There are more than two versions of "Dream of the Red Chamber" circulating in the world today, one is the 80-time Fat Review Red Chamber, which is the version of the original Red Chamber content plus the Fat Yan Zhai Review. The other version is the Cheng Gaoben Red Chamber, which was jointly added by Cheng Weiyuan and Gao Yan. The former we do not comment on ourselves, but the latter is after the release of countless people to scold, what is going on?
In fact, in 1791, when the duo published the ending "Dream of the Red Chamber", the two arbitrarily tampered with the original work that can be called the pinnacle of classical Chinese novel art. They stood on the side of the feudal landlord class, erased the satire of Cao Xueqin and Cao Gong for the dark feudal society in the original text, and filled in a large number of additions.
For example, the first time in the novel is said that the stubborn stone of "talentlessness to supplement the heavens" incarnated as Jia Baoyu, Cao Gong's explanation of its origin is "through the clutches of sorrow and joy, and the hot and cool world". And Cheng Gaoben directly tampered with these satirical words of the world as "a stubborn stone climbing the other shore", which shows that Cao Gong's original version of the paragraph stimulated the nerves of these feudal landlord classes.
Another example is the twenty-ninth time in the novel that has been seriously tampered with, that is, the scene where Jia Mu and others go to the Qingxu Temple to dip and set off, and the words in the original text are vividly showing the style of Jia Fu and other travels, as seen with their own eyes. However, Cheng Gaoben did see from those "women with small doors" that to show such a grand style was only "general meeting", etc., and only seemed to be dull.
If this is all right, cheng Gaoben's most hateful thing when he printed the Red Chamber is that they also deleted a lot of original texts. If there is a reader who has both Cheng Gao Ben and Fat Ben in his hand, he can take it out and compare, and Cheng Gao Ben has deleted too many Cao Gong anti-feudal texts, and even reached the point of deleting it word by word.
For example, in the sixty-third time in the book, they deleted the scene where Baoyu changed his name to Yelü Xiongnu for Fangguan, which was four pages long. Another example is the seventieth time when Dai Yu went to fly a kite, he had a dialogue with the Purple Crane and others for more than 800 words. For example, in the fourth time, it was written that Xue Pan Xiaobawang killed Feng Yuan, "claiming to spend a few stinky money..." was changed to "claiming to spend a few dollars..." and so on...
In the first 80 times alone, Cheng Gao and his two people were not afraid to spend effort to delete paragraph by paragraph, not to mention that the ending later supplemented by these two people looked even more abrupt. As in the previous article, it can be said that it is simply a heaven and an underground, and even the original personality has changed. Others will not say, just say the protagonist Dai Yu written by Gao Yan later.
Dai Yu fell ill when she reached Gao Osprey's hands and coughed up blood. But I don't know what kind of bad taste, Gao Osprey had to describe what "sputum box" in a large space, "only coughed up a mouthful of phlegm in half a day", "there are many blood stars in the phlegm", and the purple crane went to pour "full of box phlegm"... Who read this description when he was a child, I am afraid that it is directly disgusting.
At the same time, Dai Yu dreamed about it, but Gao Osprey let Lin Sister dream in illness, and this nightmare was still a bit inconsistent. This good worldly immortal, Gao Osprey pulled her into the mud without saying anything, and let him get stuck in that mortal dust and hate to marry. The reason for hating marriage is not because some fairy has stained the heart of mortal dust, but because of lifelong dependence!
Although Daiyu in the original work is sentimental, the most basic self-esteem, self-love and pride are still there, and they fall into the mud under Gao Yan's pen. There was also the equally proud Xue Baochao, who had become a person who was willing to be a stand-in for Jia Baoyu in Gao Yan's pen, which was simply uncomfortable.
Of course, it is not only Daiyu Baochao, the most dustless beauty in the book, Miaoyu, although she did not appear much in the first eighty times, she was also a cold nobleman who brushed enough of the sense of existence. However, in the eighty-seventh time, this noble and cold little ni suddenly ran to play chess with the irrelevant Xi Chun. It seems that the atmosphere is still specially for Baoyu, and when he sees Baoyu, he can't answer the question, and always looks at people "obsessively asking". Then it was:
"After taking a look at Bao Yu, he lowered his head again, and the color on his face gradually became red."
I just want to say that with Cao Gong's Jia Fu Sheng, I am afraid that even the third-class yakuza are more appropriate and generous than the Miao yu at this time. Not to mention that there are still some links in the back that Miaoyu heard the cat call the spring after going into the fire, which can only be said to have defiled this cold beauty in Cao Gong's pen.
It can be said that after reading the entire Cheng Gao book, the first eighty times, even if it is cut more, is still fascinating. The next forty times, it was as if it was separated from the previous text, which was extremely uncomfortable to read. No wonder there are many voices in the world that curse Cheng Gaoben. But in fact, in another way of thinking, the existence of Cheng Gaoben is the key to truly enabling us to understand the essence of the Red Chamber in later generations.
Because the disappearance of dozens of times after "Dream of the Red Chamber" has become a foregone conclusion, and the merchants are pursuing profits. No bookstore has ventured to print a fragmented novel, and we have rarely seen any fragmented novels in ancient and modern China and abroad. But know that the best way for ancient books to be preserved into modern times is to be printed.
And Cheng Weiyuan and Gao Hu, no matter how they write, after all, they also make "Dream of the Red Chamber" a "complete novel" with an ending, so it can be published. At least in this regard, Gao Hu and Cheng Weiyuan have a legendary contribution to the original "Dream of the Red Chamber" of the first eighty times, which is worthy of respect and gratitude to each of us red fans.