It is Christmas time and my main present this year is a book, but not just any old book: it merits five volumes in the Penguin edition (see photo) and runs to about 2500 pages if my addition is correct. It makes War and Peace seem like a short story, and in the introduction, by the translator David Hawkes, it is described as China's most popular book, a magnificent family saga, giving a great panora
ma of life in China. Wikipedia describes it as one of the four great classical novels of China (the others are Journey to the West, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Water Margin). It is called The Story of the Stone, and is also known as The dream of the Red Chamber. It was written in the 18th century and first published, several decades after it was written, in 1792. It is interesting how relatively little knowledge of these major works of literature seems to exist in the West, compared to, for example, the great works of Russian literature, perhaps because of the difficulty of translating them.
Anyway, you could say that my reading for most of 2019 is now sorted, but I hope to comment both on how I am getting on with this book, and some other things as the year goes on.
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