What do you think?
Rate this book
The Plum in the Golden Vase #2
The Plum in the Golden Vase Or, Chin P'Ing Mei: Volume Two: The Rivals
In this second of a planned five-volume series, David Roy provides a complete and annotated translation of the famous Chin P'ing Mei, an anonymous sixteenth-century Chinese novel that focuses on the domestic life of His-men Ch'ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant in a provincial town, who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines. This work, known primarily for its erotic realism, is also a landmark in the development of narrative art--not only from a specifically Chinese perspective but in a world-historical context.
With the possible exception of The Tale of Genji (1010) and Don Quixote (1615), there is no earlier work of prose fiction of equal sophistication in world literature. Although its importance in the history of Chinese narrative has long been recognized, the technical virtuosity of the author, which is more reminiscent of the Dickens of Bleak House, the Joyce of Ulysses, or the Nabokov of Lolita than anything in the earlier Chinese fiction tradition, has not yet received adequate recognition. This is partly because all of the existing European translations are either abridged or based on an inferior recension of the text. This translation and its annotation aim to faithfully represent and elucidate all the rhetorical features of the original in its most authentic form and thereby enable the Western reader to appreciate this Chinese masterpiece at its true worth.
With the possible exception of The Tale of Genji (1010) and Don Quixote (1615), there is no earlier work of prose fiction of equal sophistication in world literature. Although its importance in the history of Chinese narrative has long been recognized, the technical virtuosity of the author, which is more reminiscent of the Dickens of Bleak House, the Joyce of Ulysses, or the Nabokov of Lolita than anything in the earlier Chinese fiction tradition, has not yet received adequate recognition. This is partly because all of the existing European translations are either abridged or based on an inferior recension of the text. This translation and its annotation aim to faithfully represent and elucidate all the rhetorical features of the original in its most authentic form and thereby enable the Western reader to appreciate this Chinese masterpiece at its true worth.
720 pages, Paperback
First published January 2, 1610
14 people are currently reading
470 people want to read
About the author
Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng
56 books25 followersLanling Xiaoxiao Sheng (Chinese: 蘭陵笑笑生) or "The Scoffing Scholar of Lanling", a clear pseudonym.
Jin Ping Mei (Chinese: 金瓶梅; pinyin: Jīn Píng Méi), translated as The Plum in the Golden Vase or The Golden Lotus, is a Chinese naturalistic novel composed in vernacular Chinese during the late Ming Dynasty. The anonymous author took the pseudonym Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng (蘭陵笑笑生), "The Scoffing Scholar of Lanling," and his identity is otherwise unknown (the only clue is that he hailed from Lanling in present-day Shandong).
The identity of the author has not yet been established, but the coherence of the style and the subtle symmetry of the narrative point to a single author. The British orientalist Arthur Waley, writing before recent research, in his Introduction to the 1942 translation suggested that the strongest candidate as author was Xu Wei, a renowned painter and member of the "realistic" Gong'an school of letters, urging that a comparison could be made of the poems in the Jin Ping Mei to the poetic production of Xu Wei, but left this task to future scholars. The "morphing" of the author from Xu Wei to Wang Shizhen would be explained by the practice of attributing "a popular work of literature to some well-known writer of the period".
Jin Ping Mei (Chinese: 金瓶梅; pinyin: Jīn Píng Méi), translated as The Plum in the Golden Vase or The Golden Lotus, is a Chinese naturalistic novel composed in vernacular Chinese during the late Ming Dynasty. The anonymous author took the pseudonym Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng (蘭陵笑笑生), "The Scoffing Scholar of Lanling," and his identity is otherwise unknown (the only clue is that he hailed from Lanling in present-day Shandong).
The identity of the author has not yet been established, but the coherence of the style and the subtle symmetry of the narrative point to a single author. The British orientalist Arthur Waley, writing before recent research, in his Introduction to the 1942 translation suggested that the strongest candidate as author was Xu Wei, a renowned painter and member of the "realistic" Gong'an school of letters, urging that a comparison could be made of the poems in the Jin Ping Mei to the poetic production of Xu Wei, but left this task to future scholars. The "morphing" of the author from Xu Wei to Wang Shizhen would be explained by the practice of attributing "a popular work of literature to some well-known writer of the period".
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
January 16, 2015
This gets better and better.
Early on, I was dismayed as I realized volume two was going to focus on daily life in Hsi-men Ching’s house, and the competition among his wife and concubines. I thought, how boring. I was wrong; it’s far from a soap opera, although it has elements in common with those multi-year serials. Instead, the author deepens the portrait of each of the characters as he fills in an ultra-realist picture of life in 1590s China. We learn of the true piety of Hsi-Men Ching’s official wife, and his own hypocritical posturing when external rites are required. We see him spiral deeper into lustful and avaricious behavior. We see him abusing his civil position to further his private affairs.
Most of all we marvel at the complex P’an Chin-Lien, the ‘fifth lady’ or the fourth of Hsi-Men’s concubines. Steven Moore has written a good brief on her in his The Novel, An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600. On the surface she is a restless trouble-maker; Hsi-men tells her: ‘You lousy oily-mouth, you have to have a finger in every pie.’ If someone has convinced Hsi-Men to take one course, she has to convince him to to reverse it in order to be in charge. She loves to get someone else into trouble, or to get more gifts from Hsi-Men than the others, or to just make someone else miserable because she can. But Moore points out that she is an abused and frustrated young woman, successively married off to two undesirable (and possibly impotent?) husbands before finally getting linked up illicitly to Hsi-Men Ching and murdering her first husband in order to enter his household. Unfortunately the beautiful and sexual Chin-Lien doesn’t stop to think that His-Men Ching won’t stop his Don Juan life, and we see her late in the second volume miserable as another concubine has given him a son and his eye has wandered on to the wife of an employee and occasionally to a pageboy. Yet she is so full of life and mischief that a chapter later she is busy playing a practical joke and conniving her way back into favor.
Equally as fascinating, for me, is the author’s detailed descriptions of every aspect of life for all classes in the broadly defined household. We see life in the kitchen, multi-course feasts and daily delicacies served with tea, the color, cut and fabric of clothing, the design of hair ornaments and styling, the formalities of ceremonies and celebrations, the down and dirty mens’ parties, the catty ladies parties, how the judicial system works, how patronage works, erotic encounters, how the front gate and intermediate entrances work, how men and women go about moving beyond the house, and on and on. Moore points out that this level of realism is not matched again for almost 400 years.
The volume closes with a hilarious but acid scene in a temple, protraying a ceremony in which Hsi-Men dedicates his somewhat sickly baby boy to the high priest (as a formality only). He had promised to undertake the ceremony during the birth of the boy, and his wife has reminded him that once the baby arrived safely he forgot his vow. So he spends a packet on it, and the author pillories the priesthood as one of them spends pages describing all of the mumbo-jumbo rituals and invocations they have cooked up to justify the money. Then guests and priests all sit down to an all-night banquet. Indeed, the opulent gifts, feasts, bribery, and erotica throughout are constant reminders of the author’s underlying purpose (according to translator Roy) of criticising the emperor and his court, and upper class life in general.
One should not forget to mention the great humor on almost every page. This is a tremendously funny book, and a beautiful one, in the poetry that is constantly quoted. I listened to it, and so missed Roy’s notes on the sources for the poetry in classic Chinese literature, which would add even more layers of meaning.
This is well worth the investment.
Early on, I was dismayed as I realized volume two was going to focus on daily life in Hsi-men Ching’s house, and the competition among his wife and concubines. I thought, how boring. I was wrong; it’s far from a soap opera, although it has elements in common with those multi-year serials. Instead, the author deepens the portrait of each of the characters as he fills in an ultra-realist picture of life in 1590s China. We learn of the true piety of Hsi-Men Ching’s official wife, and his own hypocritical posturing when external rites are required. We see him spiral deeper into lustful and avaricious behavior. We see him abusing his civil position to further his private affairs.
Most of all we marvel at the complex P’an Chin-Lien, the ‘fifth lady’ or the fourth of Hsi-Men’s concubines. Steven Moore has written a good brief on her in his The Novel, An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600. On the surface she is a restless trouble-maker; Hsi-men tells her: ‘You lousy oily-mouth, you have to have a finger in every pie.’ If someone has convinced Hsi-Men to take one course, she has to convince him to to reverse it in order to be in charge. She loves to get someone else into trouble, or to get more gifts from Hsi-Men than the others, or to just make someone else miserable because she can. But Moore points out that she is an abused and frustrated young woman, successively married off to two undesirable (and possibly impotent?) husbands before finally getting linked up illicitly to Hsi-Men Ching and murdering her first husband in order to enter his household. Unfortunately the beautiful and sexual Chin-Lien doesn’t stop to think that His-Men Ching won’t stop his Don Juan life, and we see her late in the second volume miserable as another concubine has given him a son and his eye has wandered on to the wife of an employee and occasionally to a pageboy. Yet she is so full of life and mischief that a chapter later she is busy playing a practical joke and conniving her way back into favor.
Equally as fascinating, for me, is the author’s detailed descriptions of every aspect of life for all classes in the broadly defined household. We see life in the kitchen, multi-course feasts and daily delicacies served with tea, the color, cut and fabric of clothing, the design of hair ornaments and styling, the formalities of ceremonies and celebrations, the down and dirty mens’ parties, the catty ladies parties, how the judicial system works, how patronage works, erotic encounters, how the front gate and intermediate entrances work, how men and women go about moving beyond the house, and on and on. Moore points out that this level of realism is not matched again for almost 400 years.
The volume closes with a hilarious but acid scene in a temple, protraying a ceremony in which Hsi-Men dedicates his somewhat sickly baby boy to the high priest (as a formality only). He had promised to undertake the ceremony during the birth of the boy, and his wife has reminded him that once the baby arrived safely he forgot his vow. So he spends a packet on it, and the author pillories the priesthood as one of them spends pages describing all of the mumbo-jumbo rituals and invocations they have cooked up to justify the money. Then guests and priests all sit down to an all-night banquet. Indeed, the opulent gifts, feasts, bribery, and erotica throughout are constant reminders of the author’s underlying purpose (according to translator Roy) of criticising the emperor and his court, and upper class life in general.
One should not forget to mention the great humor on almost every page. This is a tremendously funny book, and a beautiful one, in the poetry that is constantly quoted. I listened to it, and so missed Roy’s notes on the sources for the poetry in classic Chinese literature, which would add even more layers of meaning.
This is well worth the investment.
February 6, 2026
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Cast of Characters
--The Plum in the Golden Vase, Volume Two: The Rivals
Appendix: Translations of Supplementary Material
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
Cast of Characters
--The Plum in the Golden Vase, Volume Two: The Rivals
Appendix: Translations of Supplementary Material
Notes
Bibliography
Index
July 26, 2015
金瓶梅を読めば幸せになる。
December 29, 2012
Just as excellent as Volume One.
December 24, 2017
Most of my comments are in my review of volume 1, but I'll list the scenes I specifically enjoyed in this volume inside spoiler tags (even though I think I've been careful not to give too much away):
January 20, 2019
Judging from the reviews I read a bad translation.... couldn’t be less excited.
January 22, 2024
Excellent classic book!
Read
September 1, 2025Sad that George Backman never did the other volumes, what a king of a narrator.
September 4, 2025
Not my favorite of the five chinese classics, but certainly some strong writing and some beautiful poetry.
February 26, 2013
Der Aufstieg eines Lüstlings
Der zweite Band der Neuübersetzung des Jin Ping Mei führt die Geschichte natürlich nahtlos mit den Kapiteln 21-40 weiter. Die Ähnlichkeit zum Hongloumeng ("Traum der roten Kammer") wird dabei nun sehr deutlich: Auch hier werden nun weiter die Intrigen einer Familie, fast ohne äußere Einflüsse, geschildert. Immer klarer wird auch, dass hier eine gewisse Form der Satire auf den Kaiserhof stattfindet - so weit zu gehen, diesen Roman als "Schlüsselroman" zu bezeichnen, kann man aber nicht gehen, dazu sind die Figuren zu abstrakt. Dem "normalen" westlichen Leser wird nur ein gewisser beißender allgemeiner Unterton gegen Reiche und Bedeutende Persönlichkeiten klar. Das Lotterleben des Ximen Qing ist aber auch spektakulär: Nicht genug mit seiner Frau und seinen Konkubinen, findet er immer wieder eine neue Blüte, die es zu deflorieren gilt. Mehr als im ersten Band sind nun hier explizite Szenen zu finden, die wirklich keine Praxis auslassen. Hoch anzurechnen ist daher dem Übersetzer, dass er sich nicht scheut, dies auch entsprechend explizit zu übersetzen.
Auch im zweiten Band ist der Apparat ausgesprochen ausführlich: Hunderte von Endnoten, Index und Bibliografie machen diese Übersetzung nicht nur für Laien, sondern auch für Literatur-Experten sehr lesenswert. Das Papier der Softcover-Ausgabe scheint mir noch einen Tick besser zu sein als im ersten Band; die Umschlaggestaltung passt sich diesem aber an. Die Reproduktion der Holzsschnitte ist sehr gelungen; über typografische Kniffe wie Einrückung und Kursivsetzung werden die häufig auftretenden Gedichte und Zitate kenntlich gemacht. Besonders bewundernswert ist, wie der Übersetzer es schafft, sogar komplizierte Wortspiele aus dem Chinesischen ins Englische zu übertragen - in so gekonnter und gewitzter Weise habe ich das noch nirgends gesehen.
Auch wenn die Handlung stellenweise etwas stockt, ist man doch gespannt, wie sich die Vielecksgeschichte um den Wüstling Ximen Qing weiterentwickelt. Band 3 ist bereits erschienen und natürlich Pflichtlektüre für alle Freunde des chinesischen Klassikers.
Der zweite Band der Neuübersetzung des Jin Ping Mei führt die Geschichte natürlich nahtlos mit den Kapiteln 21-40 weiter. Die Ähnlichkeit zum Hongloumeng ("Traum der roten Kammer") wird dabei nun sehr deutlich: Auch hier werden nun weiter die Intrigen einer Familie, fast ohne äußere Einflüsse, geschildert. Immer klarer wird auch, dass hier eine gewisse Form der Satire auf den Kaiserhof stattfindet - so weit zu gehen, diesen Roman als "Schlüsselroman" zu bezeichnen, kann man aber nicht gehen, dazu sind die Figuren zu abstrakt. Dem "normalen" westlichen Leser wird nur ein gewisser beißender allgemeiner Unterton gegen Reiche und Bedeutende Persönlichkeiten klar. Das Lotterleben des Ximen Qing ist aber auch spektakulär: Nicht genug mit seiner Frau und seinen Konkubinen, findet er immer wieder eine neue Blüte, die es zu deflorieren gilt. Mehr als im ersten Band sind nun hier explizite Szenen zu finden, die wirklich keine Praxis auslassen. Hoch anzurechnen ist daher dem Übersetzer, dass er sich nicht scheut, dies auch entsprechend explizit zu übersetzen.
Auch im zweiten Band ist der Apparat ausgesprochen ausführlich: Hunderte von Endnoten, Index und Bibliografie machen diese Übersetzung nicht nur für Laien, sondern auch für Literatur-Experten sehr lesenswert. Das Papier der Softcover-Ausgabe scheint mir noch einen Tick besser zu sein als im ersten Band; die Umschlaggestaltung passt sich diesem aber an. Die Reproduktion der Holzsschnitte ist sehr gelungen; über typografische Kniffe wie Einrückung und Kursivsetzung werden die häufig auftretenden Gedichte und Zitate kenntlich gemacht. Besonders bewundernswert ist, wie der Übersetzer es schafft, sogar komplizierte Wortspiele aus dem Chinesischen ins Englische zu übertragen - in so gekonnter und gewitzter Weise habe ich das noch nirgends gesehen.
Auch wenn die Handlung stellenweise etwas stockt, ist man doch gespannt, wie sich die Vielecksgeschichte um den Wüstling Ximen Qing weiterentwickelt. Band 3 ist bereits erschienen und natürlich Pflichtlektüre für alle Freunde des chinesischen Klassikers.
May 19, 2007
there is nothing like david tod roy's translation of this in chinese literature, at least i've never found anything that even comes close. so much chinese translation comes off as fruity in the silliest way to me--i know, not exactly an academic impression--even in established greats like the recent dream of the red chamber translation. but this is amazing. i want to send roy chocolates or flowers in gratitude, and as a bribe to get him to bring out the last 2 volumes already (still haven't bought the 3rd as it hasn't come out in paperback yet...)! other than rabelais, this is my favorite classic of all time. it transcends all.
November 19, 2013
Review of all 5 volumes under Volume 5.
Read
July 3, 20162015 LITERATURE AND HUMANITIES
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews