I heard about this story decades ago and never got to reading it. Is it worth reading, I heard it is a very hard story to read and has many characters to keep up with, nearly 40 major characters, and over 400 additional ones.
Recommended Translation: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/ba3b4789-0668-45fe-8740-a7511e23bc0c
I’ve read the abridged version and best I can tell you is that yes, it is an interesting book. It is long, has a lot of characters, and cultural aspects that can be hard to understand to an outsider. I’d say give it a go. You can always just stop if it gets to be too much for you.
I didn’t know there was an abridged version. How would you rate the story?
An abridged version would be losing what makes this novel so important to Chinese culture. The story of 红楼梦 is not the most important point (though it is important). It’s whose eyes the story is told through, his interactions with the people around him, and the daily life that reveals it that matters.
If you have ever read any kind of “fall of a family” style of story you already have read A Dream of Red Mansions. You might as well not bother with an abridged edition. The value of the novel lies precisely in the stuff that would be elided away by an abridgement.
This is a very big, very heavy, very deep novel. (How deep? You can get university degrees in just this novel in China.) And you’ll be reading it through the haze of translation and of cultural confusion. It will not be an easy read even if you get an excellent translation that’s stuffed to the gills with explanatory footnotes. (Like, for example, the poetry won’t resonate … and there is a lot of poetry in the story!) I can’t tell you if it’s worth reading because I’m not you. I can warn you, though, that reading it will be work, not light passing fancy.
I’m sorry, but it’s been too long, and I don’t really remember it well enough to confidently say.
No problem, I will try reading a few pages per day and see if I get into it. I will read other books at the same time, this doesn’t seem like an easy book to read.
I’ve always wanted to read Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I love the idea of it, but I’m worried that the sprawling nature and hundreds of characters will be too overwhelming in practice. Sorry, I know it’s not the same book, it just made me think of it.
Yeah, this is why I have been putting off reading the Chinese classics they have so many characters.
