The Translator’s Mirror for the Romantic: Cao Xueqin’s Dream and David Hawkes’ Stone

The Classical Chinese novel Hongloumeng traditionally known by its English translation as The Story of the Stone or Dream of the Red Chambers occupies a position in Chinese literature that can only be compared to Shakespeare’s works in English or Cervantes’ works in Spanish. The 18^th century masterpiece widely acclaimed as the greatest work of Chinese literature was authored by Cao Xueqin (1710–1765), a Qing dynasty scholar who dedicated a great part of his intellect to its creation. British-born Sinologist and literary translator David Hawkes (1923–2009), in an ultimate fusion of exquisite Chinese knowledge and profound literary understanding, created an astounding new text that reincarnates Cao’s Hongloumeng in The Story of the Stone. Fan Shengyu in this detailed and insightful exploration of textual minutiae tries to further bring to life the vivid and yet illusionary world of Cao Xueqin’s masterpiece and the wondrous and equally illusionary fabric of its 20^th century incarnation by David Hawkes. Through a bilingual close reading of the original and its translation, Fan sheds light into the magical alchemy through which Hawkes transformed the novel into The Story of the Stone. By dividing the process of translation into reading, writing, and revising, and incorporating various aspects of Sinology, the book emphasizes the idea of translation as a dialogue between the original and the translated text, between the translator and his former self, and a learning process both for the translator and the reader of his translation. Fan Shengyu’s close reading of the original and translation allows us to better appreciate and understand the wisdom and profound sense of humanity with which Hawkes approached his work as a translator. The book grants us entry to a world of textual, aesthetic, poetic, intellectual and historical choices otherwise invisible.

In the prologue, Fan revisits the origins of the 18^th century novel and its fascinating odyssey of translation which spans over 200 years. Including Hawkes’ translation, there are at least 15 English translations, some of which are short excerpts and some unpublished. After a careful literary exploration of the Hawkesian world, Fan argues that Hawkes’ knowledge, sensitivity, linguistic ability in both Chinese and English as well as his addictive passion for Dream enabled him to see what others did not, to go bravely where others were afraid to go thereby creating a marvelous new text, which enriches the appreciation of the original (p. xx).

The book is divided into two parts. The first two chapters of part one focus on scholarship involved in the translator’s labor demonstrating how deep and scholarly knowledge of China, its history, literature, and culture constitute the foundation of Hawkes’ Stone. The four chapters in part two are concerned with Hawkes’ sensitivity as a writer and demonstrate how Hawkes made Stone come alive on the page. It analyses the various elements that contributed to the recreation and recasting of the novel.

In the opening chapter, Fan demonstrates how a deep understanding of Sinology, massive reading and patient scholarly research are important for a classical Chinese literary translator. He goes further to highlight the concept of translation as reading, which is considered the first step to achieving a perfect mastery of the original. The term “Sinology” (Hanxue汉学) that was coined along the lines of Assyriology and Egyptology is used today to refer to the encyclopedic study of China, its culture, history, languages, people and customs all within one frame. The author outlines the development of Hawkes’ evolution as a Sinologist and a sensitive scholar of China and how the early influences of other Sinologists, his linguistic ability, his confidence and affection for the drama and amusement in Chinese literature, and his endless curiosity and learning in different aspects of Chinese culture were all brought to bear in his masterful translation.

The translation of a literary work is never an issue of language only. Umberto Eco (1985) states that: “We decide how to translate, not on the basis of the dictionary, but on the basis of the whole history of two literatures … Translating is not connected with linguistic competence, but with inter-textual, psychological, and narrative competence.” Hawkes was indisputably a master Sinologist and translator. His mastery of Chinese language and culture, his knowledge of the Western canon, his poetic sensibility and his skills as a gardener, painter, pianist and poet all contributed to his ability to transmit in beautiful, atmospheric, allusive English the true flavor of Dream.

Fan adds that all these competences require a primary factor which is love. Without love, it is not possible to appreciate, let alone to translate the work. Ryckmans emphasized: “Love and reading provide good metaphors for one another. There can be no meaningful reading without loving what you read.” Translation starts with reading; consequently, there can be no meaningful translating without loving what you translate. This is a guiding principle particularly in the field of literary translation. Hawkes’ love for Dream was boundless, as he approached the translation not as an academic task, but out of a feeling of love for the work itself. Fan asserts that love is one of the most important elements, for author, reader, or particularly for Hawkes the translator-cum-author-cum-reader.

Fan then shifts the focus to the approach used by Hawkes to collate his Chinese texts before translating. The textual history of Dream is extremely complex coupled with several problems of inconsistencies and all sorts of entanglements. This is to some extent because the author, Cao Xueqin, used to send drafts to his friends and relatives so that when he died, various versions were already in circulation. In addition, those who read the drafts commented and edited the texts, leading to differences between the manuscripts. Choosing the right text was a major challenge for Hawkes.

When Hawkes set out to translate Dream, he was critical of his text and made numerous decisions about which versions he would use and which he would ignore, when to combine, and when to create in order to come up with a new base text. Hawkes used his own academic skill to choose the best alternative at each point, sorting out possible solutions through scholarly means. In effect, Hawkes produced his own unique edition of the Chinese text which was different from any of the previous editions, in print or manuscript. This edition of his is carefully reproduced in Dr. Fan Shengyu’s collation for the 2012 Shanghai bilingual edition.

Besides Hawkes’ approach to textual variation which involved comparison of variant texts from different editions, he used various techniques to create a visual and aural effect of the printed words. In Chapter 3, Fan focuses on how Hawkes deals with sound, meter, rhythm, and rhyme using examples from poetry, doggerel, and limericks. He also looks at the shape and visuality of Hawkes’ writing, including alliteration, onomatopoeia, and assonance, and considers how he employs typeface, font style, signs, posters, and boxes to enhance meaning before highlighting examples that demonstrate sound and shape together, including Hawkes’ skilled use of dialogue and register.

In the field of translation studies, the successful conveyance of meaning is generally the yardstick for judging a translation. However, Dr. Fan argues for the importance of aural and visual effects in translation. Although often either glossed over or totally ignored, aural and visual effects play a crucial role in the success of a translated literary text. He emphasizes that a literary translation should be read with due attention to both its sound and shape, in other words, to how it says, rather than just to what it says (61).

Stone is replete with games and fun, and Hawkes in carrying out his translation clearly derived a great deal of pleasure and fun from the exercise. In chapter 4, Fan presents the entertaining and complex world of playfulness and imagination in Hawkes’ translation. He discusses the linguistic artifice that Hawkes employed in his translation which demonstrate his highly developed comic instinct. His playfulness can be seen on several levels including typographical, sound-based, letter-based, and word structure play.

Fan states that in the game of literary translation, there are four parties involved: the author, the reader, the translator, and the text. The author sets up the game and invites the reader to take part in it; the translator as a reader joins the game and as a writer creates another game, carries the game to another stage in another world, a different language and culture (132). Hawkes was an example in the history of literary translation of a creative translator who was at the same time a rigorous textual scholar. With virtually no footnotes, Hawkes wanted more than anything else for his reader to be swept away by the sheer brilliance of the work, to enter vividly into its world of imagination.

Fan’s exploration of Hawkes the creative translator continues with a discussion on the role revision played in the success of his translation. According to the Canadian translation scholar Brian Mossop (2014), revising a translation means “reading … in order to spot problematic passages, and making any needed corrections or improvements … Revision is almost seen as primarily a writing task – almost a literary exercise in improving language and style.” Examining Hawkes’ manuscripts, typescripts, notebooks, and correspondences, Fan demonstrates in chapter 5 that the key to a good translation is in fact revision. A close examination of Hawkes’ process in revising and shaping his own creation reveals that a translator, even a master, rarely gets it right at the first attempt. It is the continuous process of hard work, attention to detail, meticulous record-keeping and a deep commitment to transforming the original work as beautifully as possible, that marks a master translator. Revision is presented as a vital part of the whole arduous process.

In the closing chapter, Fan deals with the use of literary allusions in the translated work. He argues that one of the reasons that make Dream a difficult novel to translate is the myriad literary illusions which require the reader to be relatively widely versed in Chinese literature in order to understand and appreciate them. Hawkes’ Stone is equally rich in literary allusions. The book draws on select examples to illustrate the adoption of English literary allusions in Stone. Fan demonstrates how Hawkes successfully deals with literary allusions and other cultural elements, which are a notorious headache for translators of classical Chinese literature. It uses Stone as a case study in developing a new and better understanding of the art of literary translation.

The highest standard of a translated literary work is whether the effects of the original can be recreated in another literary world. In Hawkes’ case, this involves a creative and playful mastery of both Chinese and English traditions. Hawkes brought to bear a wide range of rhetorical skills, penetrating insights into character, melancholy, fun, and a mischievous sense of humor noticeable throughout, and he was eminently capable of being Shakespearean, Dickensian, Bunyanian, Burtonian, or Sternian whenever necessary. The book shows how Hawkes’ classical knowledge of both Chinese and English traditions provides a rich and culturally playful translation replete with poetic, balladic, artistic, and popular cultural allusions. Fan focuses on some key examples of the little private jokes Hawkes sneaks into his translation, paying the homage of a novelist to his predecessors.

While several translations of Dream have been produced over the years, the Hawkes-Minford translation represents a remarkable achievement in world literature. Fan’s book focuses on the outstanding nature of David Hawkes’ translation of the first 80 chapters. It examines how the translator’s erudition, along with his willingness to bend and often rewrite the rules of translation altogether, enabled him to introduce the true flavor of the original to the Anglophone world. In putting the English translation side by side with the Chinese original, Fan wishes to show that the translation is more than an ever-deficient shadow text of the original. The “Mirror for the Romantic” appears several times in Dream and Fan Shengyu takes it to evoke and summarize the theme of the book. Dream is an illusion, and Stone is totally an illusion as well. The author in this book presents the original and its translation as two sides of the translator’s mirror, just as the novel and the reality it reflects are the two sides of the author’s mirror. Stone is a mirror image of Dream.

There is much to love about this book, particularly the fact that it sheds new and penetrating light not only on the art of translation as practiced by a modern master, but also on the creative mysteries of the original novel itself, and the effortless storytelling skill of its Chinese author. It enriches our understanding of both the original and its translation. Its greatest contribution to academic and public discourse is its treatment of translation as a triangular activity; reading, writing, and revising. However, more examples especially from Hawkes’ notebooks and translation manuscripts would have been extremely useful for the reader to better understand how the translator went about the daunting task. Nonetheless, Fan’s book is a masterclass in the field of literary translation.