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A review by ravenofoctober
The Red Chamber by Pauline A. Chen
3.0
To start: I've never read the source material, so I will not be making comparisons to that. It took me a long time to get into this book, and it never really gripped me enough that I couldn't put it down for a few days. It was like a soap opera. And while I appreciate that it's nowhere near as long as the original, I think it could have been trimmed down further.
HOWEVER, I really liked all the different women, and I was so glad Daiyu ended up being alive at the end (I hoped she would). I felt most sorry for Xifeng, who seemed to just be treated poorly by everyone despite all she did for the household. Watching her slow decline at the end, culminating in her dying alone, was truly tragic.
I did think the strength of this book was the way it depicts the modern concept of internalized misogyny in a historical context. All the women show varying levels of adaptation or rebellion in the oppressive society they're in--and the men even show different degrees of this as well; it's more pronounced in the women because the three main point of view characters are women. While on the one hand I wish they would have supported each other, it's understandable in the setting they're in. They're all vying for the most power a woman can have, and they judge each other harshly for missteps or rebellions of which they don't approve, while at the same time making their own missteps and rebellions. Chen certainly nailed all of these complexities well. I think the plot was just a little too slow-moving for me.
HOWEVER, I really liked all the different women, and I was so glad Daiyu ended up being alive at the end (I hoped she would). I felt most sorry for Xifeng, who seemed to just be treated poorly by everyone despite all she did for the household. Watching her slow decline at the end, culminating in her dying alone, was truly tragic.
I did think the strength of this book was the way it depicts the modern concept of internalized misogyny in a historical context. All the women show varying levels of adaptation or rebellion in the oppressive society they're in--and the men even show different degrees of this as well; it's more pronounced in the women because the three main point of view characters are women. While on the one hand I wish they would have supported each other, it's understandable in the setting they're in. They're all vying for the most power a woman can have, and they judge each other harshly for missteps or rebellions of which they don't approve, while at the same time making their own missteps and rebellions. Chen certainly nailed all of these complexities well. I think the plot was just a little too slow-moving for me.