The Dream Of The Red Chamber Is China’s Incompletely-preserved “Great Wall”
Source:Shaoyang International CultureWriter:Tang GuomingTime:2014-07-06Clicks：次
Whenever I talked about the mending and restoration of the part after the 80th chapter of The Dream Of The Red Chamber, many people would always be saying that the novel should end up with various consequences after the 80th chapter instead of a sole one. They even compared it to Rodin’ statue of Venus de Milo. Every time I came across such comments, I had to keep silent. But after this situation repeated many times, I just let out an emotional sign.I felt that we could not evade from truth.
After my work of the restoration of the truth after the 80th chapter of The Dream Of The Red Chamber was published as The Newly-Continued Part Of The Dream Of The Red Chamber, many readers marveled at it as if I were a revived Cao Xueqin from a man called Tang Guoming in the course of writing the continuation. Actually, Tang Guoming is no more than Tang Guoming. It was because I had Cao Xueqin’s mind and emotion that I was able to discover Cao’s original writing in the forty chapters by Cheng Weiyan and Gao E, in an archeologist’s manner to pick out the fragments of Cao’s original writing broken by Cheng and Gao and to mend and restore the part that resembles Cao ‘s original very well. Since the publishment of my work there have been a lot of different arguments, some degrading and others praising. The work is placed there for people to read. I think opinions will be objective and reasonable only after reading.
It is not suitable to compare the incompletion of The Dream of The Red Chamber to that of Venus de Milo. The Dream of The Red Chamber should be said to be China’s Incompletely-preserved “Great Wall” because the comment “the work of 100 chapters is the greatest one to have been read ever since” repeated many times in the version of The Story Of A Stone reviewed by Zhiyanzai, which indicates apparently that The Dream of The Red Chamber contained 100 chapters. The reviewer, when making comments on the book, knew or even faced the destiny of the last twenty chapters being fragmented. It is supposed in the TV play Cao Xueqin that the emperor was dissatisfied with the ending of The Dream of The Red Chamber and ordered Cao several times to revise it. After Cao’s death, the Cheng & Gao version of 120 chapters was in circulation and was widely accepted by the world. Afterwards, there were several kinds of continuations to the the 80th chapter but they were not accepted. Readers simply accepted the forty chapters by Cheng & Gao. This well proved that Cheng & Gao’s continued forty chapters contains the original meaning and wording of Cao’s twenty chapters. In order to be published, they fragmented Cao’s and added much cleverly. Those days were not like nowadays. Just one word of the emperor’s, if he was not satisfied, would cost a writer his head. Furthermore, according to Zhou Ruchang’s textual research, Cheng & Gao’s version of 120-chapter The Dream of The Red Chamber was printed under royal supervision, which means that the book was intended for the emperor’s reading. Could Cheng & Gao not be very cautious?
From this we can surely say that The Dream of The Red Chamber is not Venus de Milo, and that it is also true otherwise. They are two independent works created with two different kinds of artistic presentations, which cannot be cloned. The original The Dream of The Red Chamber itself used to be a perfect “Great Wall” in the state of completion while the statue of Venus de Milo is a great complete work even in the shape of incompletion because the work needs a lost arm to form an artistic and thinking completion. The completion of The Dream of The Red Chamber was damaged by the emperor, and consequently the artistic completion was damaged, too. So The Dream of The Red Chamber had to be appear as The Story Of A Stone with eighty chapters reviewed by Zhiyanzai to carry out its artistic task, telling readers in terms of Zhiyanzai comments what there is after eighty chapters and that the novel used to contain 100 chapters originally and was fragmented. What we find today of The Story Of A Stone is fragmented without the whole eighty chapters. From this we see how difficult the circulation of the book was in those days. Therefore we should not blame Cheng and Gao. Instead we should pay a salute to them because it was they who made The Dream of The Red Chamber complete.
At present the lovers and readers of The Dream of The Red Chamber are called its fans, and I myself am called a fan, too. I won’t look down upon fans. It is because I am a fan that I have been able to discover Cao’s original writing and meaning and to mend and restore The Dream of The Red Chamber, making it a great creation with unique style that matches or even surpasses Roddan’s statue of Venus de Milo.
The Dream Of The Red Chamber Is China’s Incompletely-preserved “Great Wall”. What I have done is mending and restoring the “Great Wall”. Thanks to scholars’ searching, exploring, collecting, rearranging and proofreading, there appeared the Zhiyanzai-reviewed The Story Of A Stone of eighty chapters, from which we readers got to know the true self of The Dream Of The Red Chamber, so that I was determined to recover its truth. And I did so. Truth exists there for ever. It won’t escape our eyes. As long as you are brave enough, you will reach it or it will come up to you.
(Written on the foot of the Yuelu Mountain on the eve of May 25, 2014)
(translated by Yi Daoqun)
After my work of the restoration of the truth after the 80th chapter of The Dream Of The Red Chamber was published as The Newly-Continued Part Of The Dream Of The Red Chamber, many readers marveled at it as if I were a revived Cao Xueqin from a man called Tang Guoming in the course of writing the continuation. Actually, Tang Guoming is no more than Tang Guoming. It was because I had Cao Xueqin’s mind and emotion that I was able to discover Cao’s original writing in the forty chapters by Cheng Weiyan and Gao E, in an archeologist’s manner to pick out the fragments of Cao’s original writing broken by Cheng and Gao and to mend and restore the part that resembles Cao ‘s original very well. Since the publishment of my work there have been a lot of different arguments, some degrading and others praising. The work is placed there for people to read. I think opinions will be objective and reasonable only after reading.
It is not suitable to compare the incompletion of The Dream of The Red Chamber to that of Venus de Milo. The Dream of The Red Chamber should be said to be China’s Incompletely-preserved “Great Wall” because the comment “the work of 100 chapters is the greatest one to have been read ever since” repeated many times in the version of The Story Of A Stone reviewed by Zhiyanzai, which indicates apparently that The Dream of The Red Chamber contained 100 chapters. The reviewer, when making comments on the book, knew or even faced the destiny of the last twenty chapters being fragmented. It is supposed in the TV play Cao Xueqin that the emperor was dissatisfied with the ending of The Dream of The Red Chamber and ordered Cao several times to revise it. After Cao’s death, the Cheng & Gao version of 120 chapters was in circulation and was widely accepted by the world. Afterwards, there were several kinds of continuations to the the 80th chapter but they were not accepted. Readers simply accepted the forty chapters by Cheng & Gao. This well proved that Cheng & Gao’s continued forty chapters contains the original meaning and wording of Cao’s twenty chapters. In order to be published, they fragmented Cao’s and added much cleverly. Those days were not like nowadays. Just one word of the emperor’s, if he was not satisfied, would cost a writer his head. Furthermore, according to Zhou Ruchang’s textual research, Cheng & Gao’s version of 120-chapter The Dream of The Red Chamber was printed under royal supervision, which means that the book was intended for the emperor’s reading. Could Cheng & Gao not be very cautious?
From this we can surely say that The Dream of The Red Chamber is not Venus de Milo, and that it is also true otherwise. They are two independent works created with two different kinds of artistic presentations, which cannot be cloned. The original The Dream of The Red Chamber itself used to be a perfect “Great Wall” in the state of completion while the statue of Venus de Milo is a great complete work even in the shape of incompletion because the work needs a lost arm to form an artistic and thinking completion. The completion of The Dream of The Red Chamber was damaged by the emperor, and consequently the artistic completion was damaged, too. So The Dream of The Red Chamber had to be appear as The Story Of A Stone with eighty chapters reviewed by Zhiyanzai to carry out its artistic task, telling readers in terms of Zhiyanzai comments what there is after eighty chapters and that the novel used to contain 100 chapters originally and was fragmented. What we find today of The Story Of A Stone is fragmented without the whole eighty chapters. From this we see how difficult the circulation of the book was in those days. Therefore we should not blame Cheng and Gao. Instead we should pay a salute to them because it was they who made The Dream of The Red Chamber complete.
At present the lovers and readers of The Dream of The Red Chamber are called its fans, and I myself am called a fan, too. I won’t look down upon fans. It is because I am a fan that I have been able to discover Cao’s original writing and meaning and to mend and restore The Dream of The Red Chamber, making it a great creation with unique style that matches or even surpasses Roddan’s statue of Venus de Milo.
The Dream Of The Red Chamber Is China’s Incompletely-preserved “Great Wall”. What I have done is mending and restoring the “Great Wall”. Thanks to scholars’ searching, exploring, collecting, rearranging and proofreading, there appeared the Zhiyanzai-reviewed The Story Of A Stone of eighty chapters, from which we readers got to know the true self of The Dream Of The Red Chamber, so that I was determined to recover its truth. And I did so. Truth exists there for ever. It won’t escape our eyes. As long as you are brave enough, you will reach it or it will come up to you.
(Written on the foot of the Yuelu Mountain on the eve of May 25, 2014)
(translated by Yi Daoqun)
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