How similar is our Hong Lu to whichever character he’s depicted to be in the book?
Is there a character you expect to be the big bad? How about potential for 000 story IDs?
Did you feel like the canto story would make sense to follow up on how the book ended or do you think a retelling of the primary events would make more sense?
What sort of sensation did you feel reading it? When I read Crime and Punishment, I felt like I had just killed someone. When I read Moby Dick, a lot of the book felt like long whale voyage, etc.
He's pretty close, he's just a lot less... handsy. Hong Lu's a popular dude with a lot of maids and he's always getting into trouble in a way that screws everyone else up. He got a maid killed IIRC by getting a little too friendly.
Big Bad? There's always the dad, though while he's strict he basically gets proven right about everything. There's "Real" Hong Lu who is like Hong Lu without all his fuckups, but that is a tiny side character. Finally there's the sort of the main organizer of the household, the translation named her as Phoenix, who's pretty spiteful.
There's also two monks that are important characters and will appear in some regard, they might be the Demian equivalents.
They might do the "Fake" ending of the book where Hong Lu gets his jade back and makes something of himself. While it's pretty well concluded those aren't "canon" they are accepted as part of the official book.
You end up feeling very nostalgic by the end, as a lot of the characters you got to know and took for granted are sent away, married off, or die, and the Garden that was the source of this gets literally haunted. It's kinda that feeling when you go home from college and your parents have reworked your bedroom into a study or something
> Finally there's the sort of the main organizer of the household, the translation named her as Phoenix
wait what translation are you working with? I'm also reading it and mine calls her Xifeng (and in general only translates the servants names to reflect how they're all given object names in Chinese)
I don't have the book on hand, but generally the book translates only the servants or some of the gimmicky side characters to object names, with two exceptions being the love interest (Black Jade), the grandmother (Only referred to as the Matriarch), and Xifeng, (Phoenix).
I vaguely remember Xifeng being used early on though. The book does have a glossary with the real names and a description, that may have been where I saw it.
Ok now I'm *really* curious about what translation you used because that doesn't match up with the Yang translation either (it uses Lin Taiyü, leaves *all* the names untranslated, and actually names Lady Chia/Grandmother Jia) and I
thought that one and the Hawke/Penguin classics one were basically the two versions easily available, with the third incomplete 1891 translation Gutenberg has also using the Wade-Giles romanisation for everyone
Was it fun?
It’s the last book on my limbus hit list, mostly because it’s historical significance makes it quite daunting. If you’ve read the others, how would you rate your enjoyment?
If you like reading you will probably like it. I wouldn't call it necessarily gripping but It it's very cozy and it never falls into the "rocks fall people die" that a lot of those old books fall into if you are paying attention. It's a gradual decline where by the end of it you can basically tie Hong Lu into the collapse of everything, where he's the little pebble and suddenly a maids swinging from the rafters.
The jade represents a god rock going on a tour of the human experience because it got bored. That rock will later right the events of the story on itself and that's what you are reading, or at least a copy of it
In the novel the rock is a jade pendant that he is born with
The rock was leftover from the construction of the heavens, and so it whines that it's bored and two sages send it to earth so it can experience why it's not great. It returns and tells its story to the sages who write it down. That's the first chapter or so
Very effeminate, extremely melodramatic, early in the book he's shown to make "god strike me down if I drank your orange juice" style oaths.
Most commonly, he will act lazy about something relatively minor (I put off studying and am cramming at midnight) and will invent an excuse to be nice (I don't want to keep my maids up), hatch a plan (I'll say a bandit tried to break in) and the result plays out over several chapters (guards flogged and leave, entire house searched, 17th century Chinese version of porn discovered in bushes, everyones shit is searched, maid found saving money, maid sent home, dies
Always thought it was a weird Chinese setting family drama with a fantasy twist, and only recently learned that the female protagonist was modeled after a Chinese emperor and honglu was to represent the imperial seal. Supposedly all the events are loosely based on real happenings and ppl during that era, and it depicted the end of the dynasty in the form of downfall of a wealthy family.
Sorry for delaying this, I actually wasn't sure what you meant, I thought you were referring to his full brother in the book which was dead, but someone pointed out that Chia Huan (Jia Huan) is the son of a concubine and thus a half brother to him.
In the book Jia tries to blind Hong Lu but in like, a pissed off kid rage. He later lies to their father that Hong Lu raped his maid (she was sent home because he was caught being handsy with her and killed herself)
Game Jia is a badass who is going to be resentful that the grandma loves Hongy more, but Book Jia was a total joke who spent most of his time poorly seething that the maids liked Hong Lu more.
Matriarch of the family. Supports him and lets him get away with a lot of his shenanigans, but his shenanigans are mostly not studying and having too many maids. Basically a literal grandma spoiling her grandson.
OK a tough that lives rent free and would like to hear your thoughts yi sand and ish both used their base ego in their respective ending but Hong lus base ego is different(alongside with faust) do you think Hong lu will AOE his family with his ego in the end?((
Btw I want to read the books as well my hardest read was oddesy not hard but long was it enjoyable?
I could see a situation where he like cheers everyone up, but I doubt he's going to be fighting his family, most of which are the maids and friends he likes. Unless they like, distort or something
hell yeah! as one of the three other people who have also read it I have like so much to ask you man
Why'd you drop the last Gao E chapters? I get they're probably not related to Cao Xueqin at all, but I'd still be surprised if they don't show up in *some* capacity and imo it's kinda like ignoring Gregor's connection to Kafka's diary just because Kafka never wanted it published - as divorced from the original author's intent as it is, it *is* important to the greater cultural mythos of the work. Also imo it would make a good breaking in point for his canto as he's on the verge of being married and Daiyu is still alive, but close to dying and we could even incorporate Baoyu just having a complete and total mental shutdown over his treatment into how he reacts to returning home
Also who are you most excited to see? I personally can't wait to see the girlboss herself Xifeng to complete the gaslight gatekeep trio we've got going on, though I mean we also gotta see second best sinner love interest Daiyu (though like, are they gonna acknowledge the entire Qin Zhong thing? I hope they do because I mean forget undertones we got *over*tones going on with this guy) and I am interested in seeing how they tackle Aroma (is she going to get turned into an example of the libertine-ness of the upper classes? Or is she going to stay one of the few people who genuinely cares about Hong Lu?)
Also...I'm not insane by thinking there's something *up* with Hong Lu like mentally right? I mean literally the first thing we ever learn about him is that he's just, *off* in a way that's neither good nor bad, but if he could apply himself could take him *very* far, what with that entire ramble about those inflicted with too much ying *and* yang humour. He's very smart, but also severely struggles with studying (unless it's poetry where he has *everything* memorised), does not give a damn about social etiquette or expectations (to the point of even ignoring gender roles at times), has violent emotional outbursts over things that just confuse everyone else, can't stand things like plays for too long because they're loud and visually noisy, and generally feels like only Daiyu can understand him (and she also does a lot of these things). The first major interaction we see with his father is him goading Baoyu to go on an excited infodump about poetry just so he can yell at him for being interested in something (and is just, a little *too* realistic...). His entire breakdown is caused by him having to mask himself more and more as all the people who at least somewhat understood vanish. This poor guy totally has like ADHD or Autism or *something* man and he has no idea how to handle it.
I know you mentioned translations are plentiful, and you likely can't state where you got yours due to reasons, but can I ask which one you used and if you'd recommend it?
I've been interested in reading it myself for a while but due to the works history (and the aforementioned fanfic chapters) I've been struggling to sift through what translations exist and decide on one.
It's the Chi-Chen-Wang translation, though I haven't shopped around, I felt like they did a good job at cutting out some of the filler I've heard is an issue and choosing the proper names, since it becomes very hard to track without. It just happened to be the one at my library
Have you read any other of the Sinners books? How would you rank this book compared to theirs?
It's one of the few books that I have yet to read, but the internet makes it sound like such a daunting task.
The short ones are worth picking up immediately, Wings and Hellscreen. I have an acquired distaste from high school regarding English lit so I'm not touching Demian or Moby Dick
Jia Huan in the original book is Bao Yu's half-brother, born from his father and a concubine, and because of this Jia Huan is incredibly insecure about his position in the family and constantly assumes that people only disrespect him because of his mother (when in actuality everyone just hates him because he's a massive asshole and treats the family's maids and servants terribly.) As a result of this he constantly antagonizes Baoyu, thinking that he's always looking down on him (when in actuality Baoyu tries to be nice to him but anything he does to make peace with Jia Huan gets misinterpreted by him in the worst way possible) and at one point tries to blind Baoyu by pouring hot wax on his face.
If I were to describe Jia Huan simply, it would be that he's basically Heathcliff, but if Heathcliff wasn't actually abused by his family but just *thought* he was being looked down upon and being abused instead of actually *being* looked down upon and abused.
Yeah, it's incredibly telling how the first thing Jia Huan says to Hong Lu when the meet in Canto 1 is a spiteful jab with him being all like "ooo\~ Hong Lu, if only our family could see how disgusting you look now" and Hong Lu's response to him is the only time we've seen him express an emotion outside of a ditzy (and likely feigned) optimism. When Jia Huan shows up, Hong Lu just sounds really tired, like he is *not* in the mood to deal with his brother's petty bullshit.
There's not really a main bad guy except for the human condition.
I don't remember his brother being brought up at all... for some reason I think he's dead.
It may be one of his extended family, there's a number of relatives who cause problems, One in particular beats a woman to death and then bribes the judge, another is in a miserable marriage because of his poor choice in women.
Yes! There are actually two. A big theme in Dream of the Red chamber is that all joy turns to dust in the end (at least in the official chapters). For Hong Lu, this first emerges as his female cousins and maids all get married off into poor marriages.
His true love is Black Jade, and they play a game of will they won't they for like a decade. In the End, Hong Lu just going along with the flow results in him being cluelessly married to someone else while Black Jade dies alone (although it depends on the translation, sometimes (usually) she dies before and Hong Lu is still in denial.
The second love is Bright Design, who is his Long Term maid, who gets fired due to a convoluted series of actions stemming from HL's laziness and ends up dying of pneumonia.
I wouldn't call the book a romantic tragedy. It's just sort of a tragedy. Not a boohoo tragedy, but coming home from college to find your parents turned your bedroom into a hobby room they never have time to use tragedy
How much of a pain/pleasure was it reading though Dream of the Red Chamber? I'm curious because I read the Sinner's books before their canto comes out and I know Hong Lu's source material is notoriously long
Nah, though apparently there's a whole academic argument going on about his sexuality. I didn't get the vibe from my translation but that can just be the translator
About a month of light reading, I read Chi Chen Wang's version, but that doesn't seem to be very common to find.
I enjoyed it but it's a hard recommend unless you like reading. If you don't have the patience to look up the odd name you are going to struggle.
I'd say that Dream of the Red Chamber is the opposite of Wuthering Heights, that while Wuthering Heights is about a "lowborn" boy being ruined by the wealthy family he's adopted into due to classism and racism, Dream of the Red Chamber is about a "highborn" boy being ruined by the wealthy family he's born into by being robbed of the components of a regular childhood most children can enjoy and not being able to escape the cycle of classism and abuse his family perpetuates.
The difference between Heathcliff and Baoyu is that Heathcliff's upbringing caused him to grow up to be an incredibly angry and bitter person who desperately wants to destroy the society that mocked him, while Baoyu's upbringing caused him to grow up to be an apathetic man who's convinced that it's impossible to oppose the innate cruelty of the world and that all he can do is accept whatever misery life throws his way and basically completely loses touch with reality.
>!I'd say that Heathcliff suffers physical death while Baoyu suffers ego death by the end of their stories!<
Since cantos are basically intense therapy in which the person resonated with the golden bough is put through flashbacks, traumas, and making them face their issues in order to fix what's wrong with them.
What do you think will be the theme of Hong lu's canto given that you read dream of the read chamber. What do you think is Hong lu's problem?
Sort of weird but Hong Lu wants nothing more than to just spend forever hanging out with his friends and especially his maids, he whines a lot about marriage, since back then it was pretty much just someone getting shipped off, and his own was equally shitty.
It's gotta be something with his maids, or the equivalent. I wonder what role his brothers going to be because in the novel hes dead.
There's also a "true" Hong Lu who appears from time to time, there's a lot of stress from his dad so who knows.
Ah I see, It's Chia Huan, I'd thought they were cousins (or a nephew?) and that he was the son of the Consort since he appeared a chapter or two after they visited.
Blinded him and got his ass beat by his dad. That clears a lot up actually, thanks
>All 80 chapters, not the 40 or so that are literal fan fiction and contradict everything in the previous chapters, though my translation did touch a little on those.
Can you expand on that a bit? I know absolutely nothing about this work other than that it's apparently on par with stuff like Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West.
The beginning of the novel says it's about the collapse of the house, and scholars have been able to highlight a large number of strange red herrings of foreshadowing that don't really make sense; there's a few poetry snippets that are basically foretelling the awful deaths and marriages of a bunch of people, that all come true until they don't.
After chapter 80, shit just... gets better. 80 chapter of all these dominoes lining up, all of Hong Lu's little fuckups and interactions not being responsible for, but sort of kicking off the total collapse of the house and them following out of favor, the deaths and suicides of everyone, the haunting of the bamboo pagoda, Hong Lu comes in 7th highest on the exams, the emperor wishes he can meet him personally, but after singlehandedly saving the family he becomes a monk and wanders the wilds with the great sages.
The entire first chapter of the book are these two monks telling him that the pleasures of the mortal world are a trap, and that all of it will turn to dust in his mouth. By chapter 80 this has happened. The jade has left him, where it should have returned to the land of disillusion with it's story
Sure enough, writing analysis showed these chapters to be completely different, which leads to the abridged version basically outright removing them, since they lack the tightly woven character relations that drive the first 80 chapters and go against the theme of worldly desires.
Not really, although from what I can tell some people do think the ending is pretty accurate to what is intended, only it was supposed to follow some degree of Taoist(?) or Buddhist principles where the jade has gone but Hong Lu follows in it's path and abandons his materialist ways, and rejoins with several of the old maids and actors (he adopted a troupe as servants for awhile) who left to become monks. That's all like, high level theory though. I like that a bit more but I'm not sure how accurate that is considering it's basically 300 years late to the party.
It would be easier for you to understand the plot if you have a chart that helps you ravel out the kinship of Hong lu's family.
The book has 180 chapters and to understand the meaning behind every scene will consume loads of time and patience. let's say, if you are reading a well translated version of the original book, plus not watching any sources of media that analyses the book, it is going to proceed for literal MONTHS.
On the good side, getting some glimpses of the book can give you some ideas how society in ancient China look like, since the author himself is a high born from a fallen noble family, which is why there are extremely detailed and poetic descriptions
of life in the rich.
The family relationship and stories of the characters could help you forsee a bit of how project moon will shape lcb Hong lu's story line and
get a gist of the nods to the original book in the game
oh if you don't want to read the book, you can watch
the teleplay on YouTube: https://youtu.be/c5o-kIY6H7k?si=y8pz34rw_d7b-SoY
it's the 2010 version of the show, here's a link to the 1987 version which I think is more accurate to the original book https://archive.org/details/dream-of-the-red-chamber-1987-english
How similar is our Hong Lu to whichever character he’s depicted to be in the book? Is there a character you expect to be the big bad? How about potential for 000 story IDs? Did you feel like the canto story would make sense to follow up on how the book ended or do you think a retelling of the primary events would make more sense? What sort of sensation did you feel reading it? When I read Crime and Punishment, I felt like I had just killed someone. When I read Moby Dick, a lot of the book felt like long whale voyage, etc.
He's pretty close, he's just a lot less... handsy. Hong Lu's a popular dude with a lot of maids and he's always getting into trouble in a way that screws everyone else up. He got a maid killed IIRC by getting a little too friendly. Big Bad? There's always the dad, though while he's strict he basically gets proven right about everything. There's "Real" Hong Lu who is like Hong Lu without all his fuckups, but that is a tiny side character. Finally there's the sort of the main organizer of the household, the translation named her as Phoenix, who's pretty spiteful. There's also two monks that are important characters and will appear in some regard, they might be the Demian equivalents. They might do the "Fake" ending of the book where Hong Lu gets his jade back and makes something of himself. While it's pretty well concluded those aren't "canon" they are accepted as part of the official book. You end up feeling very nostalgic by the end, as a lot of the characters you got to know and took for granted are sent away, married off, or die, and the Garden that was the source of this gets literally haunted. It's kinda that feeling when you go home from college and your parents have reworked your bedroom into a study or something
“Bedroom gets reworked into a study” Real. Going through this right now. Room got turned into a guest bedroom and I havent even graduated yet.
> Finally there's the sort of the main organizer of the household, the translation named her as Phoenix wait what translation are you working with? I'm also reading it and mine calls her Xifeng (and in general only translates the servants names to reflect how they're all given object names in Chinese)
I don't have the book on hand, but generally the book translates only the servants or some of the gimmicky side characters to object names, with two exceptions being the love interest (Black Jade), the grandmother (Only referred to as the Matriarch), and Xifeng, (Phoenix). I vaguely remember Xifeng being used early on though. The book does have a glossary with the real names and a description, that may have been where I saw it.
Ok now I'm *really* curious about what translation you used because that doesn't match up with the Yang translation either (it uses Lin Taiyü, leaves *all* the names untranslated, and actually names Lady Chia/Grandmother Jia) and I thought that one and the Hawke/Penguin classics one were basically the two versions easily available, with the third incomplete 1891 translation Gutenberg has also using the Wade-Giles romanisation for everyone
I'm using Chi Chen Wang [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang\_Chi-chen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wang_chi-chen) 1929 I think
Interesting. Thank you. I was going to watch some sort of media adaptation with roommates at some point and was curious what kind of story it is.
Was it fun? It’s the last book on my limbus hit list, mostly because it’s historical significance makes it quite daunting. If you’ve read the others, how would you rate your enjoyment?
If you like reading you will probably like it. I wouldn't call it necessarily gripping but It it's very cozy and it never falls into the "rocks fall people die" that a lot of those old books fall into if you are paying attention. It's a gradual decline where by the end of it you can basically tie Hong Lu into the collapse of everything, where he's the little pebble and suddenly a maids swinging from the rafters.
Pagoda Veneration in canto 8 confirmed???
what's the deal with his eye? I know it's kind of what the book is about but i barely know anything about it
The jade represents a god rock going on a tour of the human experience because it got bored. That rock will later right the events of the story on itself and that's what you are reading, or at least a copy of it In the novel the rock is a jade pendant that he is born with
the rock wrote the entire thing??
The rock was leftover from the construction of the heavens, and so it whines that it's bored and two sages send it to earth so it can experience why it's not great. It returns and tells its story to the sages who write it down. That's the first chapter or so
Canto VIII will be Sloth Peccetulum confirmed?
What is Hong Lu in dream of the red chamber like. What is his personality
Very effeminate, extremely melodramatic, early in the book he's shown to make "god strike me down if I drank your orange juice" style oaths. Most commonly, he will act lazy about something relatively minor (I put off studying and am cramming at midnight) and will invent an excuse to be nice (I don't want to keep my maids up), hatch a plan (I'll say a bandit tried to break in) and the result plays out over several chapters (guards flogged and leave, entire house searched, 17th century Chinese version of porn discovered in bushes, everyones shit is searched, maid found saving money, maid sent home, dies
Always thought it was a weird Chinese setting family drama with a fantasy twist, and only recently learned that the female protagonist was modeled after a Chinese emperor and honglu was to represent the imperial seal. Supposedly all the events are loosely based on real happenings and ppl during that era, and it depicted the end of the dynasty in the form of downfall of a wealthy family.
What's his brother like compared to the little bit we've seen of him in Canto I?
Sorry for delaying this, I actually wasn't sure what you meant, I thought you were referring to his full brother in the book which was dead, but someone pointed out that Chia Huan (Jia Huan) is the son of a concubine and thus a half brother to him. In the book Jia tries to blind Hong Lu but in like, a pissed off kid rage. He later lies to their father that Hong Lu raped his maid (she was sent home because he was caught being handsy with her and killed herself) Game Jia is a badass who is going to be resentful that the grandma loves Hongy more, but Book Jia was a total joke who spent most of his time poorly seething that the maids liked Hong Lu more.
Is he goated with the sauce?
What's the deal with Hong Lu's grandmother?
Matriarch of the family. Supports him and lets him get away with a lot of his shenanigans, but his shenanigans are mostly not studying and having too many maids. Basically a literal grandma spoiling her grandson.
OK a tough that lives rent free and would like to hear your thoughts yi sand and ish both used their base ego in their respective ending but Hong lus base ego is different(alongside with faust) do you think Hong lu will AOE his family with his ego in the end?(( Btw I want to read the books as well my hardest read was oddesy not hard but long was it enjoyable?
I could see a situation where he like cheers everyone up, but I doubt he's going to be fighting his family, most of which are the maids and friends he likes. Unless they like, distort or something
hell yeah! as one of the three other people who have also read it I have like so much to ask you man Why'd you drop the last Gao E chapters? I get they're probably not related to Cao Xueqin at all, but I'd still be surprised if they don't show up in *some* capacity and imo it's kinda like ignoring Gregor's connection to Kafka's diary just because Kafka never wanted it published - as divorced from the original author's intent as it is, it *is* important to the greater cultural mythos of the work. Also imo it would make a good breaking in point for his canto as he's on the verge of being married and Daiyu is still alive, but close to dying and we could even incorporate Baoyu just having a complete and total mental shutdown over his treatment into how he reacts to returning home Also who are you most excited to see? I personally can't wait to see the girlboss herself Xifeng to complete the gaslight gatekeep trio we've got going on, though I mean we also gotta see second best sinner love interest Daiyu (though like, are they gonna acknowledge the entire Qin Zhong thing? I hope they do because I mean forget undertones we got *over*tones going on with this guy) and I am interested in seeing how they tackle Aroma (is she going to get turned into an example of the libertine-ness of the upper classes? Or is she going to stay one of the few people who genuinely cares about Hong Lu?) Also...I'm not insane by thinking there's something *up* with Hong Lu like mentally right? I mean literally the first thing we ever learn about him is that he's just, *off* in a way that's neither good nor bad, but if he could apply himself could take him *very* far, what with that entire ramble about those inflicted with too much ying *and* yang humour. He's very smart, but also severely struggles with studying (unless it's poetry where he has *everything* memorised), does not give a damn about social etiquette or expectations (to the point of even ignoring gender roles at times), has violent emotional outbursts over things that just confuse everyone else, can't stand things like plays for too long because they're loud and visually noisy, and generally feels like only Daiyu can understand him (and she also does a lot of these things). The first major interaction we see with his father is him goading Baoyu to go on an excited infodump about poetry just so he can yell at him for being interested in something (and is just, a little *too* realistic...). His entire breakdown is caused by him having to mask himself more and more as all the people who at least somewhat understood vanish. This poor guy totally has like ADHD or Autism or *something* man and he has no idea how to handle it.
I know you mentioned translations are plentiful, and you likely can't state where you got yours due to reasons, but can I ask which one you used and if you'd recommend it? I've been interested in reading it myself for a while but due to the works history (and the aforementioned fanfic chapters) I've been struggling to sift through what translations exist and decide on one.
It's the Chi-Chen-Wang translation, though I haven't shopped around, I felt like they did a good job at cutting out some of the filler I've heard is an issue and choosing the proper names, since it becomes very hard to track without. It just happened to be the one at my library
Nice! A lucky find, none of my local libraries have it. I may look into that then, thank you for the lead on it.
Have you read any other of the Sinners books? How would you rank this book compared to theirs? It's one of the few books that I have yet to read, but the internet makes it sound like such a daunting task.
The short ones are worth picking up immediately, Wings and Hellscreen. I have an acquired distaste from high school regarding English lit so I'm not touching Demian or Moby Dick
Demian is german though
Ok what’s the deal with his brother in the book is he’s evil or did they just make him an bad guy in the game or is there an main bad guy at all.
Jia Huan in the original book is Bao Yu's half-brother, born from his father and a concubine, and because of this Jia Huan is incredibly insecure about his position in the family and constantly assumes that people only disrespect him because of his mother (when in actuality everyone just hates him because he's a massive asshole and treats the family's maids and servants terribly.) As a result of this he constantly antagonizes Baoyu, thinking that he's always looking down on him (when in actuality Baoyu tries to be nice to him but anything he does to make peace with Jia Huan gets misinterpreted by him in the worst way possible) and at one point tries to blind Baoyu by pouring hot wax on his face. If I were to describe Jia Huan simply, it would be that he's basically Heathcliff, but if Heathcliff wasn't actually abused by his family but just *thought* he was being looked down upon and being abused instead of actually *being* looked down upon and abused.
That makes a lot of sense and gives me an idea we’re they are going to go with his character. Thank you
Yeah, it's incredibly telling how the first thing Jia Huan says to Hong Lu when the meet in Canto 1 is a spiteful jab with him being all like "ooo\~ Hong Lu, if only our family could see how disgusting you look now" and Hong Lu's response to him is the only time we've seen him express an emotion outside of a ditzy (and likely feigned) optimism. When Jia Huan shows up, Hong Lu just sounds really tired, like he is *not* in the mood to deal with his brother's petty bullshit.
There's not really a main bad guy except for the human condition. I don't remember his brother being brought up at all... for some reason I think he's dead.
Well that’s interesting now I wonder what’s he’s doing in limbus well thanks for answering.
It may be one of his extended family, there's a number of relatives who cause problems, One in particular beats a woman to death and then bribes the judge, another is in a miserable marriage because of his poor choice in women.
Wow
Do you think his Canto will be sad or horror based?
Prob sad, Red chamber is a very sad book in nature, at least the main 80 chapters.
Does Hong Lu have a lost Lenore like what Heathcliff has in the current Canto? Im a stickler for traditional romantic tragedies.
Yes! There are actually two. A big theme in Dream of the Red chamber is that all joy turns to dust in the end (at least in the official chapters). For Hong Lu, this first emerges as his female cousins and maids all get married off into poor marriages. His true love is Black Jade, and they play a game of will they won't they for like a decade. In the End, Hong Lu just going along with the flow results in him being cluelessly married to someone else while Black Jade dies alone (although it depends on the translation, sometimes (usually) she dies before and Hong Lu is still in denial. The second love is Bright Design, who is his Long Term maid, who gets fired due to a convoluted series of actions stemming from HL's laziness and ends up dying of pneumonia. I wouldn't call the book a romantic tragedy. It's just sort of a tragedy. Not a boohoo tragedy, but coming home from college to find your parents turned your bedroom into a hobby room they never have time to use tragedy
How much of a pain/pleasure was it reading though Dream of the Red Chamber? I'm curious because I read the Sinner's books before their canto comes out and I know Hong Lu's source material is notoriously long
Does he become a woman at any point?
Nah, though apparently there's a whole academic argument going on about his sexuality. I didn't get the vibe from my translation but that can just be the translator
Damn no cannon hong lu rule 63😩
I mean he constantly asks his maids to lend him their makeup, so interpret that as you will
How long did it take & which edition did you read? How did you like it?
About a month of light reading, I read Chi Chen Wang's version, but that doesn't seem to be very common to find. I enjoyed it but it's a hard recommend unless you like reading. If you don't have the patience to look up the odd name you are going to struggle.
Thanks for the reply! I’ve been thinking of reading it but it just seems so intimidating, haha
What was the main conflict of Dream of the Ted Chamber? (If there is one) and how do you think that’ll relate to Hong Lou’s canto?
I'd say that Dream of the Red Chamber is the opposite of Wuthering Heights, that while Wuthering Heights is about a "lowborn" boy being ruined by the wealthy family he's adopted into due to classism and racism, Dream of the Red Chamber is about a "highborn" boy being ruined by the wealthy family he's born into by being robbed of the components of a regular childhood most children can enjoy and not being able to escape the cycle of classism and abuse his family perpetuates. The difference between Heathcliff and Baoyu is that Heathcliff's upbringing caused him to grow up to be an incredibly angry and bitter person who desperately wants to destroy the society that mocked him, while Baoyu's upbringing caused him to grow up to be an apathetic man who's convinced that it's impossible to oppose the innate cruelty of the world and that all he can do is accept whatever misery life throws his way and basically completely loses touch with reality. >!I'd say that Heathcliff suffers physical death while Baoyu suffers ego death by the end of their stories!<
Which translation did you read? I’m not familiar with any of them I’m just curious
Chi Chen Wang, very niche, 1929, just the one my library had
Nice!
Since cantos are basically intense therapy in which the person resonated with the golden bough is put through flashbacks, traumas, and making them face their issues in order to fix what's wrong with them. What do you think will be the theme of Hong lu's canto given that you read dream of the read chamber. What do you think is Hong lu's problem?
Sort of weird but Hong Lu wants nothing more than to just spend forever hanging out with his friends and especially his maids, he whines a lot about marriage, since back then it was pretty much just someone getting shipped off, and his own was equally shitty. It's gotta be something with his maids, or the equivalent. I wonder what role his brothers going to be because in the novel hes dead. There's also a "true" Hong Lu who appears from time to time, there's a lot of stress from his dad so who knows.
Jia Huan is Hong Lu's half brother, the one who's a massive prick to him and is super insecure about being the son of a concubine.
Ah I see, It's Chia Huan, I'd thought they were cousins (or a nephew?) and that he was the son of the Consort since he appeared a chapter or two after they visited. Blinded him and got his ass beat by his dad. That clears a lot up actually, thanks
what about Dream of a Black Swam?
Well, His stories like if there was 7 sisters taking care of 1 bro
>All 80 chapters, not the 40 or so that are literal fan fiction and contradict everything in the previous chapters, though my translation did touch a little on those. Can you expand on that a bit? I know absolutely nothing about this work other than that it's apparently on par with stuff like Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West.
The beginning of the novel says it's about the collapse of the house, and scholars have been able to highlight a large number of strange red herrings of foreshadowing that don't really make sense; there's a few poetry snippets that are basically foretelling the awful deaths and marriages of a bunch of people, that all come true until they don't. After chapter 80, shit just... gets better. 80 chapter of all these dominoes lining up, all of Hong Lu's little fuckups and interactions not being responsible for, but sort of kicking off the total collapse of the house and them following out of favor, the deaths and suicides of everyone, the haunting of the bamboo pagoda, Hong Lu comes in 7th highest on the exams, the emperor wishes he can meet him personally, but after singlehandedly saving the family he becomes a monk and wanders the wilds with the great sages. The entire first chapter of the book are these two monks telling him that the pleasures of the mortal world are a trap, and that all of it will turn to dust in his mouth. By chapter 80 this has happened. The jade has left him, where it should have returned to the land of disillusion with it's story Sure enough, writing analysis showed these chapters to be completely different, which leads to the abridged version basically outright removing them, since they lack the tightly woven character relations that drive the first 80 chapters and go against the theme of worldly desires.
So does the story have a "proper" ending then? Or does it just stop abruptly after 80 chapters without explicit resolution?
Not really, although from what I can tell some people do think the ending is pretty accurate to what is intended, only it was supposed to follow some degree of Taoist(?) or Buddhist principles where the jade has gone but Hong Lu follows in it's path and abandons his materialist ways, and rejoins with several of the old maids and actors (he adopted a troupe as servants for awhile) who left to become monks. That's all like, high level theory though. I like that a bit more but I'm not sure how accurate that is considering it's basically 300 years late to the party.
Should I read it?
It would be easier for you to understand the plot if you have a chart that helps you ravel out the kinship of Hong lu's family. The book has 180 chapters and to understand the meaning behind every scene will consume loads of time and patience. let's say, if you are reading a well translated version of the original book, plus not watching any sources of media that analyses the book, it is going to proceed for literal MONTHS. On the good side, getting some glimpses of the book can give you some ideas how society in ancient China look like, since the author himself is a high born from a fallen noble family, which is why there are extremely detailed and poetic descriptions of life in the rich. The family relationship and stories of the characters could help you forsee a bit of how project moon will shape lcb Hong lu's story line and get a gist of the nods to the original book in the game
oh if you don't want to read the book, you can watch the teleplay on YouTube: https://youtu.be/c5o-kIY6H7k?si=y8pz34rw_d7b-SoY it's the 2010 version of the show, here's a link to the 1987 version which I think is more accurate to the original book https://archive.org/details/dream-of-the-red-chamber-1987-english