《红楼梦》到底讲了什么？
What is Dream of the Red Chamber about?
Name: ________________ Date: ________
清朝的时候，北京流行过这样一句话：“开谈不说红楼梦，读尽诗书也枉然。”意思是，跟人聊天要是不聊《红楼梦》，书读得再多也没用。两百多年过去了，这本小说在中国依然有这样的地位。那么，它到底讲了什么？
故事是从一块石头开始的。传说女娲补天的时候，炼了很多石头，最后剩下一块没有用上。这块石头有了灵性，很想到人间去看一看。后来，它变成了一块美玉，跟着一个男孩一起出生了。这个男孩出生时嘴里含着玉，所以他的名字就叫宝玉。
宝玉生在贾府。贾府是京城里又富又有名的大家族，家里有一个女儿进宫成了皇帝的妃子，整个贾府的地位就更高了。为了迎接她回家探亲，贾府专门修了一座大花园，叫“大观园”。后来，宝玉和家里的姐姐妹妹们都住进了园子，小说里最美、最热闹的场景，大多发生在这里。
宝玉最在乎的人，是他的表妹，姓林，名叫黛玉。黛玉聪明敏感，会写诗，身体却不好，常常生病，也常常哭。小说说，她前世是一棵仙草，宝玉的前世每天给她浇水，所以这一世她要用一辈子的眼泪来还他。另一个重要的人物是他的表姐薛宝钗，她温和大方，懂得为人处世，家里的长辈都很喜欢她。
宝玉喜欢的是黛玉，可是家里的大人更中意薛宝钗。今天大家最熟悉的结局是：长辈们骗宝玉说新娘是黛玉，其实让他娶了薛宝钗，而就在婚礼那天，黛玉病重去世。同时，贾府也一步步走向衰落，最后家产被皇帝没收，从前的繁华全都不见了。宝玉看破红尘，出家做了和尚。
这本书的作者叫曹雪芹。他自己的家族也曾经非常富贵，后来家产同样被没收，所以很多人认为，小说里有他自己的影子。可惜，曹雪芹没能写完这本书，留下来的大约只有前八十回。今天通行的版本有一百二十回，其中后四十回一般认为是后人续写的，跟曹雪芹原来的想法是否一样，至今还有争论。
《红楼梦》里写了几百个人物，从贵族小姐到丫鬟仆人，每个人都有自己的性格和命运。专门研究这本书的学问，甚至有一个名字，叫“红学”。曹雪芹在书的开头写道：“满纸荒唐言，一把辛酸泪。”也许正因为这样，一代又一代的读者，都能在这本书里读到自己。
Key words
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 依然 | yīrán | still; as before |
| 地位 | dìwèi | status; position; standing |
| 石头 | shítou | stone; rock |
| 传说 | chuánshuō | legend; folklore |
| 富 | fù | rich; wealthy |
| 迎接 | yíngjiē | to welcome; to meet; to greet |
| 大多 | dàduō | mostly; for the most part |
| 在乎 | zàihu | to care about; to mind |
| 敏感 | míngǎn | sensitive; susceptible |
| 诗 | shī | poem; poetry; verse |
| 眼泪 | yǎnlèi | tears |
| 骗 | piàn | to deceive; to lie to; to cheat; to swindle |
English (for the teacher)
In the Qing dynasty, a saying went round Beijing: “Talk without mentioning Dream of the Red Chamber, and all your reading of poems and books is wasted.” In other words, if you chat with people and never bring up the novel, it doesn’t matter how many books you’ve read. More than two hundred years later, the novel still holds that place in China. So what is it actually about?
The story begins with a stone. Legend says that when the goddess Nüwa mended the sky she forged a great many stones, and in the end one was left over, never used. This stone came alive with a spirit of its own and longed to go and see the human world. Later it became a fine piece of jade and was born together with a baby boy. The boy came into the world with the jade in his mouth, and so he was named Baoyu, “precious jade”.
Baoyu was born into the Jia household. The Jias were a rich and famous family in the capital, and when one of their daughters entered the palace as an imperial consort, the whole household rose even higher. To welcome her home on a visit to her family, the Jias built a great garden especially for her, the Grand View Garden. Later Baoyu and the girls of the family all moved into the garden, and most of the novel’s loveliest and liveliest scenes happen there.
The person Baoyu cares about most is his cousin, a girl surnamed Lin, named Daiyu. Daiyu is clever and sensitive and writes poetry, but she is in poor health, often ill and often in tears. The novel says that in a former life she was a fairy plant, and Baoyu, in his former life, watered her every day, so in this life she must repay him with a lifetime of tears. Another key figure is his cousin Xue Baochai, gentle and gracious and good at getting along with people, and the elders of the family all like her.
Baoyu loves Daiyu, but the grown-ups prefer Baochai. In the ending most people know today, the elders tell Baoyu his bride is Daiyu and marry him to Baochai instead, and on the very day of the wedding Daiyu dies of her illness. Meanwhile the Jia household declines step by step, until the emperor confiscates its property and all its old splendour is gone. Baoyu turns his back on the world and becomes a monk.
The book’s author was Cao Xueqin. His own family had once been rich and grand too, and later its property was confiscated in the same way, so many people believe the novel carries a shadow of his own life. Sadly, Cao Xueqin never finished the book; what he left is only about the first eighty chapters. The version in common use today has a hundred and twenty chapters, and the last forty are generally thought to have been written by others after him; whether they match what Cao Xueqin intended is argued over to this day.
The novel has hundreds of characters, from noble young ladies to maids and servants, and every one has a personality and fate of their own. There is even a name for the scholarship devoted to this one book: Redology. At the start of the book Cao Xueqin wrote: “Pages full of absurd words, a handful of bitter tears.” Perhaps that is exactly why generation after generation of readers find themselves in this book.