searchs Girlconsort Girlconsort w Girlconsort search searchw Girlconsort Girlconsort searchisearchlo Girlconsort ssearchrsearch c Girlconsort Gsearchrporn%20boardc Www nsearcho Girlconsort t Girlconsort s Girlconsort a Girlconsort ch Girlconsort Www wwsearchtsearchW Girlconsort w Girlconsort rsearchWw Girlconsort The novel is written in vernacular rather than classical Chinese and helped establish the legitimacy of the vernacular idiom. Its author, Cao Xueqin, was well versed in Chinese poetry and in classical Chinese, having written tracts in the erudite semi-wenyan style. The novel's conversations were written in the Beijing Mandarin dialect, which was to become the basis of modern spoken Chinese, with influences from Nanjing-area Mandarin (where Cao's family lived in the early 1700s).
The novel is normally called Hung Lou Meng or Hóng Lóu Mèng (紅樓夢), literally "Red chamber dream". "Red tower" or "red chamber" is an idiom for the sheltered chambers where the daughters of wealthy families lived.[5] It also refers to a dream in Chapter 5 that Baoyu has, set in a "red chamber", where the fates of many of the characters are foreshadowed. "Chamber" is sometimes translated as "mansion" because of the scale of the Chinese word "樓", but "mansion" is thought to neglect the flavour of the word "chamber" and it is a mistranslation according to Zhou Ruchang.[6][7]
The name of the main family, "賈", is a homophone with another Chinese character "假", which means false, fake, fictitious or sham. Thus, Cao Xueqin suggests that the novel's family is both a realistic reflection and a fictional or "dream" version of his own family.
The novel provides a detailed, episodic record of the two branches of the Jia (賈) clan — the Rongguo House (榮國府) and the Ningguo House (寧國府) — who reside in two large, adjacent family compounds in the capital. Their ancestors were made dukes, and as the novel begins the two houses are among the most illustrious families in the capital. One of the clan’s offspring is made an Imperial Consort, and a gigantic landscaped interior garden, named the Prospect Garden, is built to receive her visit. The novel describes the Jias’ wealth and influence in great naturalistic detail, and charts the Jias’ fall from the height of their prestige, following some thirty main characters and over four hundred minor ones. Eventually the Jia clan falls into disfavor with the Emperor, and their mansions are raided and confiscated.
In the story‘s preface, a sentient Stone, abandoned by the Goddess Nüwa when she mended the heavens aeons ago, begs a Taoist priest and Buddhist monk to bring it with him to enjoy in the worldly world. The Stone and Divine Attendant-in-Waiting (神瑛侍者) are separate beings (while in Cheng-gao versions they are merged into the same character).
The main character, Jia Baoyu (whose name means "precious jade"), is the adolescent heir of the family, a reincarnation of the Divine Attendant-in-Waiting. The Crimson Pearl Fairy (絳珠仙子) is incarnated as Baoyu's sickly cousin, the emotional Lin Daiyu, who loves Baoyu. Baoyu, however, is predestined in this life to marry another cousin, Xue Baochai. This love triangle against the backdrop of the family's declining fortunes forms the most well-known plot line in the novel.
From the first manuscripts circulating from the year 1759 until today, the novel has been a continuously successful bestseller not only in China, but all over the world in its various translations. One reason is that the story describes the unwillingness of a young man to grow up, a particularly resonant theme in literature.[citation needed] When the young man, Jia Baoyu, finally grows up, the paradise-like Prospect Garden of his childhood is destroyed and his friends are scattered to the four winds.[8]
Dream of the Red Chamber contains an extraordinarily large number of characters: nearly thirty are considered major characters, and there are over four hundred additional ones.[9] Jia Baoyu is the male protagonist. Females take center stage and are frequently shown to be more capable than their male counterparts. The names of the maids and bondservants are given in the original pinyin pronunciations and in David Hawkes' translation.