Reflections on Dream of the Red Chamber By Liu Zaifu

Because they are not records kept deliberately, they display a childlike purity. The Classic of Mountains and Seas is valuable because it is the sap of the tree of Chinese culture and the original lifeblood of the Chinese nation. We can, therefore, call the culture represented by The Classic of Mountains and Seas the primordial culture of China. In The Decline of the West Spengler comes up with the notion of “false cultural forms.” It is still debatable when “false cultural forms” took place in Chinese culture, but in any case it is undeniable that there is no “false cultural form” in The Classic of Mountains and Seas. Dream of the Red Chamber, from its very beginning, continues in the vein of The Classic of Mountains and Seas and remains as pure and real as the latter. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is part of a “false form” of Chinese culture, whereas Dream of the Red Chamber is part of the “primordial form” of Chinese culture. In other words, Dream of the Red Chamber reflects the healthy collective unconscious of the Chinese nation, whereas The Romance of the Three Kingdoms represents the injured, sick collective unconscious of the nation.

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As literature, all the classical novels of traditional China have their own merits. Unfortunately, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is too wily, The Water Margin is too violent, and Investiture of the Gods too fanciful. Only Journey to the West and Dream of the Red Chamber always remain enjoyable. The more one reads them, the closer one feels to them. Journey to the West demonstrates the “childlike heart,” whereas Dream of the Red Chamber demonstrates the “loving heart.” Jia Baoyu has the kind of childlike heart Monkey has, but it is sublimated into a heart full of love and mercy after it is further purified and guided by the young girls. As a result, the spiritual realm of Dream of the Red Chamber is higher than that of Journey to the West. Of the five novels mentioned here, the first three show the unbounded ambition of the Chinese, whereas the last two, particularly Dream of the Red Chamber, show the childlike heart of the Chinese. Only with Dream of the Red Chamber as a model can the Chinese guard themselves against people like the characters in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and The Water Margin.