Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: A Dream of Red Mansions (4-Volume Boxed Set) by Cao Xueqin, Gao E, Yang Xianyi ISBN: 7-119-00643-6 Publisher: Acacia Press, Inc. Pub. Date: 01 January, 2001 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $39.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.12 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Chinese "Anna Karenina"
Comment: This book is like Anna Karenina in the following ways: Both are masterpieces of epic proportions. Both are considered contenders for being the greatest works of fiction in their respective languages. Both deal with large, upper class families and the lifestyle and intrigue involved. Both are works of realism and paint a complete picture of a society.
A Dream of Red Mansions focuses on the love between Baoyu, an unusual child in his early teens who is temperamental and spends most of his time with the girls in the family mansion and Daiyu, a delicate, sensitive and yet witty and extremely clever girl. The two grow up as children and live in the same mansion but the family does not hurry to marry them off as they have other plans for Baoyu.
This is the main thread that runs through the novel's amazing 120 chapters. The other sublots are very numerous - there are hundreds - but none of them are sustained for the whole book. The main part of the book is the set of characters. Again there are hundreds but a few main ones which become the most interesting in this drama. There's the conniving Xifeng, Baoyu's strict father, Baoyu's assertive "other love" Baochai and the like.
Unlike Anna Karenina, this book is full of humour, jokes and poems (which was where I think the translation failed the most as Chinese poetry rendered into English seems to lose the plot!). It contains moments of great sadness but also wit and quirkiness.
There's been controversy with the amazon reviews of this particular translation. I don't speak Chinese so can't judge it but reading the text, it seemed fine. I guess if I saw another or the original it would change my mind but this one isn't too bad.
The novel deals with so many topics that you really get an overview of what life in 18th century upper class urban China was about. It is VERY long but it's amazing how in relating heaps and heaps of seemingly trivial incidents you grow to love many of the characters. It's like most novels are like meeting someone and hence only seeing what they want to show while this novel is like living with them. And trivialities aside, it's very moving.
A must for all interested in Chinese society or who don't mind persevering through 1200 pages to read a one of the world's unusual and amazing dynasty chronicles and love stories.
Rating: 1
Summary: A Wonderful Novel Ruined by a Poor Translation
Comment: The Yangs' translation of A Dream of Red Mansions is extremely accurate. That's about the best thing I can say about it.
Unlike David Hawkes and John Minford's masterful translation, which can stand on its own as a work of literature, this edition reads like...well, like a translation. The prose is flat, the puns of the original are translated literally, rather than being approximated as in the Hawkes-Minford version, and on the whole, the flavour of the original Chinese text is missing.
A person trying to read the original Chinese text of A Dream of Red Mansions might find this translation useful to keep at hand for a side-by-side comparison. The translators of this edition take fewer liberties with jokes, puns, and poems than Hawkes and Minford. (I should stress that when Hawkes and Minford deviate from the original text, it is only in minor and inconsequential ways, and is always in service of the text.) The Yangs failed to realise, apparently, that being faithful to the precise words of a book isn't necessarily the same as being faithful to the spirit.
Rating: 5
Summary: Masterpiece you must read!!
Comment: If you want to know the history of Qing dynasty of China, read it;
If you want to learn decent Chinese, you must read it;
If you want to enjoy the great Chinese culture, you defenitely must read it;
The translation is also the best one I have ever seen. But if you try to read the original Chinese edition,maybe you will be more agreed on what I recommended.
 |
Title: Outlaws of the Marsh (Chinese Classics 4-Volume Boxed Set) by Shi Nai'An, Luo Guanzhong, Sidney Shapiro, Lo Kuan-Chung ISBN: 7119016628 Publisher: Acacia Press, Inc. Pub. Date: 01 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
 |
Title: Journey to the West (4-Volume Boxed Set) by Cheng'en Wu, Wu Cheng'en, W.J.F. Jenner, Ch-Eng-En Wu ISBN: 7119016636 Publisher: Foreign Language Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
 |
Title: Three Kingdoms: Chinese Classics (Classic Novel in 4-Volumes) by Luo Guanzhong, Moss Roberts, Lo Kuan-Chung, Lo Kuan-Chung ISBN: 7119005901 Publisher: Foreign Language Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
 |
Title: The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei by David Tod Roy ISBN: 0691016143 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 17 March, 1997 List Price(USD): $37.50 |
 |
Title: The Golden Days (The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Volume 1) by Cao Xueqin, Hsueh-Chin Tsao, David Hawkes, O Kao, John Minford, Hsueh-Ch'in Ts'ao ISBN: 0140442936 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: March, 1974 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
