Newcomer jolts family as love for son blooms
“The Red Chamber,” Pauline A. Chen’s first novel, is set among the privileged in 18th century China. Even in the households of wealth and power, women’s lives are tightly controlled by society’s strictures. When a class of people holds such limited power, outcomes can be tragic.
The novel is a distillation of one of China’s most famous classical novels, “Dream of the Red Chamber.” Written by Cao Xueqin in the 18th century, it is an observation of life in the aristocracy and the tragedy of a love triangle.
So, too, is “The Red Chamber.” Following the death of her mother, Daiyu is sent to live with her maternal family. She is 17 and loath to leave all she knows, but she has no choice. She travels from the humid, lush southern provinces to her new home in the capital. She has never met these wealthy relatives; ties were cut after her mother married for love, instead of bowing to the family’s wishes.
Nothing is familiar, let alone comfortable, in her transition. As she waits to get off the barge on the last leg of her journey, “the hot wind hits her: dry and dusty, full of grit and sand from the Gobi desert…the sun even has a different look here in the Capital, glaring and yellow, its light undiffused by shade or greenery.” Looking to the shore she sees “a dozen servants with sedan chairs and a wagon waiting on the dock for their arrival.”
More unsettling than the weather is Rongguo Mansion, home to her uncle’s extended family. The compound is lavish; Daiyu is given a maid and fine clothing but precious little guidance. Her first gaffe takes place at her first dinner. The cup of tea at the end of the meal is intended as a gargle, which Daiyu discovers only after drinking hers down. The stereotype of poor relation and country bumpkin will be hard to escape.
The family includes several cousins: Xifeng, married to cousin Lian, runs the household with an unswerving hand; cousin Baochi, a year older than Daiyu, is plain, quiet, intelligent, and more given than most to quietly questioning the status quo. Baoyu, 18, is the golden bad boy of the family. An unapologetic flirt, he is lackadaisically studying for the Civil Service exams that, once passed, are the entry into society and money.
Baoyu was born with a jade stone in his mouth, a happenstance that eases his life. The family’s matriarch adores and spoils him, defending him to his disappointed father. The unspoken plan has long been for Baoyu and Baochi to marry, a fortuitous joining of two families. Daiyu, lovely and naïve, unintentionally disrupts those plans. The family is enraged and Baochi, her best friend, understandably deserts her.
It matters little what Baoyu and Daiyu desire. Xifeng gives voice to reality when, after the suicide of a former servant she says, “A woman doesn’t have any choices in life. Even from a good family like ours, she has to marry whom her parents choose for her. If, by a stroke of luck, he is a decent fellow, then she might be fortunate. But if he is a bad man, as is far more likely, she will suffer.” Death is the one of the few choices available.
“The Red Chamber” offers a window into a foreign world, much as Lisa See does with “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.” Chen, with a Ph. D. in East Asian studies, is well-qualified to serve up her vision. One great challenge facing any novelist is making the unknowable understood. Chen’s framework provides a context for her characters’ actions, as often flawed as they are heroic, that makes things not just knowable but comprehensible.
FICTION: CHINESE LOVE TRIANGLE
CHINESE LOVE TRIANGLE
The Red Chamber
by Pauline A. Chen (Knopf)
