I found [b:The Crab-Flower Club|981885|The Crab-Flower Club (The Story of the Stone, #2)|Cao Xueqin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553404177l/981885._SY75_.jpg|49684985] a little slow in comparison with the first volume of [b:The Story of the Stone|139874|The Story of the Stone (The Story of the Stone, #1)|Cao Xueqin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1551975644l/139874._SY75_.jpg|17619004]. Volume 3, [b:The Warning Voice|1404411|The Warning Voice (The Story of the Stone, #3)|Cao Xueqin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1552246511l/1404411._SY75_.jpg|49685095], is more eventful and compelling. The profusion of domestic incidents allow Cao Xueqin to demonstrate his wonderfully keen eye for personalities and how they clash. There is something curiously timeless about a household struggling to get along as their financial situation deteriorates. The Jia family's expenses exceed their income and this is starting to cause problems. Several younger female characters step up to household management roles and attempt cost-saving measures. However these are always contested and difficult to impose, as no-one wants to sacrifice their comforts or spheres of influence. The complex web of relationships between the extended family and their servants is fascinating to observe. Bao-yu doesn't have a particularly strong presence in this volume, which largely follows the women who run the household both on the senior management and shop floor levels, as it were. Throughout the novel so far the narrative has been equally interested in the aristocratic Jia family and their servants.

There are fewer big celebrations in [b:The Warning Voice|1404411|The Warning Voice (The Story of the Stone, #3)|Cao Xueqin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1552246511l/1404411._SY75_.jpg|49685095] than [b:The Crab-Flower Club|981885|The Crab-Flower Club (The Story of the Stone, #2)|Cao Xueqin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553404177l/981885._SY75_.jpg|49684985], firstly because of a family bereavement that puts everyone in mourning for a long period and secondly due to money. The family resort repeatedly to pawning treasures in order to pay for parties, which is clearly not sustainable. The servants are the ones who actually do the pawning, so are keenly aware of what's going on. Amid these financial problems and the domestic turbulence they cause, one plot thread really stands out. Xi-feng, a woman whose strength of character you have to admire while also being terrified of her, discovers that her husband has secretly married a second wife when he should have been in mourning. Her actions upon discovering this are impressively machiavellian, albeit merciless towards the unfortunate second wife. Events proceed in a positively operatic fashion, culminating in a tragic denouement.

Indeed, all the marriages that happen in this volume turn out very badly. I don't think I've spotted a good husband yet in [b:The Story of the Stone|139874|The Story of the Stone (The Story of the Stone, #1)|Cao Xueqin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1551975644l/139874._SY75_.jpg|17619004]. They are all feckless gamblers, cruel abusers, paranoid obsessives, or some combination of the three. Bao-yu is accused of being effeminate and spending all his time with maids, but his options for male companionship are pretty terrible. By contrast, his female cousins and maids are witty, intelligent, and artistic.

There is an ominous sense of things starting to go downhill for the Jia family at this halfway point of this five volume novel. While the second volume is full of voluptuous material luxury and sumptuous parties, here tragedy, instability, and the need to control expenditure creep in. Now that I'm pretty familiar with the huge cast of characters, I find [b:The Story of the Stone|139874|The Story of the Stone (The Story of the Stone, #1)|Cao Xueqin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1551975644l/139874._SY75_.jpg|17619004] highly readable as well as fascinating. It is an extraordinarily intricate family drama, set in a historical milieu evoked in exquisitely vivid detail. I do not wonder at it remaining a classic for centuries. Finally, the translator must be commended both for the fluid style and reconciliation of the contradictions between multiple surviving manuscripts, a process carefully described in the appendices. ( )

This was by far my favorite volume of the three I've read so far. Of course, my darling Xi-feng took center stage for most of it (apart from all of those times when she was indisposed), so naturally I was more interested by the events of this book. Yes, I am a Xi-feng apologist, even after what she did to all of those people. ( )

After a long delay between volume 2 and 3 I have finally finished A Dream of Red Mansions. A long and different tale from what I was expecting. Hard to follow at times with names that looked similar to me. Still engaging and a fascinating work. ( )

Back on form after the longeurs and endless poetry of vol. II, here is where the cracks really start to show in the social and financial structures of the Rong/Ning clan. We also get one or two magical-realist incursions, unseen since vol. I, in the form of ghostly and monkish visitations. With Xi-feng spending most of the volume recovering from a miscarriage, and the other adults away for an extended period attending to funerary rites, things in the garden go haywire as servant-intrigues proliferate, the actresses are unleashed, and the gilded youth grow inevitably apart as adulthood looms. Bao-yu cuts a very pathetic figure, left behind by all this change, who "should have been born a girl" and, despite losing his virginity to Aroma very early in the book, seems both unable and unwilling to leave childhood behind or face the "interesting times" on the horizon. Tan-chun emerges as an old head on young shoulders, taking on some of Xi-feng's last-ditch financial dyke-plugging duties while gloomily noting that "the beast with a thousand legs is a long time dying."

Some wonderful subplots including Jia Lian's second marriage and Xi-feng's thwarting of it, the violent romance involving the You sisters, the mystery of the pornographic trinket, and Xue Pan's unfortunate marriage. I also loved the archery debauches across the street and the moon-viewing party with its distant flute and eerie aftermath in which Dai-yu (who's surely not long now for this world) and Bao-yu wander the garden in the dead of night. And, despite my above dig at the surfeit of versifying, Bao-yu's elegy for poor Skybright really is the culmination of David Hawkes's amazing work with the poetic aspects of the book — so rich and complex in its imagery and deeply moving. Kudos also to the crazy poem featuring 30+ rhymes for "gate" which somehow holds its head high while employing words like "pernoctate". I'm sad that I have to part ways with Hawkes for the last two vols, tr. Minford. The image of Xue Pan's unpleasant wife gnawing the bones of fowls, "crisp-fried in boiling fat", is a suitably ominous one on which to end... ( )

Quite a change from the last two volumes. In many ways it feels like it comes off the rails, as more and more time gets spent on digressions and the love triangle that's ostensibly at the heart of the plot fades to nothingness. The poetry also all but disappears and gets replaced by high melodrama and a creeping sense of doom. "The beast with a thousand legs is a long time dying," but by Chapter 80 everyone in the household can see the end. It might seem like so many changes to something already perfect would cause the quality to drop, but the growing sense of emptiness and decay produces some of the most beautiful moments of the entire novel so far: the lonely Mid-Autumn Festival, Bao-yu's elegy for Skybright, the flower cards, and of course the long, long saga of Er-jie and San-jie which explodes into the quiet lives of the Jias to reveal just how bad things have been allowed to get. Almost no one makes it out of this book unaltered except, maybe, Dai-yu, but as the last few chapters make clear her fate as well is closing in on her. Despite minor continuity errors and some strange pacing, the writing in this volume is some of Cao Xueqin's finest. If the lost 40 chapters had never been "found," I would say that what we have by the end of the volume would both be enough to make most of the rest of the plot clear, and to confirm The Story of the Stone as an awe-inspiring, life-changing work of art. ( )

My reading of this saga has slowed somewhat, due to being really busy, but I'm still making my way through, and I still get immersed when I am reading it. Two more volumes to go. This was the longest of the five. I think volume two is my favourite so far, followed by this one, and then the first volume. ( )

Another fine instalment by David Hawkes, the third volume of Story of the Stone continues the saga of the Jia family, their day-to-day lives and the growing relationship between Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu. As Hawkes admits, the third volume does start to show inconsistencies in plot and characters but the translator admirably resolves these issues. Overall, it is an excellent translation (though as I have mentioned, there are issues with the poetry) and Hawkes has shown his skills in making one of the great Chinese novels accessible to all. ( )

Volume 3 finds the significant idea in Buddhist that one would open his eyes to the vanity of human affections and causes a person to renounce the world, for one no longer subscribes to the conventions of the mundane, dust-stained world and thrives to be detached from it.

The title of this gripping, escalating volume, The Warning Voice, duly confirms the intractable decadence of the Jias. Tolstoy's opening line in Anna Karenina best describes the unfavorable miasma - "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Outsiders look at the Jias and all its wealth and immediately think how happy the Jias must be, they don't realize the vexations far outweigh the advantages and privileges. Being a big family with its numerous maids' converting to mistresses and concubines, daily fuss and drama are inevitable. These mistresses are conceited, usually full of their own importance, and always take offense at the most trivial matter, and at the slightest bit of cross do they begin to spread rumors to stir up trouble. It is under such quarrelsome milieu that the Jias gradually wanes. Volume 3 begins with the domestic hierarchy of maids in the house and how in the sabbatical of Xi-feng from managing house duties the well being of the family is left at the mercy of the senior maids.

In the event of an imperial member's death, the Jia ladyships take to daily excursion to the palace where they attend ceremonies during the mourning period (usually spans 100 days during Ming and Qing dynasties). Their stewards and stewardesses are no less occupied with accompanying them and seeing that preparations are readied ahead of time. Lacking discipline normally imposed by these officers and being deprived of Xi-feng's invidiously stringent implementation of rules on the operation of the house, domestics of both mansions (Rong and Ning) grow slovenly in the duties. Some take advantage of the exceptional circumstances to allay themselves with those placed temporarily in charge. Others, like the ex-actresses who remain under the Jias' patronage, become so imperious, demanding and fastidious about their commodities that the servants remain silent to avoid disputations. The urgent call for economizing adds fuel to the flame as the household is plagued by quarrel over the harvest of the garden, which is divided up among the growers and keepers. In a matter of weeks, happenings within the mansion render the whole place in a state of mutiny. The Rong and Ning mansions are inevitably left at the mercy of the few loyal, experienced senior maids who even go as far as bending authority to spare an innocent maid the accusation of stealing.

Some of the most memorable scenes of THE DREAM OF THE RED CHAMBER are indubitably those that concern Jia Lian's secret second marriage and its aftermath. The cunning Xi-feng deliberately conceals her knowledge of the shameful matter and executes her plan silently. Keeping her anger at bay and taking advantage of her rival's lacking in guile, Xi-feng entreats her rival to live with her, feigns kindness and makes her rival feel reassured about her future in the bosom of so delightful a family. Xi-feng's forbearance and outward gesture of kindness greatly mystify everyone who knows about the matter but little does anyone know about her true intent to rid of this new mistress. The treacherous Xi-feng surreptitiously draws up a fictitious court case accusing her own husband of taking an unlawful wife during national mourning and family mourning in order to rid of her rival indirectly. Her strategy is to stir up a betrothal agreement concerning her rival in the old days and manipulates the formerly affianced to bring a written indictment against her own husband before the court.

Insubordination and deterioration of moral standard infest the garden and infuriate Lady Wang. In her opinion each one of the maids in the garden is potential corrupter of her son Bao-yu. She orders a raid of the garden at the awestruck finding of a lewd picture. Secret investigation on the obscene brick-a-brac immediately takes place with such single-minded persistence and orders all maids to be subjected to her scrutiny. The unforeseen incidence raises alarm in Lady Wang about Bao-yu's squandering his time in the garden. Bao-yu is unprepared for the raging tempest that has just passed over him. The things his mother charges the maids with so uncanny a knowledge of even his most intimate conversations with them that there seem a little point in denial.

This volume faintly presages Bao-yu's determination to grip his own destiny. He thrives to live his life as he wants to and recognizes life'' uncertainty. This is significant in his defiance over the family-decided marriage to Bao-chai and his firm refusal to let go of his feeling and affection for Lin Dai-yu. It can be inferred that in his ineffable pain of losing Dai-yu that he has conceived the incipient thought to break away from the dust-stained world. Buddhist teaching dictates the second half of this climax-reaching volume of the novel. At the depletion of wealth and the dimming of glitter the truth of Buddha outshines the taste of luxury that is proven to be vanity at best. Out of the sea of suffering, one might turn the light and resolve to abjure the world and its vanities in order to prepare for the life to come. This idea burgeons toward the end of The Warning Voice as a sign and will be further explored in Volume 4. ( )