A Madman's Guide to the Jia Mansion: Life Is but a Dream

If you don’t like Dream of the Red Chamber, it’s really not your fault! After all, the conditions for writing back then were harsh. The author had to write with his life on the line, so he could only disguise the work as a romance to stay alive. How did legitimate and illegitimate heirs fight for power? How did officials cover for one another? How did a powerful family borrow money to plug its holes? Who pretended to be asleep on the eve of the confiscation? If you like power struggles, they’re here. If you like human nature, that’s here too. You watch them build tall towers, you watch them entertain their guests, you watch their towers collapse. That is the true theme of the entire book. What seems like a tale of love is really a world of blades and shadows. Romance is the skin, the fall of an aristocratic family is the bones, and the servants’ lives are the flesh and blood. I’m not here to rewrite a classic. It doesn’t need me to rewrite it. I just want to pry open a crack in the door, sealed shut by classical Chinese and old preconceptions, so today’s kids, and readers who are used to wish-fulfillment stories, can let a little light in. The stone boy has squatted on Qinggeng Peak for tens of thousands of years. Now he’s speaking. Don’t scroll away. Read to the end before saying, “This book is boring.” You owe Cao Xueqin that much.