Chia Pao-yü (8)

Ranks 8th on The Fictional 100

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"Night and day, coz, sleeping and dreaming,

you are never out of my mind."

The following books will introduce you to Chia Pao-yü, who said these words in The Story of the Stone (Vol. 2).

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• Cao Xueqin. The Story of the Stone: Vol. 1. The Golden Days (David Hawkes, Trans.). Penguin, 1974.
  • The first volume of the greatest of all Chinese novels, which introduces the boy Chia Pao-yü, recalls his birth in heaven as a Precious Jade, and recounts the beginnings of his doomed love for his delicate cousin, Black Jade. This beautiful and readable translation allows us to become deeply involved with these characters and experience their compelling story, which is both romantic and spiritually significant. This novel is also known as Dream of the Red Chamber.
    
• Cao Xueqin. The Story of the Stone: Vol. 2. The Crab-Flower Club (David Hawkes, Trans.). Penguin,1977.
  • Chia Pao-yü and Black Jade's prickly but touching romance blossoms.
• Cao Xueqin. The Story of the Stone: Vol. 3. The Warning Voice (David Hawkes, Trans.). Penguin, 1981.
  • As the Chia family suffers many signs of decline, Pao-yü's fate seems perilous.
• Cao Xueqin. The Story of the Stone: Vol. 4. The Debt of Tears (John Minford, Trans.). Penguin, 1982.
  • The two teenagers' tragic love story reaches its climax.
• Cao Xueqin. The Story of the Stone: Vol. 5. The Dreamer Wakes (John Minford, Trans.). Penguin, 1986.
  • Chia Pao-yü fulfills his heavenly destiny.
    
• Ts'ao Hsüeh-ch'in. Dream of the Red Chamber (Chi-Chen Wang, Trans.). New York: Bantam Doubleday, 1996.
  • This abridged version in one volume is good, but a bit harder to follow. Better to read one or two volumes of the full Penguin translation.
    
• Rolston, David L. (Ed.). How to Read the Chinese Novel. Princeton University Press, 1990.
  • This engaging book collects commentaries by Chinese thinkers on the most important Chinese novels. Chang Hsin-chih worked over his "How to Read the Dream of the Red Chamber" from 1828 to 1850, and the result (trans. by Andrew Plaks) is enlightening, thoughtful, and suggestive of even further puzzles in this extraordinary novel.
    
• Knoerle, Jeanne. The Dream of the Red Chamber: A Critical Study. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972.
  • Knoerle analyzes the structure of the story and its interlaced themes.
    
• Plaks, Andrew H. Archetype and Allegory in the Dream of the Red Chamber. Princeton University Press, 1976.
  • Comprehensive treatment of the symbolic world of the novel.

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