Misreading the Dream of the Red Chamber

Author: Yan Hong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: When the flower-laden, prosperous land of luxury and wealth has faded like a dream without a trace, and when deep love has also become a fleeting thought, he found a new meaning in his life—that is to record all of this. When life is reborn vividly in the form of words, who can say that all of this is merely a figment of imagination? Who can say that both I and the life I love are like fireworks that vanish in an instant?—In Flight Through Loss
Perhaps she truly loved him, with her body rather than her heart. Without the backdrop of romance and the solace of sighs, without metaphysical contemplation and reflection, and without the tendency to turn love into a philosophy, their relationship was one between two intensely desiring individuals. Their love was solid, powerful, carnal, primal, and a life force that struggled and danced, replacing the melancholic elegance and sorrow. Yet, it was still called love. Love is something without a fixed rule.——Kuiqing—Desire and Destruction
She then tried another way to cleanse herself: to love a clean man, to pretend she had no past, only a future. The man she chose was Liu Xianglian, a handsome roamer with an exceptionally clean spirit. He became the water to wash her and the bridge to carry her. She hoped to become his quiet, chaste wife, hoping to cleanse all her past with this identity.—Mu Zi Mei—You Sanjie—Thomas
Humans are so adept at packaging emotions. One point can be packaged into ten, and ten can be packaged into a legend. A female subordinate might fall in love with her male superior, Cinderella might fall in love with a prince on a white horse. Beneath the seemingly moving love lies an unconscious weighing of reality. Money, power, and even shared interests can all become catalysts. As long as he or she wants to love, it can always be done.—Hong Yun’s Love—The Turbulent Meeting of Two Professional Elite Women
Eileen Chang said that the advantage of realism lies in "serving ten with one." For example, Dream of the Red Chamber. Because it depicts life in meticulous detail without missing a single strand, it becomes as rich, profound, and changeable as life itself, allowing readers to take what they need. The refined see its elegance, while the vulgar see its vulgarity. As a result, there are all kinds of "misreadings," as Lu Xun once said: the scholar sees the classics, the moralist sees lust, the romantic sees tenderness, the revolutionary sees the suppression of the Manchu, the gossipy sees palace secrets, and he himself sees love and death. A thousand people have a thousand Hamlet interpretations. In a sense, all readings of Dream of the Red Chamber are misreadings. But it is precisely these myriad misreadings that bring us closer to Cao Xueqin—the soul worthy of our respect.