《容斋随笔》

[Lu]

Now in the novella I'm translating is a man who reads the 容斋随笔 as bedtime reading. I've found that this is a book by 洪迈, on the history of the Song dynasty, according to wikipedia it's a must-read for who wants to know more about the Song dynasty. Now my question is, what does it say about someone when they consider this bedtime reading? Does that mean such a person is really smart/well-read? Overly interested in history? I thought that maybe it's something Macchiavellian, but I didn't find anything online that indicated that, so my guess was probably wrong.

Thanks for any pointers!

Edited July 14, 2009 at 05:15 PM by Lu
that was my typo, not the author's

[leeyah]

Works like 洪迈's《容斋随笔》are written in wenyan (文言) and abound in literary quotations & references, which makes the reading very difficult. So, I think a person reading a dynastic history written in wenyan as bed-time reading, i.e. 'smoothly', is not only (well)-educated, but perhaps even some kind of erudite.

(Actually, history books seem to be quite popular among educated Chinese nowadays. Guy sitting next to me on the plane BJ-Vienna (German-speaking tourism manager from Yunnan) was reading a book discussing Chinese history. I took a read and it didn't look as wenyanish as Rongzhaisuibi, but was still very deep in content)

edit: There's one interesting thing about 容斋随笔: apparently, it was one of Chairman Mao's favourite history books and allegedly his last - the book he read just weeks prior to his death:

主席最后阅读的一部书是《容斋随笔》

You can read about it here. As far as I know, Mao Ze Dong worked as librarian in his youth, was well-read and even wrote good poetry in classical style. Perhaps this may somehow connect with the character in your novel. Edited July 13, 2009 at 08:40 PM by leeyah

[Jim]

Is the 红斋随笔 in your OP a typo Lu? Otherwise is it possible it's supposed to be a different book whose title copies the form of 容斋随笔? A search on the former came up with nothing, which might mean your author has made a mistake themselves.

If it is just a typo, apologies for making a song and dance about it.

[Lu]

Jim: that typo was mine, I don't know how I managed to get that wrong twice, but I'm half-awake at best these days :-/

Leeyah: Thanks! Makes sense that he'd be very erudite to read something like that. And interesting about the Mao connection...