I didn't really know anything about Eileen Chang going into this essay collection so this is my first experience with her writing. I found it very easy to read and much of the book was quite interesting. Chang lived through the Japanese invasion of China and spent a lot of her formative years in war torn Shanghai. She also had a unique childhood that was very different than I would have imagined. The essays centered on those two experiences were my favorites. She made a name for herself later as an art and film critic, but unfortunately most of the context of those essays was lost on me since she was referencing Chinese cinema that I know nothing about. Regardless, the book is beautifully written and definitely worth checking out for anyone interested in early 20th century Chinese culture.
One of the best Chinese-language books available on "Dream of the Red Chamber." Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing) is most well-known as a novelist, in fact, one of the greatest Chinese novelists in the modern era. What many people don't know is that she was addicted to the 18th-century Chinese masterpiece "Dream of the Red Chamber." It had a massive influence on her fiction writing, and especially when reading her works in Chinese, you can feel that influence, particularly in her lush and vivid descriptive language.
Being a "Dream junkie," Eileen Chang spent a decade putting this book together, which showcases the results of her intensive textual analysis and investigation, comparing various editions of early "Dream of the Red Chamber" manuscripts. Not being a trained "academic," her style is a bit disorganized, but her attention to detail and her unique perspective as an author of fiction herself (allowing her to better understand the writing process from an author's point of view), she has managed to make some very convincing arguments about Cao Xueqin's original intent with his novel, how it was originally supposed to end, "missing" scenes that were originally part of Cao's non-extant earlier work, "A Mirror for the Romantic," and more. Truly a phenomenal study and she never gets the credit she deserves as one of the most insightful "Dream" scholars over the past century. Unfortunately, the study of "The Dream" (known as "Redology" has long been a man's world, so that may be the reason why, although now there are more well-known female scholars of the novel).
If you can read Chinese and are a "Dream of the Red Chamber" junkie, this book is a must-read!