Deadly Carnival (Shizhongyang on "Jin Ping Mei": Reading Pan Jinlian and Ximen Qing)

Author: Shi Zhongyang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: Without reading The Golden Lotus, one cannot know the wonders of the world. Pan Jinlian, though not the only outstanding female character in ancient Chinese fiction, is one of the few who possess a feminine charm. Many male readers hate Jinlian, curse Jinlian, yet cannot help but think of Jinlian. To read The Golden Lotus is, to a large extent, to read about Pan Jinlian; a world without Jinlian would be dull and lifeless. In his own kingdom, Ximen Qing has become an arrogant "contemporary hero." Creating such a typical rogue character is a significant contribution of The Golden Lotus to the history of Chinese literature and even cultural history. Because of him, one can peer into the souls and shadows of all rogues throughout history and modern times; without him, it is unlikely that Chinese literary history would ever produce another character so vivid, so lifelike, and so quintessentially rogue. As the pioneering work of a long narrative about human relationships, The Golden Lotus holds a milestone significance in the history of Chinese fiction. Its emergence brought about a major transformation in the concepts and methods of Chinese fiction writing, paving the way for the birth of modern novels. I advocate reading Dream of the Red Chamber with an adult mindset and The Golden Lotus with a childlike one; if the order is reversed, then after reading Red Chamber, one will never grow up, and after reading Golden Lotus, one will be overwhelmed by a sense of weariness, finding little room for aesthetic curiosity. The saying goes: "Young people should not read Red Chamber, and the elderly should not forget Golden Lotus."