Ostensibly, therefore, he [Ts'ao Hsueh-ch'in] has written a Taoist or Zen Buddhist comedy, showing mankind's hopeless involvement in desire and pain and the liberation of at least a few select individuals besides the hero. But only ostensibly, because the reader cannot but feel that the reality of suffering as depicted in the novel stirs far deeper layers of his being than the reality of Taoist wisdom; he cannot but respond to the author's vast sympathy for young and old, innocent and scheming, self-denying and self-indulgent. [...] In devoting his creative career to tracing the history of Pao-yu and the Chia clan, Ts'ao Hsueh-ch'in is therefore the tragic artist caught between nostalgia for, and tormented determination to seek liberation from, the world of red dust.
Cao Xueqin
