The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P′ing Mei, – The Dissolution (Princeton Library of Asian Translations, 116) - Hardcover

Roy, David Tod

4.4

40 ratings by Goodreads

9780691157719: The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P′ing Mei, – The Dissolution (Princeton Library of Asian Translations, 116)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691157715 ISBN 13: 9780691157719

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2013

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This is the fifth and final volume in David Roy's celebrated translation of one of the most famous and important novels in Chinese literature. The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei is an anonymous sixteenth-century work that focuses on the domestic life of Hsi-men Ch'ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant in a provincial town, who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines. The novel, known primarily for its erotic realism, is also a landmark in the development of the narrative art form--not only from a specifically Chinese perspective but in a world-historical context. This complete and annotated translation aims to faithfully represent and elucidate all the rhetorical features of the original in its most authentic form and thereby enable the Western reader to appreciate this Chinese masterpiece at its true worth.

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Review:

Praise for the previous volumes: "Roy has made a major contribution to our overall understanding of the novel by so structuring every page of his translation that the numerous levels of narration are clearly differentiated. . . . In addition, [he] has annotated the text with a precision, thoroughness, and passion for detail that makes even a veteran reader of monographs smile with a kind of quiet disbelief."--Jonathan Spence, "New York Review of Books"

Praise for the previous volumes: "Roys translation provides a window onto the fall of a far bleaker house than anything contrived by Dickens."--Andrew Radford, "Translation and Literature"

Praise for the previous volumes: "Reading Roys translation is a remarkable experience."--Robert Chatain, "Chicago Tribune Review of Books"

One of "The Wall Street Journal" Bookshelf Best Books of 2013, chosen by Tash Aw
One of "The Wall Street Journal" Bookshelf Best Books of 2013, chosen by Tash Aw
"[A] book of manners for the debauched. Its readers in the late Ming period likely hid it under their bedcovers."--Amy Tan, "New York Times Book Review"

"David Tod Roy, after more 20 years of work, completed the fifth volume of his translation of the "Chin Ping Mei," entitled "The Plum in the Golden Vase." It's a masterpiece an epic scholarly achievement. . . . The world of the "Chin Ping Mei" is beautiful and dark, cheap and exalted, righteous and profane, gorgeous and lurid and stinking and glorious."--Stephen Marche, "Los Angeles Review of Books"

Praise for the previous volumes: "[I]t is time to remind ourselves that "The Plum in the Golden Vase" is not just about sex, whether the numerous descriptions of sexual acts throughout the novel be viewed as titillating, harshly realistic, or, in Mr. Roy's words, intended 'to express in the most powerful metaphor available to him the author's contempt for the sort of persons who indulge in them.' The novel is a sprawling panorama of life and times in urban China, allegedly set safely in the Sung dynasty, but transparently contemporary to the author's late sixteenth-century world, as scores of internal references demonstrate. The eight hundred or so men, women, and children who appear in the book cover a breath-taking variety of human types, and encompass pretty much every imaginable mood and genre--from sadism to tenderness, from light humor to philosophical musings, from acute social commentary to outrageous satire."--Jonathan Spence, "New York Review of Books"

Praise for the previous volumes: "Roy's translation provides a window onto the fall of a far bleaker house than anything contrived by Dickens."--Andrew Radford, "Translation and Literature"

Praise for the previous volumes: "Reading Roy's translation is a remarkable experience."--Robert Chatain, "Chicago Tribune Review of Books"

About the Author:

David Tod Roy is professor emeritus of Chinese literature at the University of Chicago, where he has studied the Chin P’ing Mei and taught it in his classes since 1967.

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