The #ReadingTheStone community forged ahead into Chapters 81-85 today, and we encountered so many callbacks to earlier moments to the point that some of us felt that they were giving final-season wrap-up vibes. Many threads and characters’ fates are resurfaced, in anticipation of all coming to a head: Baoyu’s return to studying for examinations, further mentions of the Jia family’s financial excesses and the precarity of their fortunes being wrapped up in Yuanchun’s place in court, and of course, the Baoyu-Daiyu-Baochai love triangle. Thanks to Elena, we spent some time pondering the details of Daiyu’s dream – prognosticatory and Freudian avant la lettre.

[Image courtesy of Laurie Dennis, from comic book version, #11: 潇湘惊梦]

link to episode: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1974761/12100268

a few Zoom side-chat excerpts:

Laurie: Daiyu defends the essay form!

Kate: I keep asking myself if I would notice the shift in tone if I had no idea about the multiple authors. As I read, it was clear there was a major change, but then I wonder if it’s just the Hawkes/Mitford change. Immersing in the reality of these five chapters makes the previous ?70 chapters in the garden feel like a dreamscape. It’s hard to remember that these same characters were off writing drunken poetry under blossoming trees.

Stephanie Carta: Baochai deserves a better brother!

Kate: Baoyu’s poetry writing interlude may seem worse to his father than Xue Pan’s casual murders or Jia Zheng’s own idle youth because he is letting down the family in a time of crisis. No one seems to have sat Baoyu down and said “You’re our only hope of financial security,” and he says at one point “we’ll be all right” – so he’s happily oblivious. So it feels like the family’s failure is their reticence to speak about finances …

Vivian: They push him to study and pursue a real position (in court or whatever), and the logic is the money will come after that. His lack of interest is more bothersome to the authority figures than general “naughtiness”