A Deep Dive into the Four Great Classical Novels

Using Dream of the Red Chamber, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, and Journey to the West as its lens, this collection of 100,000 words of philosophical essays unpacks the classics’ portrayals of human nature, power, freedom, and fate. From Jia Baoyu’s disillusionment to Zhuge Liang’s loneliness, from Song Jiang’s compromises to Sun Wukong’s submission, it reveals how these four great works foresaw the absurdities and dilemmas of modern society. A dialogue of ideas across time, this book opens up the classics’ relevance to the present day. In this book, the Four Great Classics are the lens, and the protagonists are not any one person, but the enduring souls found across these works: Jia Baoyu, with his disillusionment and awakening; Zhuge Liang, with his loyalty and loneliness; Song Jiang, with his brotherhood and compromises; and Sun Wukong, with his rebelliousness and submission. They cross the boundaries of time, taking shape among the people around us: entrepreneurs struggling amid the bubbles of capital, elites losing their way in power games, ordinary people crying out amid populist tides, and modern people seeking spiritual discipline inside algorithmic cages.