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The Story of the Stone: The Crab-Flower Club (Volume II)
The Story of the Stone: The Crab-Flower Club (Volume II)
Nov 11, 2025 7:46 AM

Author:Cao Xueqin

The Story of the Stone: The Crab-Flower Club (Volume II)

"The Story of the Stone" (c. 1760), also known as "The Dream of the Red Chamber", is one of the greatest novels of Chinese literature. The fifth part of Cao Xueqin's magnificent saga, "The Dreamer Awakes", was carefully edited and completed by Gao E some decades later. It continues the story of the changing fortunes of the Jia dynasty, focussing on Bao-yu, now married to Bao-chai, after the tragic death of his beloved Dai-yu. Against such worldly elements as death, financial ruin, marriage, decadence and corruption, his karmic journey unfolds. Like a sleepwalker through life, Bao-yu is finally awakened by a vision, which reveals to him that life itself is merely a dream, 'as moonlight mirrored in the water'.

Reviews

The candour and extremity and intelligence of My First Wife are profoundly affecting ... This is a literary masterwork of a vanished kind, but through the remarkable Hofmann it is born again as a story for our age. Hogmann has the rare ability to refresh the very heart of a text in translating it, to increase its connections to life

—— Rachel Cusk , Guardian

The opening pages of this novel are ike something out of Chekhov - it's all there, the ennui, the preening etiquette, the intellectual posturing ... painfully heartfelt ... My First Wife is a devastating indictment of the choices we make out of convenience against our hearts and instincts, and the tragedies that ensue

—— Independent

You won't find a more agonising, fascinating literary account of a marriage hitting the rocks

—— Mail Online

[Wassermann's] most elegant and focused work

—— London Review of Books

Gloriously vivacious and nuanced

—— Guardian

Funny, poignant and original, this country-house whodunit made me laugh out loud, and nod in recognition at its acerbic observations

—— Country Life
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