<i>The Translator's Mirror for the Romantic: Cao Xueqin's</i> Dream <i>and David Hawkes’</i> Stone

Hongloumeng 紅樓夢 (The Story of the Stone, or Dream of the Red Chamber, hereafter Dream), written by Cao Xueqin, may be the most well-known text in the history of Chinese literature and the classic measure of all Chinese classical vernacular novels. It reflects a breadth of quotidian details of Chinese culture, such as in language, food, clothing, and architecture, that is virtually unequaled. This has recommended it for understanding China in depth. Therefore unsurprisingly, Dream has been translated into many languages, including English by David Hawkes and John Minford (1973–1986),1 Malay by Yan Chuan Seng and Boon Eng Khor (2017), and Dutch by Silvia Marijnissen, Mark Leenhouts, and Anne Sytske Keijser (2021). Although recent years have seen a steadily increasing number of studies conducted on translations of Dream, mostly based on translation theories, Shengyu Fan did not choose this approach. Instead, Fan published his monograph, The Translator's Mirror for the Romantic: Cao Xueqin's Dream and David Hawkes’ Stone, divided into six chapters, based on textual interpretative strategies and bilingual close reading of the original. Using this framework, Fan is able to explain the reasons for the significant success of Hawkes's The Story of the Stone (English translation of Dream; hereafter Stone). Through a detailed description of Hawkes's process of translating Dream from the original language, Fan supports his claim that the translator should just proceed in the following steps: first, read in the initial stage; then study in the second, in a painstaking perusal of the text; only after that, begin to compose the translation on the basis of such careful research; and follow this with a final revision of the translator's full draft. This approach to the method of translation is based on the idea that translation is a dialogue between the source text and the target text, a dialogue between the translator and the target readers, and a learning process between the translator and the target readers on the basis of sinological research, textual criticism, re-creation, and literary allusion.It is to be expected then that Fan would emphasize the importance of research by making this the topic of the first chapter, “Profound Scholarship and Patient Research: Sinology as Foundation,” which outlines the development of Hawkes as a Chinese scholar: his early research, Beijing life, family life, language ability, and the influence of sinologists. In this chapter, Fan points out that a key factor was that Hawkes went to an elite school that made him familiar and sensitive to the mores and status of the elite class and status, which is broadly comparable to the social milieu represented in the original text. Fan also notes that Hawkes learned the Beijing dialect during his life in Beijing; the dialogue spoken by the characters in Dream is also in the Beijing dialect. Fan recognizes Hawkes draws on inspiration from his wife, Jean, a musician in successfully capturing the scenes of music in Dream. Meanwhile, Fan contends that Hawkes's parenting of three daughters enabled him to readily portray the female characters in Dream. Fan attributes Hawkes's success partly to his proficiency in seven languages and the mentorship of sinologist Arthur Waley but primarily to his deep love for Chinese culture and his dedication to translation within that cultural context. These three factors, Fan claims, are crucial for Hawkes's accurate translation of Dream. Fan claims the depth of education that Hawkes received at school, university, and as a postgraduate student in China equipped him with the required language skills and cultural immersion to completely comprehend the language, culture, and historical riddles or “cruxes” of the text and to turn Dream into a beautiful and meaningful English translation of the classic that re-creates the atmosphere of the original text.Fan's discussion revolves primarily around how Hawkes wrote the base text and what the biggest problems he encountered in the process of writing were.2 In the process of translation, Hawkes consulted nine different Chinese versions of Dream (different versions being one of the biggest problems of this classic); however, he mainly relied on the People's Literature Publishing House copy text to shape his Stone.3 Regrettably, Hawkes's base text was not published and was only preserved in his mind. Therefore, the Hawkesian version was also called “the lost translator's copy.”4 Shortly after Hawkes died in 2009, Fan committed to the task of refining and improving Hawkes's bilingual translation edition of the classic novel, which he called Dream of the Red Chamber. Fan was deeply motivated by what he saw as the importance of translating this classic book, which was originally called The Story of the Stone. In fact, Fan was dedicated to enhancing the study of this Chinese classic, which of itself has a unique field about it in international literature known as “Redology” (Hong xue 紅學). To accomplish this, Fan collated the 120 chapters of Stone (two-thirds of which were translated by Hawkes and the rest by his son-in-law, Minford). During the process of collating Stone, Fan notes how in the process of trying to improve the existing Hawkes translation, he mainly focused on the issue of whether or not to correct errors of translation, while still maintaining fidelity to Hawkes’ translation in order to retain the Hawkesian style. Fan was able to discuss his textual collation with Minford because Minford was not only a world-class sinologist but also the person both professionally and personally closest to Hawkes. Fan notes the collated Chinese and English bilingual version, published by Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press in 2012, is widely recognized as the best bilingual version of Dream thanks in large part to being based on the Hawkes translation. In this second chapter and later, Fan clearly demonstrates why he considers this the best translation and how, over the years, textual criticism has affected the translation of Chinese classical literature.Hawkes imbues Stone with various aspects of “word music” and varieties of sound so that readers can hear and see eighteenth-century China in English. In the third chapter, Fan focuses on the strategies Hawkes employed to achieve this. He shows how Hawkes deals with sound, meter, rhythm, and rhyme in Dream through the translations of poems, limericks, and doggerel. Hawkes, for example, translated the verse from chapter 28 of Dream, “花影不離身左右, 鳥聲只在耳東西,” into “Flowers in my eyes and bird-song in my ears / Augment my loss and mock my bitter tears” (2: 27). The first line of his version is a close rendition of Chinese, while the second line, which does not appear in the original, is interpolated by Hawkes. The creative imagination of Hawkes enables readers to sense the rhythm of two ten-syllable lines. This demonstrates that Hawkes, through his sensitivity to music and appreciation of Western classics, was well aware of the significance of maintaining the poet's voice in his translations of Chinese poetry into English. Fan also shows how Hawkes uses alliteration, onomatopoeia, and assonance to give his writing shape and visuality in Stone. For instance, he rendered kuhai cihang 苦海慈航 from chapter 18 of Dream as “The Ship of Mercy on the Sea of Suffering” (1: 433). The assonance created by the repeated s in this translation eloquently conveys not only the sound but also the shape of the undulating waves that ripple across the ocean of existence. In addition, Hawkes increases the visual effect and meaning of Stone by varying font styles and adding posters and boxes. For example, “裏面的原是早已癡了，畫完一個 『薔』 又畫一個 “薔”, 已經畫了有幾十個,” from chapter 30 of Dream, is translated: As soon as she had finished writing one QIANG, she began writing another.QIANG QIANG QIANG QIANG QIANG QIANG QIANG . . . He must have watched her write several dozen QIANGs in succession. (2: 103)The translation by Hawkes duplicated and capitalized “Qiang” multiple times. This generates a striking visual impact that contrasts with the original language to convey Charmante's 齡官 deep affection for her love interest, Jia Qiang 賈薔.In chapter 3 of his study, Fan also highlights Hawkes’ use of skillful dialogue and register. For example, in chapter 18 of Dream, when Qin Zhong 秦鐘 first encounters a young country lass, he remarks to Bao-yu 寶玉, “Ci qing dayou yiqu” 此卿大有意趣. Qin's discourse is translated as “A comely damosel, thinkest thou nottest?” (1: 327) by Hawkes. In the original, Qin purposefully utilizes classical Chinese to communicate with Bao-yu so that the young female servant without formal education will not understand him. Hawkes, in his translation, mimics Shakespearean English to emphasize this point. This makes it seem like Qin is speaking in code and also demonstrates how arrogant he is for being a pedantic schoolboy. In other words, Qin uses the hyperbole he learned in class to confound the lass. Fan claims that Hawkes's decision to mimic Shakespearean English and the portrayal of Qin's arrogant, pedantic character are all inseparable from Hawkes's experience of life in Beijing and his linguistic dexterity. The pictures, sounds, and sensory elements of life in Beijing inspired Hawkes's imagination and helped him to construct his version of the classic text.In the fourth chapter, Fan mainly discusses Hawkes's playfulness and imagination in Stone. Hawkes's language skills in Stone show his highly developed comic instincts. He interweaves the translation with various comic elements, which makes the text more engaging. Hawkes's achievement in Stone is particularly noteworthy for his discovery of the cross-cultural potential of many games, demonstrated by his success in finding or creating connections between English and Chinese word games. Through a large number of bilingual examples, the author conceives of Stone as a game based on sounds, letters, and words. Firstly, as Fan explains, Hawkes integrates sound elements into the game process through creativity, alliteration, and hyperbole. One example is his translation of Huo Qi 霍啟, the name of a manservant in Zhen Shi-yin's 甄士隱 household, as “Calamity” due to its homophony with huo qi 禍起 (literally, “disaster starts”) in Chinese. Another example is Hawkes's rendering of the song title “Zhongshen wu” 終身誤 (literally, “Whole Life Ruined”) into “The Mistaken Marriage.” Last, Tong Xi 同喜 (literally, “happy together”) and Tong Gui 同貴 (literally, “wealthy together”), maids of Aunt Xue 薛姨媽, become “Providence” and “Prosper” in English. In addition, some suffixes were added by Hawkes to render names such as Yinjie 銀姐 (literally, “silver girl”) as “Goldie” and Jing'er 靚兒 (literally, “pretty little girl”) as “Prettikins.” Fan argues that this playfulness demonstrates that Hawkes fully understood the stylistic and cultural details of Dream. This, Fan claims, was how Hawkes as a translator and sinologist was able to bring readers into the world of Dream.In his fifth chapter, Fan reveals the whole process by which Hawkes revised and shaped the Stone. Documents (notebooks, typescripts, letters, and manuscripts) demonstrate that Hawkes revised his translations from the beginning of his life until a few months before his death. Fan describes the process as a direct dialogue between Hawkes and Cao. Fan shows, through the translator's notes, that he made significant changes to the Stone's chronology. For example, in the second chapter of Dream, Dai-yu 黛玉 is described as “only 5 years old” 年方五歲. There is a reference to her age as “five years old” in every single Chinese manuscript and printed version. But already in the third chapter of Dream, Dai-yu does not act or behave at all like a five-year-old. Thus, she cannot realistically be considered to be merely “five years old.” Because of this, Hawkes ultimately decided to remove “[Dai-yu] was now only five years old” (1: 89). Moreover, Hawkes made changes to the way names were rendered to make it easier for readers to recognize and distinguish characters from one another. For instance, to prevent confusing Jia Zheng 賈政 with Jia Zhen 賈珍, the latter was revised to Cousin Zhen by Hawkes. Finally, one of the clearest examples of Hawkes's persistence in fine-tuning is in the repeated alterations that he made to the translation of proverbs. The proverb “gongjing buru congming” 恭敬不如從命 in chapter 62 of Dream was eventually translated as “obedience is the best obeisance” (3: 187) by Hawkes after three rounds of edits. Thus, Fan shows how, through Hawkes's dogged inventiveness, the process of revision encompassed multiple dimensions of the text: sound, shape, style, pronunciation, and meaning.In his last chapter, Fan, in order to further highlight Hawkes's sublime mastery of translation, discusses the particular difficulty of translating literary allusions into analogous forms that evoke similar effects for an anglophone readership. This is especially significant due to the plethora of literary allusions in Dream. Fan attributes Hawkes's unparalleled success to his having received a classical English education in Latin and the literature of Shakespeare and Dickens. Therefore, Fan explains, Hawkes was able to accurately interpret the metaphorical language of myths and characters in ballads and nursery rhymes. For example, Yaochi 瑤池 and Penglai 蓬萊 were both rendered into the Greek form of paradise, “Elysium,” by Hawkes. Fan goes on to note that Hawkes nearly always finds apposite English literary references to respond to Chinese allusions. In chapter 18 of Dream, Ying-Chun 迎春 composes a poem for the Imperial Concubine. The title of this poem is “Kuangxing yiqing” 曠性怡情 (To Delight and Entertain the Mood and Emotions), which was translated into “Heart's Ease” (3: 418). This is taken from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and it is associated with the song that Romeo orders musicians to play after the family finds out that Juliet has passed away. Finally, Fan claims that what makes Dream so remarkable is the breadth of Chinese poetry it showcases. For example, in chapter 18 of Dream, Li Wan 李纨, who is Bao-yu's widowed sister-in-law, writes a poem titled “Wanxiang zhenghui” 萬象爭輝 (Every Phenomenon Competes in Glory), which was rendered into “All Things Bright and Beautiful” (3: 424), the title of a classic English hymn.In conclusion, Fan writes in logically structured, persuasively argued chapters with many detailed examples to demonstrate the success of Hawkes's translation. The book title cleverly uses the keyword “mirror” to metaphorically describe the translator's accuracy and the word “romantic” to encapsulate the spirit of the translated novel. Moreover, Fan's footnotes very effectively substantiate the points made in the text. The author also uses clear examples to demonstrate and persuade the reader of the fairness and accuracy of his judgments. Finally, Fan's book is refreshing in that it is not built on theories of translation, as most scholars in this genre tend to do; in fact, he does not use any translation theories at all. The author went through a careful process of collation between Dream and Stone to show what makes a successful translation: namely, that it depends not only on translation theory, but also on language ability, in-depth understanding of culture, and constant revision. However, this book lacks a comparative dimension, as it gives very few examples of other translation versions of Dream. Otherwise, Fan offers a new perspective of, and a guide for, translation studies. Therefore, this work is recommended as a helpful reference for translators and scholars.