The Story of the Stone

Nov 24, 2025 10:47 AM

Author:Cao Xueqin

The Story of the Stone (c. 1760), also known by the title of The Dream of the Red Chamber, is the great novel of manners in Chinese literature.

Divided into five volumes, of which The Warning Voice is the third, it charts the glory and decline of the illustrious Jia family (a story which closely accords with the fortunes of the author's own family). The two main characters, Bao-yu and Dai-yu, are set against a rich tapestry of humour, realistic detail and delicate poetry, which accurately reflects the ritualized hurly-burly of Chinese family life. But over and above the novel hangs the constant reminder that there is another plane of existence - a theme which affirms the Buddhist belief in a supernatural scheme of things.

Reviews

A powerful piece of writing...A tragicomic lament for the generations of rejects and hopefuls who fetched up in the erstwhile "muddy pool" of Liverpool

—— Guardian

Exhilarating...It pulses with sincere and bracing anger

—— Times Literary Supplement

The rawness and vitality that have been present in Griffiths' writing... make him more than able to present this material unflinchingly and powerfully. Red in tooth and claw, Wreckage makes bleak but compelling reading

—— Glasgow Herald

One of Britain's most talented younger writers

—— Time Out

Brilliantly paced, sexy and hilarious... An awesome bebut... I can't wait for his second novel

—— Big Issue

Fresh, funny and convincing

—— Mail on Sunday

Angry, moving, urgent

—— Times Literary Supplement

One of my favourite books of the year...This is going to be huge...I loved it

—— Sarah Broadhurst , The Bookseller

An enjoyably bumptious coming of age novel

—— Richard Godwin , Literary Review

Tolerant, funny and real, [the narrator] ducks and dives hedonistically, lazily, gunning out x-ray observations about masculinity, models and "the magic of miscegenation" that would have had Oscar Wilde licking his lips

—— Vogue

'Highly coloured, linguistically inventive...Evans has a powerful and often beguiling imagination'

—— Daily Telegraph

'Sensual and poetic, as well as powerful and uncompromising...A mature, compelling and beautiful first novel'

—— Times Literary Supplement

'The writing is both mature and freshly perceptive, creating not only a warmly funny novel of a Neasden childhood - with its engaging minutiae of flapjacks and icepops, lip gloss and daisy hairclips - but a haunting account of the loss of innocence and mental disintegration.'

—— Maya Jaggi , Guardian

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