough for now. I picked up Beyond Good and Evil (for the PS2) recently, by Ubisoft. That should be fun. Ubisoft makes pretty good games.
<(^^<) <( ^^ )> (>^^)>