The banquet in the Grand View Garden allowed Baoyu to spend a happy and fulfilling fourteenth birthday. Yingying and Yanyan surrounded him, drinking, composing poems, making drinking orders, and playing board games, and had a great time. In the end, they fell asleep because of each other... It was really a "birthday banquet that started with good scenery."
, or the entire Jia family, has turned from prosperity to decline."
Jia Baoyu may never have imagined that his fourteenth birthday would become the last lively scene in his life.
Since then, Baoyu has never had such a lively and enjoyable banquet. Instead, the atmosphere has become more deserted and the mood has become more and more bleak every time.
Reading "A Dream of Red Mansions" with this "Handout", I feel like watching a video and reading a barrage, and the ancient prose and storyline that were in the clouds become clear in an instant.
01. A map for interpreting the original work
Nowadays, "Dream of Red Mansions" has become a discipline, the so-called "Redology". "Dream of Red Mansions" has such a high status, It turns off many people, indeed, a large number of us have not even read the original work.
But thanks to these interpretations, even those who have not read the original work can understand the Red Mansion and get closer to it.
Maybe you will have a different feeling after seeing the "map" and experiencing this journey again. Reading classics is no longer just a quick glance, nor does it only focus on the plot. We can have more thoughts and gain more insights.
This book will also be a code book. Before reading many books, I will risk being spoiled by reading book reviews or online interpretations, because I can learn a lot about even the author. Not necessarily known. For example, this book deals with Lin Daiyu’s property issues, such as whether the decline of Rongguo Mansion was a political issue or an economic one.
Holding this code book and trying to restore the plot of the original novel, you will feel a sudden enlightenment!
Perhaps, this is the meaning of interpretation. Reading the original work with interpretation will make you no longer lonely, just like watching a drama and watching barrage. Spoilers are no longer a flaw, but "enjoyment alone." It’s not as good as the joy of “all the people having fun”!
02. A guide to clearing the original work
If Dream of Red Mansions is a completely different world, walking in it, we may be able to appreciate part of its elegance and magnificence, but But I couldn't really get inside him.
And this book just provides us with a travel map through the world of Red Mansions.
The opening chapter of "Map" presents a multi-dimensional perspective. The author opens an article first, opening the narrative of "Dream of Red Mansions" for readers in the dimension of time. It records the transformation of Rong and Ning Mansion from prosperity to prosperity over the 15 years in the Spring and Autumn Period. The process of decline.
Then use the "drone" to overlook the Jia Mansion, take us into the Rongguo Mansion, visit the Ningguo Mansion, enter the Grand View Garden, see Baoyu's Yihong Courtyard, and Daiyu's Xiaoxiang Pavilion. For example, before the show starts, take the audience through the stage.
At this point, you and I can enter the Red Mansion but can also jump out of the Red Mansion and read the Red Mansion.
Then, Teacher Dong Mei took us to observe the world of Red Mansions from four dimensions: literature, philosophy, society, and symbols.
We really need this "Red Mansions Map". Only by following the map can we get a different taste.
If "Dream of Red Mansions" is a game, the author spent more than thirty years and countless experience in completing the game to write this guide.
In the face of this guide, those who have not read The Red Mansion will be attracted by a certain point in "Handouts" to open the original work; and those who have read the original work will also want to read it precisely because of this guide To verify and read again.
03. A sketch that restores the author
If you are holding a copy of "Dream of Red Mansions", you must not be able to read Cao Xueqin.
As a so-called fan of the authorities, as a reader, even if you have a God's perspective, you will still be attracted by the plot of the novel and immersed in it. Even if you jump out of the novel, the pattern you can see is limited, let alone understand the original author?
Teacher Dong Mei’s unraveling creates another perspective for us besides the plot.
When reading the original work, it is easy to be drooled by the delicacies in the novel, such as the most famous eggplant. When Wang Xifeng explained the recipe of eggplant with every family treasure, it was not only Grandma Liu who was shocked. The chin, yes, to be able to eat eggplant to this extent is no longer "fine", but "made". To borrow the words of Confucius, it is "too much is too little".
life.
You still can’t understand Cao Xueqin’s identity as a wealthy gourmet with the above. Teacher Dong Mei then pulled out the sequel for comparison: Chapter 87, Zijuan said to Daiyu that it ordered the kitchen to make a bowl of fire. Meat and cabbage soup, add five-spice kohlrabi, some sesame oil and vinegar, Daiyu actually said "it makes it"!
The protagonist actually lowered his requirements for delicious food according to the author's taste! There is no harm without comparison. As the author of the sequel, it is impossible to imagine the luxurious life in a wealthy mansion. Only by comparing the two sides can we understand Cao Xueqin's life.
Read the poems in the novel again. Teacher Dong Mei told an interesting anecdote in the book: There was a fill-in-the-blank question in the examination paper of the Chinese Department of a certain university: The author of the poem "The Song of Burial Flowers" is who?
Many students’ answer is Lin Daiyu.
It can be seen from this that Lin Daiyu’s image is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and how well this song "The Burial of Flowers" fits Daiyu’s character!
This is the great thing about Cao Xueqin. There are many poems in the novel. He can make the poems elegant or vulgar, refined or rough according to the needs of the plot. "The most important thing in the development of Chinese literature is Practice all the classic poetry and rhyme genres." What kind of literary skills does this require!
When I read poetry, I was immersed in the plot and took it for granted. But now, after escaping from the original work, I discovered that Cao Xueqin’s literary attainments are so unattainable!
Just as teacher Dong Mei said in an interview with cover news:
04. Conclusion: Your own "Dream of Red Mansions"
"A thousand rivers have water, a thousand rivers have water." "Moon", every classic is worth chewing over and over again. Different readers in different eras will have different tastes.
Sometimes, we need to see the world from different people’s perspectives and eyes. Just like this book, it leads us into the Dream of the Red Mansions that Teacher Dong Mei has experienced for more than thirty years.
After reading the book together and colliding with your own world, you will get a unique taste that is different from anyone else.
What finally merged into my life was "A Dream of Red Mansions" with my own name!