China’s Story of the Stone: the best book

The Story of the Stone: the best book you've never heard of

The death of the elderly Chinese scholar Zhou Ruchang draws attention to a startling fact: that China’s greatest work of literature, the 18th-century novel Dream of the Red Chamber, on which Professor Zhou was an acknowledged – and somewhat obsessive – expert, is still virtually unknown in the English-speaking world. And yet a complete and highly readable English translation has been available in Penguin Classics for nearly 30 years.

Zhou Ruchang

In its native land, The Story of the Stone, as the book is also known – Stone for short – enjoys a unique status, comparable to the plays of Shakespeare. Apart from its literary merits, Chinese readers recommend it as the best starting point for any understanding of Chinese psychology, culture and society.

So why is this masterpiece so neglected in the West? Does it just reflect a general decline of interest in literature? Or is there something particular about the Chinese case? Are we, perhaps, too obsessed with China’s latest economic statistics to spare a thought for what’s left of its soul? As one philistine academic colleague growled at me not long ago, “Who cares about Chinese poetry anyway?” In British universities, teachers of traditional Chinese literature are in danger of becoming extinct.

For the Chinese, however, The Story of the Stone is a talisman. Three years ago, Madame Fu Ying, Chinese ambassador to the Court of St James (now deputy foreign minister of the People’s Republic of China, and a rising star), demonstrated this when she presented the complete five-volume Penguin edition to the Queen. On my arrival in China in 1980, I was advised by Yang Xianyi, one of Stone’s Beijing translators, that if ever I found myself in a fix with the authorities, I should mention my own connection with the book. I once tested this theory, with the Public Security Bureau – and it worked.

The book was left unfinished by the author Cao Xueqin at his death in 1763 and was eventually published in 1792, with an added conclusion attributed to Gao E. It is written in high-class Peking vernacular, with many unusual expressions and allusions, necessitating dozens of footnotes per chapter for today’s readers. But despite this, and despite its daunting length (twice as long as War and Peace) and its huge dramatis personae (well over 300 main characters), it is still widely read throughout the Chinese-speaking world. Mention of it triggers an instant gleam of recognition, and opens up new possibilities of communication.

Cao Xueqin

At the centre of the plot is a love triangle involving Baoyu, a young aristocratic fop, and his two girl-cousins. These characters divide readers into fiercely opposing camps: some prefer the wilting, anorexic beauty of Miss Lin Daiyu, others admire the healthier, more down-to-earth charms of her rival, Xue Baochai; as for Baoyu, readers either adore him and his aesthetic ecstasies, or consider him a self-indulgent sentimentalist.

The story has been adapted countless times into film, drama, opera, and twice into lavish multi-part TV series. Chairman Mao and his last wife, Jiang Qing, were both Stone-aficionados. He lectured his subjects on the need to read it five times, while his secretary, Hu Qiaomu, claimed that the Great Helmsman himself had read it 25 times. A young graduate student from China once told me she read it in winter to keep warm, in summer to keep cool.

The story of the stone: TV series, 2010