Hu Wenbin comments on The Dream of the Red Chamber

Author: Hu Wenbin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-11-01
Features: This book is written by the renowned red scholar Hu Wenbin, featuring both lengthy essays and short miscellaneous pieces. The author's commentary states: Lin Daiyu's death leads Jia Baoyu from enlightenment through love to "love's extinction," meaning the accumulation of gradual understanding reaches a qualitative change and results in sudden realization. This realization is rooted in the cultural soil of the 18th century, which lacked free will, and the outcome of this realization can only be "leaping off the cliff." Because Jia Baoyu loses his only confidant and the only hope he has, he becomes "utterly destitute." With no way out, he has no choice but to return to the Great Wild Mountain, the Wuxi Cliff, and Qinggeng Peak to return to nature.