What is the difference between the "Dream of Red Mansions" you read and what Cao Xueqin wrote?

"It's hard to come by, but it's a long time to come to Japan." On August 20th, at the commemorative conference of the 40th anniversary of the publication of the school-annotated version of " Dream of Red Mansions " (referred to as "Dream of Red Mansions") by the Institute of Dream of Red Mansions, China Academy of Art, I deeply participated in the conference. Lv Qixiang, an 86-year-old researcher at the Chinese Academy of Arts, an important expert in previous revisions of this edition of "A Dream of Red Mansions", sighed. She has continued to revise the Red Chamber's version of "A Dream of Red Mansions" for more than 40 years.

Red Research Association version of "Dream of Red Mansions" can be said to be the most authoritative version of "Dream of Red Mansions" on the market, and it is also a version that is as close as possible to Cao Xueqin's original. Its preparations began in the 1970s, and after its publication in 1982, it was revised twice in 1996 and 2008. In October 2022, the fourth revised edition of "Dream of Red Mansions" by the Red Research Association will be published and listed by People's Literature Publishing House , with more than 350 articles in this revision.

The 40th anniversary of the publication of "Dream of Red Mansions" and the 2022 revised new edition conference site. Photo/People's Literature Publishing House

Why does the Dream of Red Mansions Research Association continue to revise and republish "Dream of Red Mansions"? In fact, it is because there are too many versions of "A Dream of Red Mansions" circulating in the world, so that ordinary readers don't know much about the real "A Dream of Red Mansions". As Zhang Qingshan , president of the Chinese Society of Dreams of Red Mansions, told " China News Weekly ": "The fundamental purpose is to provide society and readers with a better book, or to provide a book that is closest to the original. Ben."

How many versions of "Dream of Red Mansions" are there?

"In those days when people studied the ' zhiben' manuscripts, they found that they only collected the scrap manuscripts of the first 80 chapters. In terms of language, they are very different from the 'Chengben', and almost every page has text The language of the manuscript is actually closer to the author's language. Therefore, the researchers feel that it is necessary to make a new 'book'." Sun Weike, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Red Mansions and director of the Institute of Red Mansions, the Chinese Academy of Arts Comment like this when talking about the source of the new 1982 edition.

The difference between "Zhiben" and "Chengben" mentioned by Sun Weike starts from the period when "A Dream of Red Mansions" was written. The first 80 chapters of "A Dream of Red Mansions" were written by Cao Xueqin of the Qing Dynasty, and have been circulated in the form of manuscripts. Among them, "Zhiben" refers to the manuscript copy of "A Dream of Red Mansions" that retains " Zhiyanzhai comments", and the identity of "Zhiyanzhai" is still unknown. Because of the different levels of copying hands, and there are many random changes in the content during the copying process, the later versions of "Dream of Red Mansions" are different.

A copy of "Dream of Red Mansions". Photo/FOTOE People's Literature Publishing House

More than 20 years after the death of Cao Xueqin, another system of "Dream of Red Mansions", the "Chengben" system, was born. In 1791, Cheng Weiyuan compiled and organized together with Gao E, and published "A Dream of Red Mansions" through wood movable type printing, which was very popular. But Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E's version of "A Dream of Red Mansions" has not only undergone a lot of deletions and revisions, but also added the content of the last 40 chapters, a total of 120 chapters, which is commonly referred to as "Cheng Jiaben". The following year, they revised "A Dream of Red Mansions" again, which was later called "Cheng Yiben". Through printing technology, "Cheng Ben" contributed to the popularization of "A Dream of Red Mansions" in ancient society.

In the modern era, there are many circulating versions of "Dream of Red Mansions", but they are all dominated by "Cheng Ben". The first is the period of the Republic of China. With the vernacular movement and the popularity of new punctuation, some publishers began to add new punctuation to classical vernacular novels to promote the popularization of vernacular, including "Dream of Red Mansions". "Cheng Ben" became more popular in the context of the vernacular movement. In 1921, the publisher Wang Yuanfang published the first "Dream of Red Mansions" in modern history based on the "Cheng Jiaben" Shuangqingxianguan version, and the punctuation was also ordered by Wang Yuanfang himself.. This book is supported by Chen Duxiu and joins the latest research results of scholar Hu Shi on "A Dream of Red Mansions". Later, based on the 1792 edition of "Cheng Yiben" "A Dream of Red Mansions" collected by Hu Shi, Yadong Library released another version of "A Dream of Red Mansions" punctuated by Wang Yuanfang. These "Dream of Red Mansions" versions are called "Yadong version".

And before the "Cultural Revolution", the popular version of "Dream of Red Mansions" with the largest circulation was the " Qigong Edition" published by the People's Literature Publishing House in 1957. In this edition, Qigong, a descendant of Manchu , has done a lot of annotation work based on his own life experience, and the circulation of this book has reached millions of copies. In 1953, "Dream of Red Mansions" published by Writers Publishing House, , a subsidiary of People's Literature Publishing House, was the first popular version of "Dream of Red Mansions" published in New China. Both Yu Pingbo and Qigong participated in some of the work. . Although these two versions are widely praised, they are still based on "Cheng Yiben", and the "Zhiben" that is close to the author's original manuscript is still not popular among the public.

2300 revisions and excavations

Because of the closeness between "Zhiben" and Cao Xueqin, redist has always suggested that professionals can sort out a popular version of "Dream of Red Mansions" based on the early "Zhiben". In the 100 years since Hongxue , the early discovery of multiple "fat sources" has laid the foundation for this kind of research and created the possibility of rearranging "Dream of Red Mansions". "It is the wish of several generations of scholars to sort out a "Dream of Red Mansions" that is closer to Cao Xueqin's original work," said Zhang Qingshan, president of the Chinese Society of Dreams of Red Mansions.

"One Hundred and Twenty Manuscripts of Qianlong's Manuscript of the Dream of Red Mansions". Photo/FOTOE People's Literature Publishing House

This desire lasted for many years, and it was not possible to act until the end of the "Cultural Revolution". Around 1973, Mao Zedong raised the issue of rearranging "A Dream of Red Mansions". In 1974, Yuan Shuipai, who was then the deputy head of the cultural group of the Central Propaganda Department, proposed to reorganize the popular reading of "A Dream of Red Mansions". He suggested to Mao Zedong that between the popular version of "A Dream of Red Mansions" at that time and the version close to the original text, there may be more than 20,000 copies. word gap. In 1975, the "Dream of Red Mansions" proofreading team was established. The team transferred experts from universities, research and publishing institutions across the country to solve problems. The first batch of 12 experts participated, including Feng Qiyong of Renmin University of China, People's Publishing House of , Hu Wenbin, et al. Wu Shichang , Wu Enyu , Wu Zunzhang , Zhou Ruchang , Qi Gong and other veteran scholars also served as consultants in the revision. In the end, the proofreading team spent 7 years on and off to sort out more than 6,000 school notes, which were reduced to more than 1,000 when the book was written, and more than 3,500 notes were written, which were shortened to more than 2,300 when the book was written. In this process, they need to compare 12 versions of the "lipid", and constantly absorb the latest "red science" research results, the difficulty can be imagined.

Among the 12 "Zhiben", the 1760 Gengchen Edition is the earlier and more comprehensive "Zhiben" of "Dream of Red Mansions", and the content is more comprehensive. Seventy-eight of the first eighty chapters have been preserved. Content. Even Hu Shi, the founder of "Xinhongxue" who advocated "Chengben", once came to the conclusion in his own research that "Zhiben", which is closer to the author's creation time, is the closest to Cao Xueqin's original work. And Yu Pingbo also talked about the benefits of "Cong Geng" (using Gengchen as the base). Therefore, the fact that the content of Gengchen's book is more comprehensive and closer to the author's original appearance is a matter of public opinion in the academic circle. Therefore, the experts' revision is also based on the Gengchen version in the "Zhiben".

Lv Qixiang, an 86-year-old researcher at the China National Academy of Arts, was one of the first group of experts who participated in the proofreading group. She recalled that during the years of work, the Red Institute had several principles for revising "Dream of Red Mansions": First, we must try our best to respect it. The original text is restored to the original text—that is, to eliminate the interference of many publications and editors in later generations, and it is closer to the characteristics of the ancient vernacular when Cao Xueqin wrote. This latest fourth revision started in the summer of 2021, and finally revised about 350 items. For example, the "owing affection" in the text was restored to "seeing affection"; "serving" was restored to "waiting"; "slow" Say "Revert to"In terms of selecting the original text of "Dream of Red Mansions", the experts followed two other principles: the first is to be close to the original intention and appearance of Cao Xueqin's creation, and the second is to be friendly to readers, and to facilitate the They read. In terms of "close to the original meaning", Sun Weike cited an example of reasonable changes made in the 1982 Red Chamber edition of "A Dream of Red Mansions".

People's Literature Publishing House will revise the cover and revision of the new edition of "A Dream of Red Mansions" in 2022. Photo/ FOTOE People's Literature Publishing House

"Dream of Red Mansions" in the fifty-third chapter, Jia Zhen flipped through the Wu Jinxiao tribute gift list has " sturgeon fish " this creature, Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E are compiling " Cheng Ben thought that the number of sturgeon in the gift list should be set as "two hundred", and there are also different versions of "two" and "twenty" in the existing "Zhiben". The research results of "Hongxue" research suggest that , The sturgeon is huge, and one may exceed 200 catties, and according to convention, this kind of fish can only be given to the royal family in two or three pieces as a tribute. Therefore, the experts chose "two" as the official original text.

As for the fluency of reading, the advantage of Gengchen is that it is earlier and retains many times, but its text does not necessarily conform to the reading habits of contemporary readers. Therefore, when they write "A Dream of Red Mansions", they sometimes It took a lot of time to compare the 12 versions of "Zhiben", choose the most beautiful text and put it in the main text, and then explain the similarities and differences of multiple versions in the annotations. This work also took a lot of time. The description of Lin Daiyu's 's eyebrows is as follows: "The two bays have half-wrinkled goose eyebrows and a pair of passionate almond eyes. "But this description is not as beautiful as other versions that have been widely circulated in later generations. Therefore, in 1982, when the "Dream of Red Mansions" was published by the Red Research Association, this sentence was changed to: "The two bays seem to be crooked." Fei frowning smoke eyebrows, a pair of eyes that seem to be happy but not happy. " Later, because the "Russian Tibetan version" in the "Zhiben" had a photocopied version in China, experts changed it to "The two bays are like frowning but not frowning, and a pair of weeping but not weeping with exposed eyes." "

The issue of the attribution of the authors of the last forty episodes of "A Dream of Red Mansions" has long been revised in the "A Dream of Red Mansions" by the Hong Kong Research Institute. Continuation". This change occurred as early as 2008, but the public did not know the reason behind it. It was only after many years that someone discovered this problem and began to ask the publisher what was going on." It is just an academic point of view. In recent years, research by experts and scholars has shown that Gao E is probably not the author of the book at all. This is also an attitude towards the reader. "Zhang Qingshan explained the author of A Dream of Red Mansions in this way.

has sold tens of millions of copies and still can't get rid of the "most difficult to understand"

"Dream of Red Mansions" has already become a "strange book" in the eyes of the Chinese, and many literature lovers and researchers are obsessed" In the dream of Red Mansions, everyone in the Republic of China, Wang Guowei, Cai Yuanpei, Hu Shi, Chen Duxiu, Zhang Ailing, etc. are all experts in the study of "A Dream of Red Mansions", and the impact of "A Dream of Red Mansions" on their academic or creative careers is obvious. But at the same time, this book also It makes it difficult for another group of people to understand. In 2013, Guangxi Normal University Press came to the conclusion after collecting statistics on nearly 3,000 Weibo and Wechat messages: "A Dream of Red Mansions" topped the list of books that "can't read through life or death", and at the same time Also on the list are " One Hundred Years of Solitude ", "Ulysses" and so on.

Until the 1980s, social thought opened up, the publishing industry recovered, and the spread of "Dream of Red Mansions" also flourished again. The 1987 TV series "Dream of Red Mansions" The popularity of the TV series has formed an upsurge in reading and talking about the Red Mansions in the whole society - and the basis for the script of this TV series is the Red Research Association version of "Dream of Red Mansions", which has only been written for a few years. And this version of "Dream of Red Mansions", Just like the "Cheng Ben", "Yadong Book" and "Qigong Version" of the year, it played a major role in popularizing "Dream of Red Mansions".

Mao Zedong wrote to comrades in the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and other relevant comrades, "Research on the Dream of Red Mansions" Letter of "(replica) image / FOTOE

Since the founding of New China, "A Dream of Red Mansions" has already entered the public edition system, and various publishing houses can publish it openly, so many popular versions have been formed. According to an incomplete statistics in 2017, since 1950, more than 300 "Dream of Red Mansions" have been published in mainland China. Hu Wenjun, the editor of the latest revised edition of "A Dream of Red Mansions" in 2022 and the deputy director of the Classical Literature Editing Office of the People's Literature Publishing House, believes that the emergence of multiple versions of "A Dream of Red Mansions" on the market in recent years is a good thing for a hundred flowers to bloom, and readers can choose to read them. As long as these editions pay attention to the rigor of their compilation, it makes sense. "Different versions are fine, as long as you don't spoof it, don't make (content) wrong."

And with the development of the times, "Dream of Red Mansions" has more modern expressions. Nowadays, the "Youth Edition" of "A Dream of Red Mansions" is circulating among young people, and publishers such as Zhonghua Book Company , Yuelu Book Club and other publishing houses also have various popular and accessible versions of "A Dream of Red Mansions". People's Literature Publishing House has also adapted to the needs of the times. They have made a "large-character version" for the new school version of "Dream of Red Mansions" suitable for the elderly and students. It's quite amazing. In addition, the People's Literature Publishing House has also cooperated with Sisyph Bookstore to create a fashionable "customized version" of special clothing to promote "Dream of Red Mansions" to young people from a market-oriented perspective.

These "Dream of Red Mansions" sales are quite impressive. Take the Red Chamber’s version of “Dream of Red Mansions” as an example. The first revised edition was released in 1982, and the number of copies in the first edition has exceeded 5 million copies. According to statistics in 2021, the total sales of this set of books exceeds 10 million copies. In recent years, the new curriculum standards for high school Chinese stipulate that "Dream of Red Mansions" is a book that high school students need to read in full, and the introduction of this policy is likely to promote the sales of various versions of "Dream of Red Mansions".

However, even in today's highly developed media form, with such convenient conditions as shortened editions and audiobooks, researchers still hope that readers, especially young readers, can get more information from the full version of "Dream of Red Mansions" that is closer to the original. rather than just satisfied with the abbreviated version. "Reading cannot be replaced by other means. If we never require children to read at length, the results will be terrible." said Sun Weike, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Red Mansions and director of the Institute of Red Mansions of the Chinese Academy of Arts. . And taking advantage of the opportunity of the revision and publication of the Red Chamber's version of "Dream of Red Mansions", the experts also hope that they can bring the latest research results from the study to the public.

Posted in the 1061st issue of "China News Weekly" magazine on September 19, 2022

Magazine title: What is the difference between the "Dream of Red Mansions" you read and what Cao Xueqin wrote?

Reporter: Qiu Guangyu