Product Description

In this first of a planned five-volume set, David Roy provides a complete and annotated translation of the famous Chin P'ing Mei, an anonymous sixteenth-century Chinese novel 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. This work, 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #247067 in Books
• Published on: 1997-03-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 714 pages

Review
Roy has made a major contribution to our overall understanding of the novel. -- Jonathan Spence The New York Review of Books David Tod Roy enters with zest into the spirit and the letter of the original, quite surpassing ... other earlier versions. -- Paul St. John Mackintosh Literary Review Reading Roy's translation is a remarkable experience. -- Robert Chatain Chicago Tribune Review of Books What Roy has already accomplished [in this volume] is enough to establish his translation as definitive... A tremendous achievement. -- Charles Horner Commentary

Review
Roy has made a major contribution to our overall understanding of the novel.
(Jonathan Spence The New York Review of Books )

David Tod Roy enters with zest into the spirit and the letter of the original, quite surpassing ... other earlier versions.
(Paul St. John Mackintosh Literary Review )

Reading Roy's translation is a remarkable experience.
(Robert Chatain Chicago Tribune Review of Books )

What Roy has already accomplished [in this volume] is enough to establish his translation as definitive. . . . A tremendous achievement.
(Charles Horner Commentary )

Review
This is the first complete English translation of world literature and will immediately supersede all existing partial and abridged translations in that language. Even aside from the stunning achievement of the translation itself, the book represents a lifetime of meticulous scholarship on an enormous number of Sinological subjects. This work is the culmination of David Roy's entire scholarly career and a compendium of his vast learning in all phases of traditional Chinese civilization.
(Andrew Plaks, Princeton University )

Customer Reviews

excellent story on old china
hard to rview..read the book 50 yrs. ago and am looking to replace it. orig. was lost in moving. question i have is why vol.1 ..am looking for the entire book...as i recall it was well over a thous. pages .. would like more info. fm. author re; future volumes..when can they be expected? th orig. book was a extremely interesting view into the way things were way back when in feudal china..as i recall it covered not only the rich but also the very poor and how each existed in their world

excellent story on old china
hard to rview..read the book 50 yrs. ago and am looking to replace it. orig. was lost in moving. question i have is why vol.1 ..am looking for the entire book...as i recall it was well over a thous. pages .. would like more info. fm. author re; future volumes..when can they be expected? th orig. book was a extremely interesting view into the way things were way back when in feudal china..as i recall it covered not only the rich but also the very poor and how each existed in their world

David Roy has deceived us; he is not going to finish it.
This will be more of a commentary than a review, and a sad commentary at that. Arthur Waley many years ago offered a translation of the Chin Ping Mei that was, at least at that time, a wonderful introduction to this most facinating epic. For many years, until my copy became dog-eared and worn, a number of people were introduced to Chinese literature by my old copy of the Chin Ping Mei and invariably were most thankful for the experience.

Then, after a few other efforts by various academics,about which the reviews were mixed enough to not entice me to replace my Arthur Waley copy, David Roy came up with his return to a poetic renditioning: The Plum in the Golden Vase. I bought it; I read it and I was sunk. This is THE translation. This is, I am sure, as close as we are going to get to the Chinese poetry of the original. Wait! We are not going to get this translation after all. Dr. Roy is too old to complete what he started( this, according to his publisher after I dug around in the Princton Press and bothered them month after month, year after year). This sad fact came to light after the publication date for volume two, which had been projected for l995 or some such, had passed by without the faintest hint of when we would get that next volume.

I had been hoping that David Tod Roy was a young and vigorous thirty-something. This man is in his sixties or seventies and he projects another four volumes! I also am in my seventies and at the rate of publication I will be in my nineties by the last volume. I can't believe that this man will be inspired to erotica with the same verve at ninety that he was when he started his translation. I speak for myself as well as Dr.Roy.

The fact is that I feel deceived: I have had a delicious first course, the wine is in the decanter and I have had my first tentative sip and now everything stops; the vegetables grow limp, the sauces cool and congeal. I know what this cook is capable of producing yet I feel certain that I will never finish this feast, never savor t! he wines, all of which I can see faintly in the distant kitchen and serving rooms. How sad and disappointing. Don't buy this book.