The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei: Vol. 1, The Gathering

This book is great legacy of Chinese literature. I had read various Chinese versions. I can say Dr Roy's translation is faithful to Chinese text. His introduction and commentary on the prologue are serious and deep scholar reseach that offered me some fresh opinions on the novel I had read few times. I am looking foreard to rest of the volumes.By the way, a reader shall not read it as porno novel.

The book is fascinating. For a good reason it was called one of the most important (if not the most important) Chinese literary masterpieces. The story has interesting parallels with Don Juan, which it predates. According to my Chinese friend, the English translation is better for a contemporary reader than the original: a typical modern Chinese reader will have difficulty going through the ancient text. The downside of this purchase was a big ugly sticker on the back cover that I had difficult time peeling off.

This book was a require text for one of my courses. Having read other old Chinese literature, I was worried that this would be dry and difficult to read. This is not the case. It is very easy and quite humorous to read (if you are familiar with this style of writing). Though the list of characters is daunting, the characters are presented in such a way that it is easy to keep track of those who are important. Roy has done an outstanding job with this translation.

I am surprised this book reads like a Penthouse Forum. It is pretty fast paced book as well. Worth checking out.

This is a wonderful story-and I have ordered the next 3 vol. in this work.HOWEVER- for a paperback book of this price, and 600 page length,I would expect a binding that keeps pages from falling out.The problems began with page separation at page "civ" at the end of the Cast of Characters section. Further separations occurred at page 93 in Chapter 4. This is approximately 1/3rd of the way through this book.I am a 60 year old avid reader, not a spine-cracker or book folder.This edition has structural problems, that detracts from the merits of the work. Damn-where's that book tape again?Not funny!

This is an accurate translation, or as accurate as possible, of recension A of this novel, published in 1618. It is far superior to the translation by Clement Egerton, "The Golden Lotus," which follows the later, and inferior, B and C recensions. It includes the prefaces and other introductory material, and the full text of Chapter 1, which appear in the Chinese language Jin Ping Mei Ci Hua, the definitive A recension.

Dr. Roy consistently translates the word "cun" (寸), a traditional Chinese unit of length, as "inch." During the Ming Dynasty, the "cun" could actually vary between about 1.2 and 1.3 inches. Not to be indelicate, but given that a certain something on the person of one of the main characters is measured in "cun" and the size of this certain something is not unimportant to imagining his personality and abilities, it is perhaps unfortunate that Roy translated "6 cun" as "6 inches."Other than this trifling criticism, this is a "丝色女子" (very good) translation. Yes, the annotations are a bit excessive, as others have mentioned, but as they are published as endnotes rather than footnotes, they hardly interfere with the text itself at all. I have no compelling reason not to recommend this set.

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